Innovative meanings of upbringing: game as a navigator of personality development

Introduction. Modern conditions pose the task of modernizing education in general and searching for innovative meanings of upbringing in particular. The relevance of this issue is associated with the need to rethink the innovative meanings of upbringing and to identify qualities, structural elements, and associations, which were missing before. The aim of the study is to develop an innovative classification of games (necessary as a social navigator of personality development), representing a special innovative meaning of upbringing. Materials and methods. The study involved 86 practicing teachers and students of the Institute of Psychology and Pedagogy of I.A. Bunin Yelets State University (Russian Federation), students of pedagogical classes. All respondents had different work experience. The questionnaire contained 13 questions (9 – with a choice of answers and 4 – with a free interpretation of the answer). For statistical data processing, the methods of percentage distribution were used. Results. The empirical results showed that 63% of respondents had a positive attitude toward games and gaming activity, 67% preferred team games, 35% liked the game process itself, and 30% of respondents indicated the prospect of personality development as a motivation for the game. The study also demonstrated that despite the choice of six classes of games, the respondents gave priority to computer games (19%), board games (28%), action-oriented games (27%), and phygital games (16%). This state of affairs made it possible to develop an innovative classification of games as a navigator of personality development. Conclusion. The game as a social navigator of personality development and the author’s classification of games set innovative meanings of upbringing, related to the navigational component of personality development, specific classification of games, development of the game model, and improvement of the game technology/algorithm. The developed author’s classification of games has no exact counterparts in the practice of upbringing. Besides, the proposed author’s classification of games can be considered in terms of improving the methodological support for the modern upbringing process.