Relevance. The article discusses the possibility of a new technique for testing the professional knowledge. This is a technique of "matrix testing" (or semantic scaling). In the introduction, the author introduces a distinctive system of constructs that allows to localize a new technique in the context of a number of traditional (testing method) and non-traditional methods of assessing educational achievements and professional knowledge.

Objective. The author has set the purpose to reveal potential of "semantic scaling" for a quantitative assessment (measurement) of student competence.

Method. The method of semantic scaling was applied by the author to scale sports with the help of special scales-criteria that denote different types of interaction between athletes and motivational regulation of their activities and thus turn the technique into "psychosemantic scaling". The study was conducted on 150 senior students of the faculty of psychology of MSU, who attended a special course of the author on "Psychology of competition".

Results. The main result (the insignificant correlation coefficient between the success of this technique and the total efficiency of students during the course) does not allow to conclude that the main goal is achieved. More interesting were the additional results from the application of this technique, namely: subset of sport species, obtained by cluster analysis, allow us to talk about the "psychological classification" of these species, or at least on the "psychosemantic classification". This classification is much closer to the classical "Olympic classification", but has a number of specific features.

Conclusion. The positive result of the study can be considered a high similarity of the obtained matrices with the reference matrix (ideal model), from which it can be concluded that the technique of "psychosemantic scaling" contributes to the conceptual learning of students-psychologists – their independent work on mastering the system of concepts in this subject area.

In this article the authors comment and discuss the results of the expert 16 definitions of the term “competence”. The participants were 45 psychologists of higher qualification (candidates and doctors of Sciences) — members of the Internet community of psychologists on the website www.ht.ru. They judged all definitions by means of 7 different rating scales. The resulting data cube 45×16×7 was analyzed by factor and cluster analysis. It was revealed 2 significant factor reflecting the level of popularity of definitions (the first factor), as well as the proximity-distance from the pole of terminological Russian national tradition (the second factor), mainly related to the concepts of “PVK” (PIQ in English “professionally important qualities”) and “ZUN” (KAZ in English — “Knowledge Ability-Skills”). Rating of the definitions by academic specialists was appeared to be close to the national tradition and evaluation of psychologists-practitioners closer to the Western tradition. Using cluster analysis discovered 4 robust clusters: 1) the competence as an area of authority and responsibility, 2) competence is the same as “PVK”, 3) the competence as mobilization the knowledge and skills to solve a specific task, 4) competences are descriptive units (elements) of effective professional activity. The most promising and creative approach, according to the authors, is the third cluster, in which an attempt is made to search a synthesis of the domestic (based on activity theory) and Western (behavioral approach) conceptual-terminological traditions.