Value Development as an Indicator of Personal Readiness for Self-Realization Among Starting Researchers

Abstract

Introduction. The article for the first time presents the results of the study concerned with the starting scientists’ value development in relation to their dominant experiences during their research activity. An increasing interest of young people in science motivates studying value-semantic and activity aspects of the starting researchers’ milieu to determine conditions for developing their research competence, resources for coping with arising objective and subjective difficulties that can reduce their motivation for research and lead to the formation of negative mental states and renunciation of scientific activity. The aim of the study is to identify specific features of post-graduate students’ value development in relation to their emotions and meanings of dominant experiences while they do their resear ch. Materials and Methods. M. Rokeach’s Value Survey (extended interpretation by M. S. Yanitskiy, A. V. Seryi); the semantic differential technique (Ch. Osgood); classification of emotions by E. P. Ilyin; and content analysis were used in this study. The data underwent statistical processing, including frequency analysis and the Kruskal-Wallis H and Jonckheere-Terpstra nonparametric tests. Results. Three groups of post-graduate students with different varieties of value development were identified. Dominant terminal and instrumental values among doctoral students with different variants of value development were specified. Semantic categories of post-graduate students’ dominant experiences during their research are highlighted. Discussion and Conclusion. The study results can be used in the educational process during professional and personal development of modern youth. They make it possible to identify high-educated young people with the research potential at the stage of post-graduate programs, dissertation writing and implementation of their scientific products. These issues may be further developed from the cross-cultural p erspective.

Keywords

• values
• value-semantic sphere
• self-realization
• emotional experience
• dominant thoughts
• research competence
• starting researcher
• post-graduate students
• research activity