Abstract
This paper represents a profound research of Kazakh and foreign scientific literature and tries to define the structure, the essence and meaningful characteristics of the art higher education institution students’ competence as a set of professionally significant qualities of personality, which is determined by the nature and specifics of the forthcoming professional activities of those students. The results of the performed diagnostic study upon this subject are provided and allow to objectively evaluating the current development level of the components of social competence of students who are majoring in arts. The need for competence-oriented type of education for arts students will be justified. As a result of the conducted study, we concluded that the components of social competence, in their turn, are the components of the underlying method for forming this studied competence. The analysis of the criteria and a diagnostic research method, which comprises criteria, indicators and levels (reproductive, adaptively-transformative and creative) provided the possibility to perform an extensive revision and objectively evaluate the current maturity level of the components of the art higher education institution students’ social competence.