Fundamental Pedagogy Jana Doležalová

8.2 External and Internal Factors of Educational Conditions 
(Personality Formation) 
The environment in which an individual develops comes in with numerous 
factors. They will be characterised within internal and external conditions. 
8.2.1 Internal Conditions and Factors of Education (Personality 
Formation) 
Internal conditions of personality development are mostly influenced by 
individual physical and psychological prerequisites. These are internal factors. 
They are both innate (passed over from parents in genes) and acquired 
represented by individual qualities, characteristics and experience. 
With genetic endowment, one inherits talents, unconditioned reflexes and 
instincts. A set of genes is called a genotype. The genotype expression in a 
certain environment or components is designated as a phenotype.  
Classification of internal conditions of education (Horák, Kolář, 2004): 
The conditions of a biological nature are related to the internal structure 
and condition of personality of the educated individual. They include: 

prerequisites for an individual's development determined by heredity; 

an individual’s biological structure, biological micro- and macro-
environment; 

health condition, biorhythm;

the manner of satisfying the basic necessaries of life. 
The conditions of a psychological nature represent the level of 
psychological processes and characteristics of the educated person. They are 
determined by: 

the condition and level of cognitive processes and the quality of the 
current knowledge;

endowments, talents, faculties, temperament;

emotionality, emotional intelligence; 

volitional and personality traits;

needs, motivations, aspirations, interests. 
Heredity has an undisputable impact on the mental development even though 
the degree of this impact cannot be exactly established (Manniová, 2005). 
During an organism’s development, internal factors adapt to the environment 

---

56 
and activities of the individual. Age-sensitive periods and the impact of the 
social environment are important for the development of certain skills and 
characteristics. When the development slows significantly down, we speak 
about retardation, whereas accelerated development is branded as acceleration. 
This can have various causes, which is why we need to know more about 
external conditions and factors.