Motivation of Professional Choice as a Component of Professional Subjectness in Teachers

Abstract

The paper addresses the issue of factors that define the choice of university and future profession in prospective students of the Tula State Lev Tolstoy Pedagogical University. The motives of professional choice are essential when it comes to analyzing the conditions of development of professional subjectness. Our study involved 62% of all first-year students and 85% of first-year students of pedagogical departments. We used our specially developed questionnaire “Motives of University Choice” and a set of others, such as V.G. Katashev’s “Technique for Measuring Learning Motivation in Students” and K. Zamfir’s “Work Motivation Technique” (modified by A.A. Rean). The outcomes show that most students make choices basing on their emotional attitude to the professional sphere which is generally positive. Also, it was revealed that important inner and outer positive motives prevail in most future teachers. The paper states that it is necessary to find the universal criteria which could help predict successful self-actualisation in profession in individuals during their study at university and thus help reveal the mechanisms for managing this process. Finally, we suggest some possible forms promoting professional self-orientation at university.

Keywords

• motivation of professional learning and professional choice