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Introduction
Education serves a vital role in nurturing human potential and promoting societal well-being. By empowering minds, strengthening character, and imparting essential knowledge and abilities, education allows individuals to build self-confidence, realize their talents, think critically and ethically, and contribute meaningfully. An educated populace spurs economic dynamism and technological progress. People gain the skills to start businesses, drive innovation, and adapt to workplace changes, fueling growth and expanding opportunities. In this sense, it has been found that equal access to quality learning is crucial for communities to thrive. Education also enables healthy relationships and responsible choices. By developing emotional awareness and inner wisdom, people make decisions aligned with human dignity. In addition, understanding different cultures and perspectives builds social cohesion amid diversity. Respect for justice, rights, and democratic principles underpins civic participation. Furthermore, as it is known, education is indispensable for transmitting knowledge, ethics, and technical capacities upon which generations depend and build. In these critical ways, education enlightens and empowers, undergirding free, just societies. Considering this, educating with insight, integrity, and compassion remains one of humanity's highest calling (Coelho, 2021; Leal Filho et al., 2021).
However, the education system, like any other system, abides by the rules of nowadays complex world and due to this dynamic is experiencing rapid changes. In particular, it has been found that traditional education systems face challenges in developing adaptability skills required in rapidly changing work environments. For example, recent studies have shown that AI-driven learning pathways can achieve outcomes more quickly, but this comes at the cost of some problems in the development of durable skills such as communication, critical thinking, creativity, leadership, adaptability, and emotional intelligence (Hutson & Ceballos, 2023). On the other hand, it has been pointed out that the a need for curricula to bridge academic knowledge with durable life competencies.Oluwagbohunmi & Alonge (2023) argue that content mastery matters less than cultivating skills and perspectives that empower responsible civic participation, intercultural literacy, and ethical work. Yet traditional social studies teaching often remains abstract and disengaged from real-world problem-solving. Instead, the field demands a renewal towards fusing historical and sociological insight with ethical reasoning, complex communication, systems analysis, creative innovation, and adaptable implementation.
Despite information technology's rapid progress, integrating these digital advances effectively into teaching and learning remains challenging for education (Khlaif & Salha, 2022). While innovative technologies offer unprecedented opportunities for instructional enrichment and transformation, educators often struggle to harness this potential within their distinct teaching contexts amid numerous constraints. Leveraging technology for impactful learning requires insights into the interplay of academic content, skills development, and integrative competencies so they can meaningfully adapt digital tools to further learning goals rather than using technology for its own sake (Kaminskienė et al., 2022). Yet systemic barriers persist, including budget limitations, bureaucratic policies misaligned with classroom needs, instructors’ own knowledge and skill gaps, and cultural mindsets that resist rethinking teaching environments. Because of this, teachers require extensive, sustained engagement - exploring, experimenting, and collaborating - to develop their instructional visions and redesign practices accordingly (Kim et al., 2013).
In the case of Azerbaijan, which has undertaken extensive economic reforms, transitioning towards a market-based system demands a nimble workforce adept at thriving amidst change. As production modernizes and labor organization evolves, workers require strong foundations in essential knowledge and technical skills along with creative problem-solving, innovation embrace, and adaptive resilience. From this point of view, it is very important to carry out systematic work in the direction of inculcating the modern labor training of schoolchildren in the most basic skills and values such as self-service, practical, household, and habits, and educating them in the spirit of love for work. Considering this, the goal of this work is to analyze the actual problems of schoolchildren's preparation for modern work habits. It also highlights the importance that educators have in this process, and how they can be facilitators and provocateurs of learning through the use of open questions when conducting lessons.
Development
School plays a key role in ensuring children's right to education in modern society; it engages in their training and education since the effective activity of society depends on economic and cultural development. As we know, existing problems in schools are solved by reforms, where discipline, order, and upbringing are among the main factors. Experience shows that the competence gained by teachers and their activity, by making them love the subject they are teaching, prepares students for working life, and forms them as people who can perform the simplest technological operations in the household. For this, optimal conditions should be created in the classroom for students to work freely with technology, and modern, interactive learning methods should be used effectively. Work readiness in technology classes and, the use of individual, pair, and group work methods should be adapted to didactic requirements. In this regard, at the first stage of the lesson, it may be used the motivational "brainstorming" method to assess students' interest in the subject and their cognitive activity. Methodically, conditions should be created for the activity of each student. Taking into account the wishes, desires, and suggestions of the students, the active learning stages of the lesson are implemented with project content, following the principle of cooperation, and the learning goals aimed at the realization of the standard of the subject set in the curriculum are realized.
Since Azerbaijan gained its independence, it should be understood as a principle to take the right position in the work of inculcating appropriate preparations for the labor market of schoolchildren. Forming an honest attitude to work and demonstrating business acumen in them is one of the most important tasks facing teachers. To achieve this, it is important to properly form the attitude of students to work, starting from the primary classes of general education schools. In addition to being an important factor in the formation of a person's social life and comprehensive development, work is one of the main factors in creating an active attitude to the environment and events. Labor education, training, and vocational education occupy an important place in the intellectual system of young people. Work education depends linearly on the socio-economic relationships of the family. The technological formation of labor habits on a pedagogical basis begins with modern self-service, caring for pets and indoor plants, and useful, thoughtful child labor, such as making various cognitively oriented toys.
Depending on human qualities, essence, and character, labor education creates opportunities and conditions for the individual to achieve a certain goal, and helps to overcome difficulties and obstacles. A student's hard work based on a positive motive always has a specific goal and prompts him or her to achieve a certain positive result. At this time, business work increases the student's brain activity, and interest in physical and mental work. The industriousness of the Azerbaijani people aims to fulfill their duties, personal needs, interests and dreams, intentions, and feelings towards society and the motherland. Labor education ensures the development of a person's inner and outer world in the form of unity. In this process, children practically gather rich life experiences and develop skills. Modern psychological characteristics of schoolchildren develop and their positive qualities for independent activity necessitated by globalization increase (Sadigov, 2008, p. 330).
Solving the current problems of modern labor training of schoolchildren, raising the competencies of today's education workers to a high level, and forming social skills in them according to the pedagogically based demand of training work is considered the main goal. The word "competency" is of Latin origin (date of creation approximately 1585-1595) and means a group of abilities, obligations, knowledge, and skills that enable a person to act effectively in a job or situation. We consider it acceptable to clarify the essential words of the expressed concept. Ability is one of the individual psychological characteristics of the personality, and it shows itself in the performance of certain activities. A liability is a present obligation of an entity resulting from past events, including concluded contracts, resulting in the outflow of resources from that entity that generates economic benefits. Knowledge is a person's information collection about himself and the factors of the world around him, formalized information. Knowledge, at the same time, the laws of the subject area obtained as a result of practical activity and professional experience, allows specialists to pose and solve problems. Skill is a person's ability to do work and complete it properly, acquired as a result of knowledge, habit, and experience.
In the literature on "competencies of the 21st century", cognitive skills, personal skills, and interpersonal cooperation skills are discussed often in different fields (Meguerdichian et al., 2022; Ocansey et al., 2023). Modern competent learners should know why they learn knowledge, how they learn it, and what they need to apply it to. But for the learner to take a worthy place in the science and information-rich society, it is important to determine in advance which competencies are formed in the teaching-learning process. Related to this, in the creation of human capital and the strengthening of economic growth in Azerbaijan, the training of qualified personnel in various professions is relevant in accordance with the demand of the vocational education labor market. Among the goals of educational institutions with a wide staff network, the issue of education of the pedagogical process occupies an important place. Institutions carry out certain works in the field of education, but the content, form, and methods of application of these measures usually have not yet been modernized. One of the many main tasks of organizing educational work in general education schools is the formation of a competitive person in accordance with the demands of the world labor market; formation of national moral values and national identity; training of professional personnel in the field of education, improvement of stimulation mechanisms due to efficient activity, formation of professional ethics increases motivation to the studied topic ( Aliyev, 2023, p. 8).
According to the great Azerbaijani leader Heydar Aliyev: "The field of education is the most necessary and important field of our life. It should be built based on national goals and interests". In this regard, the essence of reform works carried out in the country to achieve this conceptual idea are principles such as humanization, humanitarianization, democratization, differentiation, and integration of education (Ilyasov et al., 2023; Mammadova & Anar Valiyev, 2020). The above-mentioned requirements pose the task of creating a secular education system based on national ground, and human values and transforming learners into equal subjects of the educational process to shape them as personalities. In solving this, questions based on the interview method, which is one of the leading forces of modern teaching, are of great importance. Questions stimulate the effective construction of research in the learning process and they play a big role in increasing the cognitive activity of students. But to achieve this, the process of asking questions should be directed toward the development of critical thinking, the logical sequence should be expected, and the content should be directly related to the topic.
On the other hand, the influence of innovative constructive lessons is carried out by thought-provoking questions. According to J. Piaget and other important authors, constructivism is the process by which learners acquire knowledge by relating it to new ideas or theories that they have previously acquired through experience. Constructivism is based on the idea that knowledge is constructed, discovered, and created. Generally, knowledge cannot be acquired passively, but through the process of active learning. However implementing constructivist theory requires three things: an active, social, and creative learner. In constructive training, the questions rise from the simple - in a way that the participants understand - to the peak of thought where opinions usually diverge. Those who have this mindset share their ideas and open the way for others to make similar statements. During the lesson, such questions change throw knowledge from one level to another, keep it in memory and imagination, and lead to its consolidation as a structure in thinking.
Heuristic interviewing ("eureka" in Greek means "found") is an interesting method to introduce a new rule, regularity to the learner with the help of questions. Since the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates used this method widely, it is also called the Socratic method. In the heuristic method, relevant facts are found with the help of questions, and conclusions are drawn. For example, it is possible to teach the students themselves to write content lines from technology in sequence through a heuristic interview. Such an interview helps to arouse interest in the subject, to activate students, to study the subject consciously and thoroughly. The main condition to carry it out is to ask the questions correctly during the interview. But when asking the question it must meet certain requirements such as: the question must be specific and clear; the question should be thought-provoking; the question should be concise; etc. In addition, it is known that a certain rule should be observed in the organization of the interview method: the question is asked to the class, not to individual students, and any participant is asked. If the answer is wrong or inaccurate, the wrong answer is corrected by the student himself and, if necessary, by another. If the answer is still not satisfactory, the teacher himself explains.
The first phase of an interactive lesson, conducted by the interactive training method, should set motivation by posing a researchable problem. Real problems raise hypotheses to test via research questions that guide discovery. This phase activates thinking and increases student engagement. Learners should develop independent thought by expressing opinions. This motivation stage entails posing a question/task to set the problem, suggesting guiding questions, and making assumptions. Effective teaching requires academic, didactic, communicative, organizational, and other abilities to facilitate high learner activity, analysis, generalization, and conclusion drawing. This necessitates problematic questions and conscious task execution. Questions of this nature should encourage independent research and problem-solving. Through thoughtful questions, the teacher guides without excessive explanation. Therefore, in this problem-based heuristic learning setting, the teacher "discovers" along with active student participation while questioning prepares students for learning (Agayev & Hasanova, 2023, p. 7).
On the other hand, in Azerbaijan, modern labor education in general education schools is carried out according to the curriculum requirements and systematic content guidelines within the "Technology" subject teaching. According to the Soviet-era approach, work in general education schools was conducted in two polytechnic training stages: grades 1-4 involved mastering basic methods of manual processing of various raw materials and agricultural plant cultivation; grades 5-7 provided more specialized polytechnic general preparation, which the schools carried out in educational workshops and classrooms; and grades 8-9 preparation for certain areas of the national economy was based on school and inter-school educational and production workshops, inter-school educational-production combines, vocational-technical school workshops, educational workshops and enterprise sectors. In these classes, labor training and vocational orientation students were prepared to choose an educational institution to continue their education and profession to complete high school (9th grade). The State Strategy for the Development of Education in the Republic of Azerbaijan (order dated October 24th, 2013) states:
The development of education lays the foundation for improving the well-being of the population in the country, as well as building an individual's life at a higher level. Thus, education gives people the opportunity to flexibly adopt technologies, take a decent place in the labor market to join the lifelong learning process, to choose a healthy lifestyle and the right position concerning the environment (Aliyev, 2013a).
According to Nizami, there is no limit to learning. This idea currently resonates with the concept of continuous education. He drew attention to the importance of general education because it gives clarity to the purpose, principles, method, means, and organization of training. Nowadays, despite many things are still relevant, there are new approaches since the preparation of schoolchildren for practical activities, work, and continuing their education directly depends on informatics, computer literacy, their theoretical and practical preparation for the information society, and the creation of conditions for using modern methods and tools. As students acquire information culture and computer literacy, they determine their skills for the labor market and get the opportunity to build their living conditions more efficiently in the future (Alakbarova, 2013, p. 8).
In the course of the historical development of mankind, intellectual activity has been a necessary basis for the assimilation of knowledge and the acquisition of completely new knowledge. Mental processes or motives of mental operations - analysis and synthesis (analysis and composition) - enable clarifying these characteristics. The role and place of questioning in motivation manifests in active learning. In this regard, motivation is a force that activates the mechanism of any activity as a psychological factor. It is important to highlight that motivation comprises two stages: setting the problem and posing a research question. Setting the problem involves guiding questions and tasks focused on the topic and desired learning outcomes; one or three questions initiate each lesson. To formulate a research question, the teacher must first establish the generalization at the lesson’s end; the research question encapsulates the learning outcome reflecting new knowledge; commonly a question ending the motivation phase with hypotheses targeting the research question. Important questions are those that identify unknowns on a studied topic, e.g. “...What do we know and not know about it?... What else would we like to know?” Questioning aptly directs student thinking through facilitation. After listing questions, they select ones relevant to the research. The teacher then only needs to guide articulating the research question more accurately, to clarify it.
This modern approach is usually established at the primary education level where students develop skills in comparison and sorting, basic processing, self-service and cooperation, simple design, layout, modeling, planning, interacting with living nature, measurement, proportion, symmetry, and other geometric concepts, while gaining abilities to perform simple constructions and creative works. At the secondary education level, in addition, the technological and applied skills improve by expanding on earlier activities, implementing more complex processes, forming creative technical thinking, increasing student opportunities to utilize current information technologies, guiding career selection, and ensuring an education-centered on diligence and innovation (Akhundov, 2013, p. 6).
We would like to point out the relevance of open questions. These are vital for stimulating thinking and sparking students’ search for knowledge. As reflections on relationships connecting ideas, open questions prompt the uncovering of linkages in contextualized ways, whether self-posed internally or prompted externally. Open-ended questions allowing multiple possible answers encourage deeper thought versus closed questions. Modeling the Socratic questioning approach, teachers utilize questioning to direct student thinking down productive paths, gain insights into their mental models, transform teacher tasks into student goals, increase engagement, and ultimately manage cognitive activation. Questions occupy central roles in framing lines of inquiry using keywords as guides. The shift from memorization to higher-order thinking manifests through targeted questioning facility.
Conversely, structured questioning focuses attention, revealing gaps for exploration driven by learner curiosity. Questions invite further questions, progressively driving understanding in a collaborative process between teacher and learners. As problem-finding and -framing devices are applied skillfully across education stages, the art of questioning motivates the co-construction of knowledge. From primary grades where basic principles are established through to secondary school’s increasing complexity, questions cement capabilities while allowing evaluation of skill acquisition. Fundamentally, questions illuminate the known and unknown, catalyzing the highway from ignorance to illuminated comprehension. The mindset shift from passive to active learner occurs by internalizing the questioning impulse that external teachers model at the outset.
Questions reveal and facilitate key aspects of comprehension, directing student thinking toward knowledge. By prompting comparison, generalization, and systemization operations within independent understanding processes, thoughtful questioning guides progression from ignorance to enlightenment.
Thus, developing systems of questions targeting material comprehension proves instrumental. Questions serve functions from revealing content to interpreting subjects to activate cognition - their scientific-pedagogical foundations stem from practical needs. Creativity, ingenuity, and conceptualization - forming new labor methodologies and products requires realizing pedagogical stages where questioning occupies central roles. We believe that vocational education and human capital development hinge on inquiry-based learning. Questions activate technical imagination and fantasy while solving procedural problems en route to new designs. The synthesis of information, application of knowledge, and evaluation of ideas rely on inquiry cycles that questions initiate and propagate. Whether in primary schooling where foundational principles are established, or secondary training where complexity increases, the art and science of questioning propels growth along personal and collective dimensions. Education’s outcomes manifest in the capability to formulate one’s questions in the search for solutions. Targeted questioning therefore scaffolds the learning process across domains and diffuses innovation (Agayev, 2019, p. 25).
Questions’ functions within pedagogical processes depend on multiple factors - the educational goal, philosophical and logical-psychological training foundations, alignment of systemic tasks to real capabilities, heuristic and algorithmic activity natures, training innovations, selected subsystem, and relations between opportunity providers. Classifying questions lacks consensus, with some differentiating based on content, language, and intonation to get fitting answers. More effectively, purpose distinguishes question types - guiding remotely or sparking thoughts. Some authors delineate two categories - informative and problematic questions. Often conflating problems with questions, perceived importance, and complexity distinguishes them to some. However, significance and intricacy fail to reveal the problem’s essence. Vital, complicated questions may not constitute problems, though connections exist between the concepts. Problems embody question-evoked searches to uncover non-obvious solutions. No matter the taxonomy, questions focus attention, reveal knowledge gaps, motivate learner activity, and drive understanding. Well-crafted questioning scaffolds thinking from surface to deeper levels where misconceptions transform into comprehended concepts.
Alternatively, vocational education involves a sequenced pedagogical process - preparation, main, and final stages. The preparatory stage diagnostically assesses goals, conditions, and projected achievements to shape planning. Defining stage objectives relies on research illuminating hindrances and helpers toward intended outcomes. The primary stage encompasses interacting elements - declaring activity goals/tasks, teacher-learner collaboration, process methods/forms, favorable settings, engagement incentives, and cross-process coordination. It has been found that even specialists fluent in their field can struggle to structure pedagogical requirements stage-wise, risking imbalanced development where students fail to achieve aspirations amid economic competition. Thus, operational feedback enables real-time adjustments, interaction corrections, and closing analysis - essential for sequential mastery (Agayev, 2019, p. 29).
Fundamentally, vocational education bridges conceptual knowledge with tangible applications. Project-based learning scaffolds the sequential mastery of operational facets unique to each industry. Questioning plays a key role in surfacing gaps between student comprehension and employer expectations. Creating relevant learning experiences relies on inquiries revealing workforce needs and validating graduated competence. Whether in medicine, engineering, business, or other domains, aligning vocational training to ever-evolving real-world practices prepares adaptable entrants able to meet present demands and shape future directions.
The primary objective of education is to cultivate an accurate and comprehensive understanding of the world within the minds of students. In achieving this goal, teachers play an indispensable role in addressing the challenge of fostering intellectual development and upbringing. The teacher's unique strategy involves maintaining continuity in students' interests, ensuring engaging and diverse learning materials aligned with their social reality, establishing goals that align with individual aspirations, creating a conducive learning environment, and employing active teaching methods. If a student struggles to learn, it often stems from a lack of interest in the subject, making it the teacher's foremost responsibility to spark and sustain that interest. This requires addressing disinterest and promoting attention through time investment, focus on the topic, and determination to overcome challenges. Central to this process is instilling motivation related to the labor market in the school's educational framework. Strategies encompass building self-confidence, making learning personally meaningful and valuable, helping students set relevant goals, fostering a positive learning environment, aligning with their ideals and dreams, organizing motivational activities, and reinforcing self-esteem and pride (Agayev & Hasanova, 2023, p. 17).
Then, the didactic nature of questions serves as a tool for managing the cognitive activity of learners and promoting their actualization. In subjects such as "Technology and its Teaching Methodology," well-crafted answers to theoretical and practical explanatory exam questions, rooted in lecture topics, contribute to the development of students' logic, interests, and skills. The question-and-answer method not only reinforces knowledge, skills, and habits but also nurtures creativity. Providing legitimate answers to questions enables learners to achieve standard results, fostering increased interest and motivation in learning, promoting independent knowledge acquisition, enhancing communication among peers, stimulating thought about skills, and facilitating their practical application. Furthermore, in contemporary socio-economic conditions, there is an evolving emphasis on critical thinking, evaluation, and the application of acquired knowledge. While traditional methods focus on the initial stages of understanding, it is imperative to progress beyond mere memorization and understanding of facts and ideas to actively engage in the subsequent stages of critical thinking and application.
From the observations, it is evident that teachers, in the process of education, prefer employing questions with specific purposes: explaining the reasons behind events, identifying crucial elements in studied texts, drawing comparisons between objects and events, summarizing observed facts, and substantiating opinions. The success achieved in connection with the subject matter is a product of the collaborative efforts of the teacher's competence and professional abilities. However, it is crucial to consider the contemporary shift and coherence in this context. Competence refers to the teacher's skill in executing operations in the pedagogical process adeptly and with more efficient methods. On the other hand, professionalism involves the teacher's possession of requisite knowledge, skills, and technologies for creatively engaging with students, demonstrating a profound mastery of pedagogical operations, and effectively applying acquired knowledge and skills in practical activities. This ensures that an individual's acquired knowledge and skills result from concrete activities. Competency-based education, thus, contributes more effectively to socio-economic development (Aliyev, 2013b).
Conclusions
In a world marked by expanding globalization, our young job seekers must have the necessary awareness and skills to navigate productive job interviews. The current challenges in the modern labor training of schoolchildren call for systematic and high-tech projects implemented at the national level. This involves aligning socio-economic relations, integrating curriculum reform requirements with international experience, and applying the initial outcomes of this process starting from primary education. In this regard, the integration of labor training at the primary education level is a crucial aspect, which should incorporate each taught subject, such as National language, Foreign language, Mathematics, Informatics, Life science, Technology, Physical education, Fine arts, Music, into the contemporary pedagogical process. The pedagogical work, guided by training strategies encompassing the organization of the training process, planning of subject-specific training, and the diverse forms and methods employed, should be characterized by its organizational level, technological approach, economic efficiency, and overall productivity. Then, in Azerbaijan, the overarching objective of organizing vocational guidance services in general education institutions should aim at fostering students' self-awareness across various aspects - skills, interests, desires, and abilities - from the primary education level through the completion of full secondary education. Acquiring professional skills during general education not only should enable students to adeptly embrace technologies but also position them favorably in the labor market.
