The paper discusses the reorganization problems regarding the educational research sphere and based on the draft of the Modernization Concept of the Scientific Staff Higher Attestation System in the Russian Federation, which recommends some preventive measures to counteract the research imitations, incorrect borrowing and paraphrasing of well-known ideas. The first, or the normative regressive trend, implies the prescribed procedure frames and rigid regulatory forms concerning the publications, scientific reports and defense of the theses. The authors regard most of the above measures as necessary for filtering out the plagiarism and superficial works. However, the other trend - more important in their opinion - implies the development of the research methodology culture. 

The paper reveals the ten-year-experience of the Interregional Ural- Siberian Seminar on the Practical Methodology of Socio-Pedagogic Research, organized in Tumen State University. The twenty sessions of the given seminars included the lectures by leading specialists, master-classes and role plays (mini research defense), and involved all the research stages: selecting a theme, defining a research problem, and finally, a report preparation and presentation to the attestation comity.

The authors make a conclusion concerning the educational research regulations aimed to balance the administrative statutory measures with systematic development of methodology culture and fostering the researchers’ social responsibility and creativity. 

The paper considers the complex of economic processes in the sphere of the higher vocational education. The research is aimed at investigating, clarifying and systemizing the theoretical concepts of entrepreneur- ship in the context of the knowledge economy and rising competitiveness in the market of scientific and educational services. The research methodology basis involves the works of domestic and foreign scholars in the fields of competitive development, entrepreneurship, quasi-markets theories and self- developing organizations.

The paper presents the author’s interpretation of the university entrepreneurship as the integrated and systematic process generated by the dramatic changes of socio-economic development, increasing global trends of economy intellectualization, significant proportion of scientific and educational services, and increasing role of modernization in sustaining the state welfare and stability.

The university entrepreneurship is regarded as a synthesis of creative, innovative, commercial and managerial activities in the market of scientific and educational services, labor market, industrial and financial markets.

The interrelation of economic and social aspects of university business is revealed including the links between the government, universities, scientific educational institutions, business community, households and other subjects of educational service market.

The application of the main theoretical principles of the research concerning the higher school business vector is demonstrated by the practical activity of the Russian Vocational Pedagogical University. 

The paper is devoted to the methodology aspects of the mathematical course modernization in the context of prospective vocational teachers’ training. The author defines the basic pedagogical principles of mathematical training in vocational pedagogic universities - the fundamentality, binary character, leading idea principle and continuity. The link between mastering the mathematical discipline and methodology competence development is substantiated.

The author points out that the content and methodology of vocational teachers’ training should be modified because of the intensive implementation of mathematical apparatus in all scientific and professional spheres. The education related sciences (didactics, psychology, sociology, etc.) started using such mathematical methods as statistics, discrete mathematics, mathematical modeling etc. Therefore, the methodology of vocational training re- quires from pedagogical students a good command of mathematical language and later on its adaptation and application in teaching the professional disciplines. 

The paper deals with the issue of quality measurement and educational process outcomes. The author analyzes the structure of training and projecting activities of the prospective teachers-designers, and regards the given structure as the integral quality indicator of the specialist training in the above profile. The training project level can be estimated by examining students’ final qualification works. The paper demonstrates a set of indicators for estimating the quality of designing and training activities of the graduates. The implementation of the RUMM 2030 program and mathematical statistics tools based on the Rasch model of quality measurement is substantiated.

The above method approbation regarding the estimation of the latent variables of training and designing activity of prospective vocational teachers demonstrates that the recommended quality criteria, referred to as indicators, can be used in the competence assessment of the future teachers-designers. 

The paper discusses the controversial theoretical and practical aspects of vocational pedagogical education, its target orientation and distinction from the general pedagogical education. The authors propose the heuristic model of professional educational environment as the methodology basis for fostering the vocational teacher training; the model involves the synergy principle and includes the three coordinate vectors: human subjects of the above environment, continuing vocational education, and professional world.

The paper provides the comparative paradigm analysis of traditional and innovative advanced education, and traces the logic of innovative achievements and their implementation in educational practice. The author regards the interdisciplinary education as the main factor improving the effectiveness of innovative education, and suggests the project method as a means for integrating the disciplines and developing the interdisciplinary competence.

In conclusion, the author emphasizes the need for updating the vocational pedagogical education by consolidated efforts of scientists and practicing teachers. 

The paper looks at the institutional and functional features of the artisan activities, and vocational training of future artisans- entrepreneurs; the specificity of career guidance in related training profiles is discussed.

In the course of successful socio-economic development, the given specialists can form a considerable part of the Russian middle class strata. However, there exist the two opposite trends: on the one hand, the specialists realize the modern day requirements for vocational training and enrollee selection, while, on the other hand, the majority of the society regards the artisan occupations as common and primitive. This controversy signals the urgent need for vocational guidance addressed to the school leavers. The authors suggest using acmeology – the studies of the highest professional achievements – along with psychological facilitation and visual grounds for career guidance development.

The paper is recommended to the secondary school teachers, vocational training teachers and sociologists analyzing and predicting the labor market demands. 

The article describes the conceptual apparatus for implementing the Information Communications Technologies (ICT) in education. The authors suggest the classification variants of the related teaching methods according to the following component combinations: types of students work with information, goals of ICT incorporation into the training process, individualization degrees, contingent involvement, activity levels and pedagogical field targets, ideology of informational didactics, etc. Each classification can solve the educational tasks in the context of the partial paradigm of modern didactics; any kind of methods implies the particular combination of activities in educational environment.

The whole spectrum of classifications provides the informational functional basis for the adequate selection of necessary teaching methods in accordance with the specified goals and planned results. The potential variants of ICT implementation methods are given for different teaching models. 

The paper deals with the urgent problem of estimating the students training quality in higher educational institutions; the authors emphasize the need for transition to the European Credit Transfer System (ECTS) corresponding with the Bologna Declaration in order to provide both academic and labor mobility of students and university graduates. The system of credit accumulation is described according to the ECTS grading scale along with the specifics of its implementation in the Russian universities. However, as the statistic success criterion can not be applied to the Russian higher schools, the author recommends using the percentage of a performed task as the outcome index indicating the discipline mastering.

The algorithm of academic activity and its outcome estimation is observed in the framework of the IT-educational model. The examples of planning the content of the discipline basic minimum are given along with the complexity valuation, timing and credit distribution. The formula for identifying the volume and individual task assessment are given; the possibility of combining the national assessment scale with ECTS is denoted.

The paper analyzes the content of school geometry education; a number of reasons behind the degrading level of geometry training of secondary school leavers being discussed. The author argues that, in spite of the decline of the geometry research in modern mathematics, its educational and practical significance is growing along with the development of knowledge and technology. The author welcomes the introduction of elective courses in profile schools (e.g. solving geometrical problems based on the vector method, representation of geometrical figures in a parallel projection, etc), and regards it as the important means of content succession and continuity of mathematical education in secondary and higher schools; the problems of content and teaching method selection for given courses being discussed providing the effective link between the profile and professional education.

The research findings can be of interest to the experts in mathematical teaching methods, elective course developers and school teachers of mathematics. 

The paper raises the urgent issue of ethno-cultural education and looks at the process of familiarizing the junior schoolchildren with the profound musical traditions of Kazakhstan. The advantages and disadvantages of music teaching are observed with the reference to the surveys of music teaches from several towns and extramural students at North Kazakhstan State University. The surveys reveal the high level of teachers’ ethno-cultural awareness, and, on the other hand, - the lack of knowledge concerning the instrumental performance, improvising, dialogism and competitiveness. The author maintains that the acquaintance with the national musical traditions should be based on the complex of reproductive, productive and perceptual activities. In order to fill up the content gaps in the curriculum and overcome the limitations of ethnical education the methodological support of school teaching should be reinforced by the theoretical developments and practical recommendations.