Kazakhstan Master's CT key terms

The science and practice of teaching and upbringing, studying how learners develop knowledge, skills and values under organised guidance. It covers aims, content, methods and assessment, and connects to psychology and subject didactics.

The branch of pedagogy concerned with teaching and learning: what content to teach, in what sequence, by which methods, and how to check that learning happened. It supplies principles that apply across school subjects.

The deliberate process of shaping a person's attitudes, values, habits and social behaviour, carried out by family, school and community. In pedagogy it is distinguished from mere instruction, which targets knowledge and skills.

The organised interaction between a teacher and learners aimed at learners mastering knowledge, skills and competences. It is planned, goal-directed and assessed, unlike incidental everyday learning.

A way the teacher and learners work together to reach a learning goal, such as explanation, discussion, laboratory work or project work. Methods are chosen to fit content, age and available resources.

The organisational arrangement of teaching, for example a lesson, lecture, seminar, practical class or distance course. It defines who meets whom, how long, and in what setting learning takes place.

The division of human development into stages such as early childhood, primary school age, adolescence and youth, each with typical capabilities and needs. Teachers use it to match tasks and expectations to learners' developmental level.

The activity that most strongly drives psychological development at a given age: play in early childhood, learning in school age, and communication or study-and-work in adolescence. It explains why certain tasks are developmentally productive.

The study of how thinking, emotion, language and social behaviour change across the lifespan, and which factors - biology, experience, culture - shape those changes. It underpins age-appropriate teaching and assessment.

The lifelong process through which a person acquires the norms, values, language and roles of a society, first in the family and then in school, peer groups and wider institutions. Schools are formal agents of it.

The system of motives that makes a learner engage with study: interest, curiosity, achievement goals, external rewards or fear of failure. Strong intrinsic motivation predicts persistence better than pressure alone.

A learner's or teacher's deliberate examination of their own thinking, actions and results, used to identify what worked and what to change. It turns experience into learning rather than mere repetition.

A person's judgement of their own worth and competence. In school it affects willingness to attempt difficult tasks, response to feedback, and resilience after failure, so teachers influence it through how they assess.

The teacher's judgement of a learner's work, expressed as marks, comments or grades. It should be criterion-referenced and informative, telling the learner what to improve rather than only ranking them.

Assessment that compares a learner's performance with explicit, published criteria or learning outcomes rather than with classmates. It makes results transparent and supports consistent judging across teachers.

Assessment used during learning to give feedback and adjust teaching, for example quizzes, peer review or exit tickets. It is low-stakes and aims at improvement, in contrast with summative grading at the end of a unit.

The gap between what a learner can do alone and what they can do with skilled help. Teaching aimed at this zone stretches the learner rather than repeating what is already mastered.

The principle and practice of teaching learners with diverse needs, including disabilities, in mainstream settings with appropriate support and adaptation. It requires modified materials, individual plans and accessible assessment.

The integrated ability to apply knowledge, skills and attitudes to real tasks and situations, not just to recall facts. Competence-based curricula define outcomes as what a graduate can actually do.

A unit measuring the workload of a course in the European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System, typically 25–30 hours of total student effort per credit. Credits allow study programmes to be compared and transferred.

A course or knowledge requirement a student must complete before enrolling in a more advanced course. Prerequisites sequence a curriculum so that later material builds on earlier foundations.

The official document setting out a programme's courses, their sequence, credits, and assessment forms. It defines what a graduate must complete and is the basis for timetabling and quality review.

A testable statement proposing a relationship between variables, stated before data collection. A good hypothesis is falsifiable, specific and grounded in existing theory or observation.

The systematic framework of principles, designs and procedures used to conduct and justify research, including how data are collected, analysed and interpreted. It links a research question to appropriate evidence.

The subset of a population selected for study. Its size and selection method determine how far findings can be generalised, so sampling must be described and justified.

Any characteristic that can take different values across cases, such as age, score or treatment condition. Research distinguishes independent variables (manipulated or explanatory) from dependent ones (measured outcomes).

The extent to which a test or study measures or demonstrates what it claims to. Threats include confounding, biased samples and instruments that capture something other than the intended construct.

The consistency and repeatability of a measurement: the same instrument applied under the same conditions should give similar results. Reliability is necessary but not sufficient for validity.

The study of valid reasoning, including the forms of deduction and induction and the difference between sound and fallacious arguments. It trains students to evaluate claims and construct proofs.

The construction of reasons and evidence to support a conclusion, with attention to premises, inference and possible objections. Strong argumentation makes assumptions explicit and avoids appeals to authority alone.

The conventions of clear, structured, source-based writing in academic settings: thesis statements, paragraph organisation, citation and avoidance of plagiarism. It is assessed in dissertations and coursework.

The commitment to honesty in study and research: submitting one's own work, citing sources, reporting data truthfully, and avoiding fabrication, falsification and plagiarism. Breaches carry serious academic penalties.

A concise statement of the central claim or argument of an essay or dissertation, which the rest of the text supports. A strong thesis is specific, arguable and answerable within the assigned scope.

The register of academic and scientific prose, marked by precision, objectivity, logical connectors and standard terminology, and by avoidance of colloquialisms. It is expected in reports, articles and theses.

A word or phrase with a defined, stable meaning within a particular field, such as a technical or scientific discipline. Terms allow specialists to communicate precisely and are defined in glossaries.

A short summary placed before an article or report that states its purpose, methods and main findings. It helps readers decide whether the full text is relevant to their work.

A structured written review that summarises and organises sources on a topic, often with critical comparison. Unlike an essay, its main job is accurate synthesis of existing work rather than original argument.

The skill of extracting main ideas, details and implied meaning from a written text, and of distinguishing fact from opinion. It is tested through questions on gist, inference and vocabulary in context.