The Peculiarities Of Motives Of Profession Choice Among Schoolchildren And Students

The problem of study of pedagogical activity in psychology

The traditional direction of researches and independent section of pedagogical psychology is the psychology of labour and personality of the teacher. At the present time universities that prepare future teachers have special courses focused on the theory and practice of the activity and teacher’s personality.

Despite the fact that all the aspects of teacher's work are studied and there is a variety of psycho-pedagogical data, there is a lack of a holistic approach to the analysis and generalization of the results of researches in this field of pedagogical psychology. The data obtained by different researchers on the same subject do not often concur, and are often ambivalent. The results of some researches are more descriptive than operational. The main point is that there is no integral concept and the model of the teacher, which could be the basis of indicators of efficiency and productivity of his labour, and serve as a criterion of optimization of professional pedagogical activity.

The present system of pedagogical education in Russia was established in the middle 30s of the last century oriented at the training of specialists of different subjects and, accordingly, based on the subject and disciplinary principle, driven by the needs of industrialization of the country, the necessity of socio-economic and production sphere in specific areas of national economy. The content and technologies of educational process in pedagogical universities acquired subject-methodical appearance for many decades ( Sivashinskaya, 2009).

It is necessary to distinguish the category of "education" (educational processes) and the category of "pedagogical activity". For a long time, the content and targets of education and pedagogical activity have almost completely coincided: the teacher taught what he knew, educated (according to the image of himself and his social surroundings) and formed the student in accordance with the norms and values of his culture. The teacher was the living and the direct bearer of educational content - in the form of knowledge about the world, norms and values of the society, ways and means of the subject activity, which he passed on to the younger generations.

It should be said that the internal contradiction lay in the system of traditional pedagogical ideas about the content of education and forms of its organization. The meaning of this contradiction is the difference of the very essence of education and the essence of the pedagogical activity. The content of education also differs from the content of development.

The teacher-professional is, on the one hand, the subject of the educational process and, on the other hand, the subject of pedagogical activity. As a subject of the educational process, a professional teacher plans, designs, organizes and participates in the meeting of generations. He is a bearer of the original personality, the axiological position that provides a free and conscious self-determination in pedagogical practice, the responsibility for the results of education and upbringing of the younger generation ( Sivashinskaya, 2009).

One of the prominent specialists in the field of psychology of learning and of teaching labour and teacher’s personality is Markova (1993). She defines pedagogical activity as follows – it is a professional activity of the teacher, in which the tasks of education and upbringing are realized with the help of various means of influence on the students (Markova, 1993). In general, pedagogical activity is a special, multifaceted and multidimensional type of activity connected with education and upbringing.

Attention should be paid to the fact that pedagogical activity in reality starts from the analysis of the initial pedagogical situation. A pedagogical situation is a set of conditions in which the teacher sets pedagogical goals and tasks, accepts and realizes educational decisions. In principle, any situation becomes pedagogical, if it implements pedagogical goals and tasks.

The decision of pedagogical tasks should be immediate; it is their peculiarity, but the result is usually delayed in time, making it difficult to control. The result can often be known only in a few years’ time. In the pedagogical process there is always a hierarchy of tasks: global, strategic, phased and tactical ( Gadjiev & Shalaginova, 2014).

The problem of tendency to the pedagogical activity

The tendency to pedagogical activity exists as an objective reality (not always recognized by the subject), characterizing the presence of certain knowledge, abilities and skills that are integral with the corresponding skills ( Babushkin, 1998). The psychological basis of such propensity is a strong demand of the subject to the training and upbringing of others, formed in the process of social experience.

Babushkin ( 1998) studied the relationship of professional interest and tendency to the pedagogical activity of coaches. This allowed him to determine the content of the tendency to the pedagogical activity, including the following components: demonstration of a desire to work with people; positive attitude toward learning and upbringing of children; the desire to help people; quickness and easiness in establishing contacts with people; the manifestation of kindness and sociability; understanding of the mental state of the interlocutor and empathy to him. Based on the content of the tendency to the pedagogical activity and using the method of Klimov (1974) to identify the propensity to the profession type "man - man", Babushkin ( 1998) has developed a questionnaire, which allows the determination of the degree of manifestation of man's tendency to teaching.

Professional interest is a complex personality formation appeared in the process of professional self-determination and representing a reasoned subjective relation to the certain professional activity, perceived and experienced by the person. The content of professional interest includes emotions, motives, intelligence and will, manifested in the attitude of the subject to the chosen profession. The emotional component characterizes the emotional relation of the subject to the chosen profession, the satisfaction of its choice; motivational component suggests the reasons of the appearance of motives of profession choice, their focus and content; the intellectual component demonstrates how well the subject understands chosen profession, characterizes the self-assessment of his professional readiness; the volitional component shows the degree of manifestation of volitional activity by the subject in profession mastering and improvement of professional activity.

Not every professional activity attracts people's attention, "and that which meets the internal response" ( Leites, 1976, p. 45). This internal response is the corresponding tendency, formed in the process of social experience before the mastery of the chosen profession starts. During the period of training the professional interest of the person is enhanced and fixed on the basis of the developed tendency.

The propensity for any activity is developed in unity with the corresponding abilities (Kovalev & Myasishev, 1960). In this case, in unity with pedagogical skills. The choice of the teaching profession is not always connected with awareness and presence of the pedagogical skills, as evidenced by the statements of pupils and students. As a rule, the choice of professional activity of the teacher is not based on its content in this case. As a result, students do not tend to the development of pedagogical abilities, and a corresponding tendency associated with them doesn’t finds its development

Kuzmina ( 1985) identifies the following pedagogical skills: communicative, organizational, gnostic. It is clear that each of these pedagogical skills can be realized in different situations, including creative, where creativity of the teacher develops into the creativity of students. That’s why, it should be noted that one of the important qualities of the teacher as a creative personality is an extremely high level of empathy, or according to a very good expression and the title of the book by Vladimir Levi "Art to be another" ( Levi, 1980). The higher the ability of the teacher to sympathy, compassion, empathy, at last, to co-creation, the higher his professional and creative results.

Characterizing a variety of creative expressions of the teacher V. Levi shows that depending on a situation the teacher can be an observer, a controller, a mentor, a researcher, a doctor, a friend, a critic, etc.

All pedagogical abilities have ambivalence: it is an orientation both on the students and on the teacher. They all comprise the gnostic component - the ability to learn the psychology of the pupil and the creative component - the ability to realign their activity based on self-education and self-education ( Gadjiev & Shalaginova, 2014).

Among the special pedagogical skills there is the ability of a special kind, which cannot be attributed either to the activity of the teacher, nor to the work of the educator, as it is equally necessary to both. It is the ability to pedagogical communication. Kan-Kalik, who studied this ability for a long time, wrote that pedagogical labour has more than 200 components in its structure. Communication is one of the most difficult aspect as the main component in pedagogical work is realized by this means of it: the impact of teacher’s personality on the student's personality ( Tankov, 2010).

Thus, in modern science the study of pedagogical activity is conducted in line with the study of teaching abilities and their development in the personality. However, the question arises, what causes the person to develop certain propensities to choose a profession.

The problem of motives of profession choice

Motivators of profession choice and professional formation of the personality are well studied elements. The motives of profession choice were classified by Chugunova ( 1985) who distinguished the steady interest to the profession, the influence of attendant circumstances, which are not always compatible with the interests of the person, and the influence of the nearest social environment – advices of family, friends, acquaintances ( Chugunova, 1985).

Rodionova ( 2008) pointed out that the choice of profession is influenced by social prestige (fashion), material criterion, interest in profession (often of a romantic nature). In this regard, a number of diagnostic techniques allowing to investigate the leading motives of profession choice and professional formation of the personality was worked out.

Motives of profession choice are determined by a number of more or less controllable factors - the system of ideological influences, the influence of school, family, economic and legal factors, and the ratio of compliance or non-compliance of personal qualities with the requirements of a certain profession. Nevertheless, in definite circumstances these factors are often spontaneous, and as a result, the youth is disoriented - try mostly to master a very limited range of "intelligent" or "romantic" professions, unaware of many professions, which could not be less attractive. An additional difficulty in the self-determination of adolescents are global processes in changing of the types of society: industrial – post-industrial – informational that leads to the emergence of new professional groups and respective demands in labour market. The old professional groups become unclaimed, and it is difficult to enter new ones.

It should be noted that the choice of profession in present conditions is not always conscious and free (if s conscious necessity is understood under the freedom). The task arises to build such system of career guidance techniques of profession choice, which will help students in their self-determination or, more precisely, substantially reconstruct, rationalize the traditional system. However, it is necessary to consider not only what these techniques will identify, but also what the student likes. The objective should be combined with the subjective.

It was revealed that independent, conscious choice of profession increases their self-esteem and positive representation of the person about himself, reduces the frequency of physical and psychological problems, and raises satisfaction with the life (Kondakov, 1997). On the other hand, the readiness even of the graduates for this choice has been lately reduced ( Prjazhnikov, 2005). Moreover, the avoidance of the expressed problems including denying of the value of professional self-determination is more often manifested ( Feldstein, 1998). In this connection, especially actual becomes the problem of psychological support and increase of the level of readiness to the mature (i.e., conscious, independent, socially oriented) professional self-determination.

A final decision about the profession choice and professional educational establishment is taken in senior classes of secondary school.

The choice of profession of the majority of young people is based on the existing stereotypes in the society that prevents to find oneself in the world of professions and creates psychological difficulties. As a result, in the attitude of today's youth "through higher education to a higher paying job" there is absence or ignoring of productive attitudes, aimed at the growth and development of their potential: diploma in "prestigious" specialty is considered as an opportunity to improve their competitiveness on the labour market and "admission" to the work with a high salary. Thus, the vector of career guidance work should be shifted from the position of "Whom to be?" to the position "What person to be?" ( Chistyakov, Zaharov, Novikova, & Belyuk, 2008).

The results of experimental researches show that many high school graduates choose a profession without sufficient reason, finding it difficult to motivate their choice. This choice in adolescence can be made under the influence of the accidentally appeared interest or external circumstances, under the influence of the parents and, quite often, can be an act of imitation of coevals. Even if the career choice is motivated, the success of professional self-determination cannot be completely guaranteed. The formation of a stable positive attitude to the profession - and it should be emphasized - occurs only in the process of the professional activity itself.

Therefore, the task of the school (family and society) is that the choice of profession was a logical consequence of the gradual increase in the level of professional orientation, i.e. the formation of activity-semantic unity - coincidence of values and meanings (the formation of life expectations) and subject-effective (the choice of an adequate sense of the activity) aspects of the activity in the process of learning and life of students (Abramova, 2007). Development of professional orientation requires such organization of activity of students, which will actualize the contradiction between the requirements of the preferred activity and its personal meaning for the person. Satisfaction with their chosen profession and, consequently, the success of it depends on how the selected activity meets the type of personality.

The peculiarities of tendency to pedagogical activity among boys and girls

In group №1 (senior pupils) the average values were obtained for the following parameters:

• "pedagogical interest" – 0.27 low level

• "pedagogical skills" – 0.43 average level.

Low values of the parameter “pedagogical interest” may be explained by different factors. For example, very long period of the stay (studying) in school which seems for many schoolchildren endless makes them tired of teachers and parents who have too many requirements and sanctions for one pupil.

The presence of “pedagogical skills” was average. due to the presence of younger brothers or sisters in the family who needed to be taken care either voluntarily or forcibly, meaning a lack of time. Here a reciprocal process is included. The level of pedagogical interest can be lowered because a young person gets tired of being busy with the kid, he annoys him, he is jealous of his parents, and he is always guilty, if the kid feels bad or he is crying. And, of course, what kind of pedagogical activity can be discussed. Even if skills are present, the teenager avoids their demonstration, and therefore is looking for another profession.

In group №2 (university students) the values of the parameters were distributed as follows:

• "pedagogical interest" – 0.75 high level

• "pedagogical skills" - 0.72 high level.

Education in the university has its benefits. Taking into account the fact that the answers were with different results, the average value of the parameter "pedagogical interest" and "pedagogical skills" has a high level. It could be called medium high, but in the technique these values fall within the interpretation as high. All graduate students of the fourth course displayed a high pedagogical interest, which suggests that they will work in the sphere of man-man, in the institutions related to education and nurturing system, management and service sector.

Pedagogical skills supporting pedagogical interest have high values. Pedagogical interest is supported by pedagogical abilities because they are successful in education which makes them happy, and therefore they seek further opportunities in education. In case of absence of abilities, in a situation of failure, the interest would have been quickly lost, and the studies would have been abandoned. The abilities of the teacher are usually considered as individual features of the personality, contributing to the successful implementation of this activity. Pedagogical skills are a special kind of ability which determines the possibility of the penetration of the teacher in the individuality of the student's personality and understanding of oneself. These are skills associated with the ability to influence another person, to study another person, requiring understanding and empathy and the ability to accept others’ points of view and reflect on yourself. These abilities are mostly typical for the teacher’s profession, being the evidence of his orientation on the mental development of the student. At the present time there are few people who possess such qualities.

We compared the peculiarities of the propensities to the pedagogical activity in groups № 1 and № 2. The mathematical analysis carried out with the help of Mann-Whitney test showed the significance of the differences on both scales methods. There are significant differences between the average values on the level of "pedagogical interest" (U=52.00, at ρ ≤ 0.01) and the level of "pedagogical skills" (U=91.00, at ρ ≤ 0.01).

Thus, we can say that the level of both pedagogical interest and pedagogical skills is significantly lower among schoolchildren in comparison with university students, which suggests that the obtained knowledge and skills in the learning process can improve performance. It is also clear that psychological and pedagogical education benefits those who want to work with people in the sphere of education and upbringing, in the system "man-man". The students are interested in interaction with people, establishing effective contacts, communication, influence on people and children. They are empathic, understand others and they like it.

The peculiarities of motives of profession choice among the sample with a tendency to pedagogical activity

In the second stage of the research the motives of profession choice in groups №1 and №2 were revealed using the questionnaire "Motives of profession choice". In group №1 (schoolchildren) the following results were obtained: "Internal individually significant motives" – 10.6, "Internal socially significant motives" – 12.4, "External positive motives" – 21.6 "External negative motives" – 3.7.

In group №1 motives of profession choice as "External positive motives" dominated suggesting that when choosing a profession financial stimulation, opportunity for advancement, endorsement of the team, the prestige, i.e. stimuli for which the person feels the need to exert his efforts is important. However, the low values for the factor "External negative motives" show that the schoolchildren are not ready to accept criticism, punishment, and other penalties of a negative character in order to achieve material welfare or career advancement. In this case, it can be explained by the peculiarities of age – teenagers, are still children in many aspects, although they think they are ready for adult life. Moreover, because of their passion and maximalism they do not want to endure the pressure, punishment, criticism, condemnation and other sanctions of a negative character.

External motives refer to the money, desire for prestige, fear of condemnation, and failure. In this case, high values of "External positive motives" suggests that schoolchildren tend to focus on financial stimulation, opportunities for career advancement, endorsement of the team, meaning the opinion of others about them is important. Among other things, prestige has a value. As such, these are the conditions of success for which it is worth to make an effort.

The internal motivation arises from the needs of the person, and on this basis a man is happy working without any external pressure. It is ideal, when there is combination of the pleasure from work and material wealth, which this work brings. Pleasure from the work and the salary for this pleasure can be called professional happiness.

Low values for internal motivation of pupils can be explained by the peculiarities of the age, and low awareness of the profession, lack of professional identity at this stage of personal development.

After this, the study of motives of profession choice of the respondents of group №2 (university students) was carried out. In this case, the respondents were fourth year students of the Pedagogical and Psychological Academy of South Federal University, psychological-pedagogical education department.

The questionnaire "The motives of profession choice" yielded the following results: "Internal individually significant motives" – 20.7, "Internal socially significant motives" – 14.2, "External positive motives" - 7, "External negative motives" - 6.2. "Internal individually significant motives" and "Internal socially significant motives" dominated the motive of profession choice.

The predominance of these types suggests that for the career choice is important for university students to have public and personal significance, the satisfaction that the work brings due to its creative nature, the ability to communicate, guide other people, education and upbringing of others. Internal motivation arises from the needs of the person himself, therefore on its basis a person works with pleasure, without external pressure.

Low values for external motivation show that students are not guided by the prestige, or financial stimulation in the choice of profession. At this stage, they do not tend to work for approval of the team or career advancement in a situation of pressure, criticism, condemnation and other sanctions of a negative character.

These results can be explained by the fact that most of the students who chose a psychological-pedagogical profession, are oriented to work in the system "man-man", in the sphere of education and upbringing. A contingent of these spheres is not always children or teenagers; it can be adults who are studying qualification improvement courses, getting consultations from specialists, are registered in the employment centers, and so on. It can be human resources departments, i.e. all spheres of professional areas where there are people. The profession of teacher-psychologist is universal because it can be applied in various spheres of professional activity – in the banking system, in the production area, where there is psychological service, spheres of education, medicine and service industries. The main thing is that the teacher-psychologist is oriented on interaction with people; he likes it, he focuses on effective communication and on the development of the personality of the other person. He is willing to help and listen, accept and understand the person. These are the components of pedagogical success in the profession.

Next, we carried out a comparative analysis of the peculiarities of motives of profession choice in groups №1 and №2 according to the "The motives of profession choice" questionnaire. In comparison with schoolchildren, university students show the domination of internal individually and socially significant motives, the satisfaction that the work brings due to its creative nature. For pupils it is a focus on prestige and a financial component. However, both students and schoolchildren are not ready to work in a situation of punishment, criticism and other sanctions of a negative character. This can be explained by the general trend in the social space. At the present time young people would find it difficult to tolerate the ability to comply, disciplinary actions, and comments from the bosses, even if the work brings satisfaction. It can be explained by the lack of skill of working in a team, family upbringing in the spirit of obedience, tendencies of selfishness and ambition.

The use of the Mann-Whitney test showed significant differences between the average values for the types of "Internal individually significant reasons" (U=74, at ρ ≤ 0.01) and "External positive motives" (U=82, at ρ ≤ 0.01). There are no significant differences for the types of "Internal socially significant reasons" and "External negative motives". Since the groups №1 and №2 are significantly different in the parameter of tendency to pedagogical activity, it can be assumed that for the sample with a penchant for pedagogical activity such motives as "Internal individually significant motives" and "Internal socially significant motives" are typical, while the sample without tendency to pedagogical activity have more expressed external positive motives.