Empathic competence of psychology students at different stages of professional training

The article attempts to explain and explore the empathic competence of psychology students at different stages of professional development. A descriptive experiment employing psychological testing was conducted with first and fourth-year students at Nizhnevartovsk State University, specializing in Psychology under the profile “Educational and Developmental Psychology.” The results revealed that students in their final year of study exhibited more developed empathic abilities. However, first-year students’ scores should not be considered low, as they demonstrated important structural components of empathy, including a sufficiently high development of empathic channels, indicating a conscious professional choice.