The Impact Of Motivational Determination On The University Students’ Creative Thinking

Abstract

The article presents the results of the research on the students’ motivational determination and creative thinking, conducted at the University. At present, special attention is paid to the creative thinking process study. Today, more than ever, the problem of assessing the level of the students’ creative thinking development in higher education sector is becoming more topical. This is due primarily to the fact that the need for specialists, capable of creative activity, is greatly increasing in modern society. Because of this reason, the present work highlights the question of the University students’ creative thinking, considering their motivational determination. The results of the study show the necessity of correcting the University students’ motivational determination and actualizing the methodology development for future professionals and specialists’ training process, based on the personal-activity approach and motivational competence. The Strategy for the future creative specialists’ training at higher professional institutions is a very important goal for the national education system development.

Keywords: creative thinkingeducational activitymotivational determinationpersonal qualitiesresearch methodsstudents

Introduction

The concept of modern educational system’s development, presented in the basic documents of the Russian Federation (Law “On Education”, Concept of the Federal Targeted Programme for Education Development, National Doctrine of Education in the Russian Federation, Law of the Russian Federation "On Education", 2012, Concept of the Federal Targeted Programme for Education Development for 2011-2015, 2011, National Doctrine of Education in the Russian Federation, 2000), for the first time in decades, includes some issues, related to personal problems, that must be incorporated into the process of teaching and educating students as future creators, thinking intellectually and creatively, motivated by innovative technologies and new approaches for their future profession.

Today the strategy of the future creative specialists’ training in the system of higher professional education is becoming one of the most important goal for the national education system’s development and meets the urgent tasks of training students at higher professional institutions.

The “Activity Plan of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation for 2013-2018” outlines the new social benchmarks, including “creative development of human resources”, “ensuring the conformity of the training quality to the professional education programs’ structure”, etc. (Activity Plan of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation for 2013-2018, 2014).

It is not a secret that the principles of creativity provide an opportunity for establishing, more deeply and accurately, the prerequisites for professional competence development in a particular field of activity, because in the era of high information computer and cyber technologies the creativity concept is the main guarantee of the student's thinking development (Gashkova, Berezovskaya, & Shipunova, 2017). As practice shows the creative thinking development market among the Russian universities’ students is only beginning to gain momentum, while in France, England, Sweden and Japan, such a market has existed for many years and does not cease to develop (Hau & Chang, 2016; Jowett et al., 2017; Kuo et al., 2014). Investment in such a profitable and effective sphere of activity do not cease to double, and in some countries even to triple each year, and has a significant impact on a system complex. (Activity Plan of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation for 2013-2018, 2014).

In such Moscow universities as Moscow State University, Moscow State Institute of International Relations, Russian Presidential Academy of the National Economy and Public Administration and some other universities there have been established the Departments for creativity development, because the given scientific activity, in fact, is making perspectives for the future sustainable development of Russia for many decades. However, in what major activity spheres is the students’ creative thinking developing especially fast in 2018? They are: a) geography; b) design; c) mathematical sciences; d) geology; e) economics; e) business and finance; g) art; h) cultural studies; i) system analysis and commerce (Kurmanova, 2015).

At present in Russia, there are more than two million students of higher education institutions, but what percentage of these students can really be considered as creative ones? For more than 10 years, the Russian research agency has been conducting a highly qualified research regarding the system of creative thinking development in the concept of motivational determination (Zagrebina, 2011).

According to the statistical data results, laying the foundations for the acute creative thinking and professional qualities’ development with the purpose of ensuring a personal competitiveness in human activity is becoming one of the most important problem in the present-day world.

What preconditions contribute to their implementation in the education system? These are, firstly, the following main factors or conditions:

• Introduction at the general level of the advanced psychological and pedagogical technologies for developing some special abilities, educational and professional motivation, which previously were not so popular due to their inadequate development.

• Creativity as a form of creative, intellectual and cognitive personality’s development, which includes a systemic educational level, making the preconditions for arising some innovative initiatives, vital ideas, life views and creative reflection.

• High educational level of motivational competence, contributing to the creative qualities’ development as it is almost impossible to reach a new innovative level without them.

• Lack of motivation for the creative abilities’ formation or development among students.

Problem Statement

The main problem of the study is to assess the level of creative thinking of students in higher education.

Research Questions

The main question of the research is that the experiment revealed the need for changing the University students’ motivational determination and developing their creative thinking.

Purpose of the Study

The purpose of the study is to substantiate theoretically and investigate experimentally the influence of the motivational determination on the students’ creative thinking at the Universities.

Research Methods

Include the method of value orientation study by Rokich, based on the direct ranking of the list of values (Rokich, 2015).

Rokich (2015) distinguishes between two classes of values: the terminal – the belief that the goal of the individual existence is worth striving for; and the instrumental one – the belief that the action form or individual property is preferred in any situation. The students were asked, at first, to determine the rank of each value; and secondly, to do the same, but from the ideal person’s point of view. By calculating the arithmetic average, there were determined the ranking places of each value, as a whole.

There were also used the following methods and specific techniques: the diagnostics of “emotional intelligence” (N. Hall) (Ilyin, 2000); the method of diagnosing the need for achievement by Peisakhov (Peysakhov, 1977); William’s method of the personal creativity diagnostics translated and adapted by Tunick, (Ilyin, 2000).

The questionnaire was made for assessing four characteristics of a creative person and to what extent a test subject identifies her/himself as: a risk-taking (R), inquisitive (L), imaginative (B), and preferring some complex ideas (C) person (Heckhausen, 2003).

There were also used the non-standardized methods of observation and interviewing for confirming, adding and clarifying the data, obtained by other methods.

The primary data were subjected to the statistical analysis. There were analyzed the features of all variation series distribution (the values of arithmetic average and standard deviation were determined).

The special attention was payed to the identified forms of distribution and their compliance with the normal law. There were also used the methods of correlation analysis, and, as a result, the statistical significance of differences in average values was determined. It was used the computer Programme Statistica v. 5.0. for fulfilling the statistical analysis of empirical data and visual presentation of the results.

In total, 160 people took part in the study. Master-course students (42 persons) and bachelor-course students (118 persons) (lawyers, doctors: pediatricians and clinics, athletes, biologists, economists) represented the test subjects. The test subjects’ age was from 19 to 25 years.

We conducted, firstly, a pilot, and then, a stating research, so that to verify the study relevance and correctness of the selected techniques.

Findings

We calculated the linear correlation coefficients to study the severity of changes in the correlation relations between the obtained primary indicators.

Practical elaboration of the motivational determination problems (cause-and-effect regulation), concerning the main subjects of the educational process, is particularly important at the present stage of social development.

It is necessary to focus the practitioners’ attention (subject teachers, psychologists, teachers, managers, etc.) on the fact of existence of the initial algorithm of the students’ educational activity as a guiding force for the motivation influence on training process.

It is assumed that the student, starting his educational activity, is already fully “charged”, i.e. motivated and, accordingly, can carry out his educational activity creatively, with a high level of efficiency.

At the same time, according to our and other scientists’ research, the motivation for educational activity at modern students in many cases is weak and makes only 55%.

However, 10% of students have a high level of motivation for their educational activity. The motivational orientation structure (personal, business, collective) can be a floating or reactive one (Yakovlev, Babushkin, & Babushkin, 2014).

In addition, there is a psychological blockage of various motives, when the aim is directed not at the educational activity, but at the future profession’s prestige and some value orientations. It means that most of the University students (from the faculties of Law, Medicine, Physical Culture and Sports) are mainly focused on material values, when the educational process itself is not of a great need for them, but only an instrument for satisfying their future material needs, obtaining the higher professional education diplomas and earning money (Yakovlev & Kovalenko, 2013). These indicators directly influence the efficiency and quality of the students’ educational activity.

One of the most important issues of the human activity’s motivation is the cause-consequence (deterministic) explanation of somebody’s behavior.

Nowadays, the topical and significant direction of the given question’s solution is based on the researches of scientists, trying to understand how to motivate students for their independent productive educational activity aimed at the development of divergent (creative) thinking (Guilford, 1965).

Some facts from psychology of creativity and personal abilities show that the growing motivation for the students’ creative work is an important and relatively independent type of educational and motivational determination.

People, having a strong need of achieving originality and innovation, may prefer to rely on their own strength and strive for self-improvement, self-assertion, and self-actualization.

They have high resistance to mental stress and performance and they tend to work on the above-average level tasks, requiring a lot of effort, which is achievable for them.

They are more satisfied with their creative work if they can plan it themselves, when they freely and independently determine the goals and then achieve them (Matuskova, 2014).

In our research, we paid a special attention to the power of achievement motivation, value orientation and their linkage with the personal abilities.

Achievement motivation means dissatisfaction with the achieved results, perseverance and desire in reaching their own goals, whatever it takes. It is one of the most important individual properties, having a great impact on the student’s creative thinking and creative activity (The Concept of the Federal Targeted Programme for Education Development for 2011-2015, 2011). In addition, the need for achievements affects the students’ self-organization, self-knowledge, independence, self-affirmation, a positive attitude and confidence in their future career and other personal manifestations.

Moreover, it is a complex personal education, which is of great importance for the students at any level of their training while interacting with the fellow students and lectures (Ilyin, 2000).

The results of the stating experiment in two groups (the 1-st group of successfully trained students according to the absolute indicators on fundamental disciplines and the 2-d group of less successfully trained students), carried out on the basis of two universities including Surgut State University and Surgut Pedagogic University, indicated that 42% of the students from the 1-st group had motivation for ‘achieving a success’.

In the second group the achievement motivation matched 38% and ‘avoiding failure’ was the leading achievement motivation among these students. Thus, 20% of the average level of this indicator is overall for all students of the study sample.

If to analyze the subjects by faculties and courses, the highest rate in the strength of success motivation is among students, who are doctors and economists of the second and the third courses (Yakovlev, Babushkin, & Babushkin, 2014).

The most important role in understanding how the given student will be motivated for his educational and professional activity (in addition to his motive achievements) is given to his personal qualities (value orientation, emotional intelligence, personal creativity) and the socio-psychological factors meaning: with whom the student studies and who teaches him, his parents, friends, as well as, the right choice of profession, the living conditions, the information technology opportunities at the University, dormitory conditions, etc. (Zagrebina, 2011).

Thus, from all the above-mentioned facts we can conclude, that in favor of stability and growth of the students’ motivation for fulfilling their creative educational and professional activity, it is necessary to control and correct the educational process itself, as well as, to organize some certain activities aimed at the students' adaptation for specific conditions in both types of activities: as professional as vital ones in general.

Having analyzed the data of our diagnostic study and some theoretical aspects of the given problem, it is advisable, in our opinion, to formulate a number of recommendations, which can be used for the development of the special programs, aimed at the motivation achievements’ growth, as well as, the creation of the most optimal level of social and psychological adaptation at higher school, and, possibly, the upbringing process in families. They are:

• informing the students about conditions and means for motivation achievements’ development;

• carrying out motivational and training groups aimed at creative activity growth;

• considering the tasks’ complexity adequacy to the students’ special abilities;

• monitoring and evaluating, giving psychological advice on creative thinking development.

Usually people with a high need for achievements set themselves the tasks, which implementation is considered as a symbol or a sign of success for others (Kurmanova, 2015).

Thus, we believe that the achievement motivation is a visual proof of deterministic manifestation for the students’ creative thinking development. Therefore, the achievements’ need for can be described as a desire to achieve a goal or to succeed. The motivational determination in this case plays a decisive role, since only it can make the preconditions for compelling the students because only the harmonic system of psychological and pedagogical factors can be the most serious driving force for the creative thinking development of the University students (Kurmanova, 2015, 2013).

Conclusion

Based on the above, we can assume that the future of the Russian science and culture is in the hands of the leading analysts and experts, because only they are able to bring the structural recovery of the national science to a qualitatively higher level, and to make the university students from Russia the most competitive and efficient in their professional career.

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