In theory, student motivation considers stimulating their activities in comparison with the activities of other people. This is a process of influencing specific motives that affect the self-determination and productivity of professional work. Students' motivation affects the choice of a path in specialization, the effectiveness of such a choice, satisfaction with the results, and, accordingly, the success of training. The main thing here is a positive attitude towards the future profession, that is, interest in it.
The manifestation of motivation in students strong and weak
Two main factors affect the effectiveness of training: the level of the cognitive sphere in development and the motivational sphere of personality. A number of studies were carried out, and scientists proved that it is not the level of intelligence that distinguishes a strong student from a weak one. Here, the motivation of students plays the most important role. Strong students constantly keep this motivation inside, because they are interested in mastering this profession at the highest level, and therefore receive and assimilate knowledge in full so that knowledge, skills and abilities are complete. And to weak students, professional motivation in such a volume does not seem interesting, they only have external motivation, the main thing is to get a scholarship. Some of them are important to get approval from others. However, the learning process itself does not cause them keen interest, and they do not strive to obtain the broadest possible knowledge.
Only interest, that is, a positive attitude towards future practical activities can be the basis for motivating students' learning activities. It is the interest in the profession that is directly related to the ultimate goal of training. If this or that specialty is chosen consciously, if the student considers it socially and personally significant, then the process of training will be productive and efficient. Usually freshmen almost all consider the choice made to be right, but by the fourth year euphoria is reduced. By the end of the training, the course is far from complete in content with its own choice.
However, interest still remains positive, since the motivation of students' educational activities is constantly being warmed up from different angles: these are respected teachers with interesting lectures and collective lessons play a huge role. But if the level of teaching in an educational institution is low, satisfaction may disappear even for those students who were motivated internally. Also, the cooling of feelings in relation to the profession also affects the mismatch of the young mind's ideas about the profession and the gradually emerging real knowledge that brings understanding and sometimes fundamentally changes the initial opinion. In this case, the professional motivation of students can be severely affected.
Negative factors
They change the attitude to the profession and kill the desire to learn its secrets, mainly three things identified in the process of studying student motivation:
- Conflict with reality at the university, fundamentally different from the ideas that the young man had before entering the university.
- Low level of training, poor learning ability, body resistance to intense and systematic work.
- A categorical rejection of certain special disciplines, and therefore the desire to change their specialty, although the student’s learning process itself may not cause rejection.
Usually there are two sources of activity in the motivation of university students - external and internal. An internal source is social and cognitive needs, interests, attitudes, stereotypes, standards that influence the success of self-improvement of a person, its self-realization, self-affirmation in any kind of activity. In these cases, the driving force of activity is the desire for an ideal model of one's “I” and the feeling of discrepancy with the real “I”. External sources of educational motivation of students, their personal activity are the circumstances in which the life and activity of a particular person takes place. This should include requirements, a set of opportunities, and expectations.
The essence of the requirements is the observance of the norms of behavior, activity and communication in society. Expectation can be interpreted as the motivation of students to learn about the attitude of society towards education, since this is the norm of behavior, and the student should take it for granted, which will help him overcome difficulties in the learning process. And opportunities are created by objective conditions that are necessary in order for educational activities to be promoted widely and powerfully. Here, the driving force is the desire for those social requirements to which the real level of student knowledge does not yet correspond.
Classification of motives
To study the motivation of students, many classifications have been created, where the motives are ranked by importance or by signs of homogeneity in the corresponding groups. For example: social motives, when there is awareness and acceptance of the importance of learning, the need for the development of a worldview and the formation of a worldview. These can be cognitive motives: interest and the desire to acquire knowledge when the educational process brings satisfaction. And, of course, personal motives play a crucial role: an authoritative position on the course, personalization, self-esteem, and even ambition - everything goes in progress.
The methods of motivating students are aimed at the educational process, and therefore the first two types are used almost always, personal motives in these cases are rarely taken into account. But in vain, because it would clearly bring the result closer, because the teacher’s assessment and the reaction of others helps this a lot. Student performance is greatly improved if everything is taken into account - the result is as important as the process. Cognitive and social motivation contribute to the preparation of students from the professional side, they effectively form skills, polish skills, and deepen knowledge. However, student motivation techniques should also take into account personal motives.
Another approach to classifying motives
The classification of D. Jacobson, where motives related to situations outside of educational activity are separately presented, meets the task very well. This is the motivation for the professional choice to be narrowly social (negative): identification with parents or other respected people from the environment, when the choice is due to the fact that the student did not want to fail, and also take responsibility for an independent decision, sometimes he was dictated by the usual sense of duty. And the formation of students' motivation in this vein is represented very widely.
This includes general social motivation: if the student is responsible, he strives for successful studies, in order to subsequently bring benefits to society. Another hypostasis is pragmatic motivation, when the prestige of the profession, the possibility of social growth and the material benefits that the profession will bring in the future stimulate activity. The development of students' motivation for academic work also includes various motivations:
- This is cognitive motivation, if a student seeks to get an education, willingly absorbs new knowledge, masters abilities.
- Professional motivation is determined by interest in the future profession, in its content. Then a creative approach appears, and the opportunities increase, because there is confidence in the presence of one's own abilities, which are mandatory in this profession.
- The motives of personal growth are also very strong in increasing students' motivation, when the desire for self-improvement and self-development lies at the heart of training.
To prepare for the future profession, the most important are the motives associated with study, and general social motivation, while pragmatic and narrowly social ones most often have a negative impact on learning.
For educators
The methodology of educational motivation of students also uses the classification performed by B. B. Aismontans, which relates to the activities of teachers aimed at these problems. The motives of duty prevail in the work of the teacher, in second place is the interest and enthusiasm for the discipline that they teach. And, finally, communication with students - this should also be included in the mandatory mode of teaching work, so that the diagnosis of student motivation is constantly under control.
Educational motivation is a complex structure that includes both internal and external, it is characterized by the stability of the links directly to educational activities and the level of intellectual development. Success in learning depends not only on the student’s abilities, which he received from nature, but to a greater extent - on motivation. It must be recognized that both of these components are closely interconnected.
Today's problems
The current situation has exacerbated to the limit the problem of quality training. It is a priority issue among all the rest today. It is necessary to develop the cognitive activity and creative abilities of students, which is very difficult to do, because too many unpleasant moments have accumulated in this very bottleneck of pedagogy. Professional motivation is a driving factor in the development of personality, because without forming it at the highest level, it is impossible to effectively develop a country, including its economy. And high professionals from year to year is becoming less and less literally in all sectors of the economy.
The problem is the most urgent, since the motivational sphere in the development of a specialist determines not only his internal and external condition, but also his approach to fulfilling his duty to society. The motivation of students plays a crucial role in the organization of the educational process, this is one of the most difficult pedagogical tasks, solved for various reasons, more and more slowly or not solved at all. It is difficult for teachers to manage motivational processes precisely because the prestige of pedagogical activity in recent decades is at an extremely low level. It is necessary to create certain conditions for the student to develop internal motives, to somehow stimulate this process.
It is impossible to blame everything on the enormous amount of information that falls upon young and not fully strengthened minds, but rather the social policy of the state, especially in the educational sphere. Although, of course, media-social networks, for example, seriously interfere with motivating students to the educational process, to systematic work, to the search for serious information. The Internet is a huge world where you can get voluminous knowledge on any scientific topic, but students consider pictures with cats and monstrously illiterate write comments. There is a search for ways to motivate students so that the Internet helps to gain knowledge, rather than rob them. This is what teachers, psychologists and society as a whole are doing, but we must admit that so far it has not been possible.
Activity problem
This is also a burning problem. New forms and methods of teaching students are needed in order to enhance their attitude to educational activities. But first of all, it is necessary to carry out a critical analysis of existing ones. Indeed, often all training is based on what the student reproduces, remembering only a certain circle of factual material: "from now to now." Need creative activity, the desire to look ten pages ahead. Here the roles of teacher and student should be qualitatively reviewed. Partnerships are needed to make a student an actor. Otherwise, the teacher will not even be able to diagnose student motivation or lack thereof.
And the teacher is obliged to know what motivates the student, what motives motivate him to act, in order to develop and implement an effective system of methods for managing motivation during the educational process. The main task is the correct organization of student activities, including non-academic, in order to maximize the disclosure of the individual’s internal potential. However, the structure of such motivation - both professional and pedagogical - for the preparation of a specialist has not only not yet been studied, it has not yet been built. The strategy of vocational education today should provide increased motivation for professional activity, stimulate creativity, develop intellectual, emotional, spiritual and volitional qualities of students.
Motivation sphere
It is necessary to study educational motivation in order to identify the real level and possible prospects, areas of influence on the development of a student who urgently needs to indicate new goals and identify basic needs, it is then that the processes of the relationship between social structure and the formation of ideological categories of personality will manifest themselves. It is necessary to consider all stages of development of motivational components without exception, since the results are always different, they depend on many factors: motives of cognitive and social, on the standard of living, on the hierarchy of the educational community, when immediate motives are subordinated to their conscious, arbitrary forms.
Motives should harmoniously harmonize with each other, be stable, stable and necessarily positively colored, orientated towards long-term prospects in time, be effective and really influence behavior. It is then that a mature form of professional motivation will turn out. Currently, the majority of first-year students have intrinsic motivation prevailing, then this number is decreasing, but those who retain this inner core do not lose sight of their goals, despite the influence of numerous external factors.
The formation of motivation
The features of the formation of motivation for each student are an individual process, they are literally unique, and here the task of the teacher is to find a common approach, to identify all the complex and even contradictory ways of professional motivation in order to guide its course. First of all, it is necessary to develop cognitive interest, since without such a plan of activity, nothing can be achieved. Therefore, in training, the best approach is the systematic monitoring of arousal, development and strengthening of cognitive interest. This is the basis of motivation, acting powerfully and as a means of educating the student, and as a means of improving the quality of education.
Specific recommendations are developed, communicated to educational institutions and implemented. At the forefront are the improvement of independent work. A lot depends on the teacher himself, on the strength of his teaching impact. They increase the cognitive activity and content of the material to be learned (and here, as anywhere else, educational motivation is necessary), the process of working with new material is inspiring, where you can put into effect the reserves of personality qualities of both the student and the teacher.
Personality formation
The motivation of students to study is the pursuit of goals and reliance on the values of professional education, the prospect of meeting the needs of the individual, society and the state. This is what predetermines all current changes in the educational process, including in the motivational sphere. The personality of the student during the training should become highly motivated in order to work and live in constantly changing economic and social conditions.
However, it is becoming increasingly difficult to study the specifics of this sphere, its structure is rapidly becoming more complicated, and this does not contribute to a good mastery of the profession as a whole. The priority is the interests of the individual, not the collective, the formation of erudition and competence, and not a sense of duty and honor. It is necessary to enhance the general culture and develop creativity. The student must be an active subject in society.
The level of professional motivation shows the involvement of students in the educational process, and this shows that they are satisfied with the choice of profession. It is necessary to study the state of cognitive interest constantly, at all stages of personality development, comparing the information obtained with social motives, with a hierarchical motivational sphere. According to the coherence and harmonious coexistence of various motives, stability and sustainability of the effect that has appeared, the effectiveness of motivation, we can conclude how high the level of cognitive activity is.