The article is devoted to the study of students’ cognitive states organization in three different training situations (lecture, seminar, examination) depending on information intensity. The research aims are to reveal the phenomenological features of students' states depending on the form of educational activity, reveal the composition of states, the structure leading components, the functions realized in training process. The study procedure included: diagnosis of students personality traits and cognitive abilities, measurement of cognitive states characteristics during lecture, seminar and examination. The statistical processing of study results was carried out by the factor analysis method. From situational and systemic approach positions it is established that, depending on learning situations, the cognitive states perform the functions of activating the intrapsychic orientation (lecture), activating cognitive activity and mobilizing intellectual resources (seminar), self-regulation of educational activities and its emotional states (exam). It is shown that the degree of cognitive states integration increases with the intensifying of situation, the role of self-regulation indicators and the value-semantic sphere in the integral structure of the state grows. The results of the study may be of interest to teachers and practical psychologists in education, as well as to researchers of human mental states.

academic activity; situation; cognitive mental states; structure and function