One of the main missions of Yaroslavl State Medical University (the University’s Mission) is to “provide modern high-quality medical, pharmaceutical, psychological and social education ...” [1].

The Great Medical Encyclopedia states that “medical education is a training system for healthcare workers that covers general and specialized subjects and essential practical skills” [2].

Training (or educating) medical staff is the process of sharing and active learning new knowledge, skills, abilities, and cognitive methods [3]. Control of obtained knowledge, skills and abilities is a key part of education.

Internal regulations govern how Yaroslavl State Medical University organizes and carries out control activities. First, we follow the Regulation on the current control of progress and interim assessment of students. The document regulates the requirements for planning, organizing, and managing ongoing control and all forms of interim assessment [4]. Second, we use the student performance rating system to measure academic success in university programs. The document is the basis for developing the performance rating method at the department [5], which, in turn, aims to provide for a differentiated gradual assessment of the Latin language learning progress objectively and on a regular basis.

The requirements for the organization of the educational process, defined by the Law of the Russian Federation “On Education” and local regulations, represent the formal principles of ethical regulation of the educational process. Their correct implementation by a teacher with strong ethical standards reflects its deep content, which is based on “... morality, ethics, moral culture of the teacher, moral activity, and the situation of making a moral decision” [6].

In modern teaching, control of knowledge, skills, and abilities shapes the organization of the educational process, on the one hand, and connects the obtained results with the set goals of education, on the other hand [3]. It is necessary to point out the specifics of the Latin language course, the purpose of which is to master medical terminology. Zimnyaya IA stresses that a language is said to be mastered successfully in “the union of three factors such as knowledge of language units and the rules of their combination, skills of using these units and the ability to use existing knowledge in a new situation” [7]. Latin language teachers focus on helping students acquire the phonetic, lexical, and grammatical knowledge, skills and abilities necessary to effectively master anatomical, clinical, and pharmaceutical terminology [8].

BASIC PRINCIPLES OF ETHICAL REGULATION OF CONTROL

During the study, the following tasks were solved:

1) analyzing the ethical basis of how to organize and conduct the current control of knowing medical terms during the Latin class;

2) finding out what students think about the research topic;

3) searching for ethical issues and deciding how to solve them. The researchers used a questionnaire for the study. One hundred first-year students from the medical, pediatric, and dental programs completed the survey. We asked the students about the importance of systematic control of skills and abilities, the use of various forms of control in practical classes, integration of a rating system for evaluating their academic achievements in learning Latin, their view on homework, etc.

The following qualitative and quantitative data were obtained while analyzing the responses.
Most students (82%) believe that the Latin course is important for future medical studies. 13% of students think Latin is not very important. Only 5% are not sure what to say.

Half of the students (50%) say that there is no need for tests every lesson. Meanwhile, 46% believe that it is necessary to systematically control skills and abilities during every lesson. 4% of student’s state they prefer to be tested during the exam only.

Written tests belong to the most popular routine control methods, favored by 61% of students. Written surveys are preferred by 42%, while 16% choose oral terminology reports. Additionally, 12% prefer presentations and abstracts, and 2% hold no preference.

Almost half of those surveyed (51%) believe that it is useful to integrate the rating system into the process of learning Latin. According to them, rating is essential for academic performance: “the rating disciplines and requires systematic training, which is necessary to obtain high-quality knowledge.” 40% of students are “ready to study well in any environment,” so the rating system does not really matter to them. 5% consider the rating “useless”. 4% found it difficult to answer this question.

Students feel mixed about the requirement of a teacher to do homework for every class. 62% of students believe that “homework is essential as it allows to understand the subject better”. 31% of students are ready for extra studies, but “are against strict rules”. 5% treat home tasks as “extra work”, while 2% of the students failed to answer the question.

For some students, Latin classes cause stress, particularly during their first semester. They feel anxious about tests, written quizzes, and exams because they have never studied the language before. Perhaps for this reason, or because they acted like that when they were at school, first-year students might ask direct questions about word forms or term translations during exams. They have to be convinced that a test is a possibility to check their knowledge. Thus, a teacher must not support them at this very moment. Teachers are ready to help them, answer their questions, and advise them on learning materials. However, it can never be done during the test.

Academic cheating is probably the essential ethical problem faced while exercising control during practical classes. We can’t ask the students to hand in a smart phone or smart watch, look under the student’s chair, approach the student or make a tactile contact. Facing the ethical dilemmas of today [6], it is necessary to act in a calm, tactful and professional way. We need to refer to the rules of performing tests which are accepted in the University, remind the students that independent work is required and offer them to write a new test or exam.

Thus, it can be concluded as follows:

Proper organization of Latin tests requires proper compliance with basic ethical principles, which include, first of all, strict adherence to federal and local regulations, as well as the methodology for rating academic achievements developed at the department. The basic provisions of the document are shown to students during the first lesson.

Keeping the focus on the practical use of Latin, a teacher uses various types of daily checks of skills and abilities such as written tests, written and oral surveys, and exams to develop terminological accuracy of students. Preparing reports and abstracts helps expand their knowledge and raises the cultural and learning level.

A teacher is ready to help students in overcoming the difficulties that arise while studying Latin and encourage their independence in completing tests. PF Kapterev, a famous Russian teacher and psychologist, stressed: “It is impossible to teach everyone without changing the method of teaching” [9]. Thus, we can use individual consultations to ensure an individual educational approach.

We try to solve the ethical problems arising during the tests patiently and tactfully without violating the comfortable academic atmosphere and without limiting the student’s freedom.

CONCLUSION

Control is an important and responsible stage of the educational process. It requires multi-faceted educational and methodological support from the teacher. Organizing control activities in education demands objectivity, regular checks, and clear, precise tasks [10]. Another important requirement for the organization of control is its consistency. Only regular testing of student’s progress across every section of the course will ensure strong Latin proficiency and terminological literacy of students.

Appropriately organized control exercises important checking, correcting, developing, educational, and methodological functions in education. Meanwhile, checking is the most important function that both determines the results of activities exercised by teachers and students and assesses the educational work of the entire educational institution, as well as the measures used to improve it [3].