FORMATION OF MOTIVES FOR PROFESSIONAL GROWTH

FORMATION OF MOTIVES FOR PROFESSIONAL GROWTH

The article proves the importance of forming professional growth motives in higher education students. The interrelation between the motives of studying in higher education and the motives of professional growth is established. The sources of development of educational and cognitive motives are characterized, attention is focused on the ways of developing internal and external motives of students’ learning in higher education institutions, examples of effective methods and techniques are given.
Keywords: motives, learning, professional growth, students of higher education institutions.

Zelenskyi B. R.
PhD student of the second (master’s) level of higher education,
H. S. Skovoroda Kharkiv National Pedagogical University, Kharkiv, Ukraine

10.34142//2708-4809.SIUTY.2022.165

One of the factors of ensuring Ukraine’s competitiveness in the global labor market is to improve the quality of training of specialists and develop their positive motivation for future professional activities.

Formation of positive motivation for future professional activity is impossible without a sustainable motivation for educational and cognitive activities related to a particular profession. Thus, the education of students in higher education institutions is an important stage of professional development, where professional motivation, which encourages and directs the activities of the individual to master the profession, becomes especially relevant.

The analysis of psychological and pedagogical literature shows that a motive is an internal state of a person, the motivating reason for his or her actions and deeds in a certain period of time, and the subjective forms of motives are goals, intentions, interests, emotions, etc. Higher education students may be motivated to study and engage in future professional activities by various motives: interest in the content and process of activity, a sense of duty to society, the desire for self-affirmation, self-realization, etc. An effective motivational factor is a goal that stimulates, activates, and organizes human actions. Learning activities involve the achievement of specific (intermediate) goals, which creates a situation of success each time, gives an emotional charge, encourages the ultimate goal, and increases the motivation of higher education students to work. When the goal is determined by several motives, they have a more intense motivational impact on the activity.

In view of this, in the process of professional training of students in higher education institutions, the emphasis in education should be shifted to the intrinsic motivation of their personal and professional growth.

The development of higher education students’ motivation for professional growth includes:

1. Relationships between participants in the educational process that selectively actualize individual situational motivations. The latter, when systematically activated, become sustainable and turn into stable personal motives for self-education and professional growth.
2. The mechanism of motivation development “from the top down”, which consists in the assimilation of the motivations offered in a ready-made form by the applicants.

It should be noted that developing motivation for professional growth does not mean putting ready-made motives in the minds of students, but rather putting them in such conditions and situations of their activity where the desired motives and goals would be formed and developed taking into account and in the context of past experience, individuality, and internal aspirations. In view of this, researchers [2] understand the development of motives for professional growth as the creation of conditions in the learning process for the identification of internal motives (motives, goals, emotions), their awareness by students for further self-development of their own motivational sphere.

The above suggests that the motives for professional growth are closely intertwined with the motives for learning of higher education students.

The psychological and pedagogical literature substantiates the conditions on which the development of positive learning motives of higher education students depends, such as:

— awareness of the immediate (direct) and ultimate (perspective) goals of learning;
— Awareness of the theoretical and practical significance of the acquired knowledge;
— emotional form of presentation of scientific information;
— Increasing the content and novelty of educational information;
— professional orientation of learning activities;
— selection of adequate tasks that create informational cognitive contradictions in the structure of learning activities;
— support of curiosity and cognitive psychological climate in the study group.

Researchers in the field of motivation of learning activities have identified three sources of development of educational and cognitive motives of higher education students:

— the content of the educational information mastered by students;
— organization of learning activities
— communication between participants of the educational process.

Each of these sources has special levers of influence on the development of cognitive interest, special incentives.

In addition to the above types of stimulation of internal positive learning motivation, there are other ways to develop intrinsic motivation in the process of studying at a higher education institution, based on the humanization of interpersonal relations:

1) intrinsic motivation arises only in cases when “must” and “can” are balanced in a person’s activity, when what has to be done (or the requirements of the activity) and what a person can do (or the person’s abilities) are brought into harmony;
2) intrinsic motivation for educational and cognitive activity is caused by the example of a teacher who not only knows his subject perfectly, but is not burdened by his work and enjoys it;
3) intrinsic motivation arises as a result of the student’s experience of their own autonomy. When a student feels personally involved in learning, he or she perceives classes as intrinsically motivated. If they perceive learning as conditioned by external circumstances or factors (control, rewards, punishments), it gradually suppresses intrinsic motivation;
4) the development of intrinsic motivation for learning and cognitive activity is facilitated by a sense of competence. For example, when there are positive feedbacks (praise, approval, experience of success) from the activity itself in learning situations, intrinsic motivation is enhanced. If there is negative feedback (critical situations and grades that indicate incompetence), then intrinsic motivation decreases;
5) situations of free choice have a positive impact on intrinsic motivation.

Scientists have also identified the main ways to develop extrinsic learning motivation associated with students’ awareness of responsibility in learning (to society, parents, stakeholders, etc.). Motives of duty and responsibility are formed through the use of a number of methods and techniques in the learning process:

explaining to students the social and personal significance of learning; imposing requirements, compliance with which means fulfilling their duty to society;
training them to fulfill the requirements; encouragement for successful, conscientious performance of their duties;
operational control over the fulfillment of requirements, pointing out shortcomings where necessary.

However, the predominance of authoritarian methods and subject-object methods of communication, means of external control over the activities of students leads to the fact that external motivation reduces internal motivation.

The development of other positive educational and cognitive motives, and thus motives for professional growth, is possible with professional and ethical education, especially in the junior years. It is necessary to ensure that already in the first year of studying at a higher education institution, students have a good idea of the social significance of the chosen profession, its main requirements for the individual and actively develop professionally important qualities and competencies.

It should be noted that the development of learning motivation is also influenced by other motives that make up the motivational hierarchy: “desire to learn”, “desire to become educated”, “desire to communicate with teachers”, “to be with friends”, “to share knowledge and experience with them”, “to receive support and approval”, etc. This dependence and interconnection is especially evident in the presence of a negative attitude to learning: “uninteresting teaching”, “conflicts with teachers”, etc.

Thus, the study gives grounds to conclude that the development of motivation for educational and cognitive activity in higher education students determines their future professional activity, stimulates professional growth, since the formed hierarchical relationships of motives are fixed in the structure of the personality and have a manifestation in future professional activity.

List of references

1. Actualization of motives for professional growth of future tourism managers by means of information technologies. Scientific Bulletin of Uzhhorod National University: Series “Pedagogy, Social Work”. Issue 27. pp. 106-109.