Activation of cognitive processes in the student's educational activity

The student’s creative activity presupposes the ability to overcome everyday ideas, and sometimes to go beyond strict logical passage and conclusions, resorting to unusual connections and analogies, as well as removing various prohibitions and restrictions for a fuller manifestation, free search for new and others. However, there is a need for intellectual discipline, organization and systematic work. And especially they need students who have creative abilities, but insufficiently collected, not very organized, often working in fragments, without a strict plan and system.

All other things being equal, as a rule, those who are scattered at work, do not know how to plan it, do not complete the case are less likely to succeed. Conversely, more successful (in learning, creativity) is one who has a strong focus on solving problems, one who is able to make the most of their intellectual resources, which, in turn, develop and improve only in the process of systematic mental work.

The characteristic of motives of educational and professional activity of students deserves serious attention as they directly influence quality of professional training, on formation of the person of the professional. Let’s name some of them: cognitive professional, motives of creative achievement, broad social motives - a motive of personal prestige, a motive of preservation and increase of the status, a motive of self-realization, a motive of self-affirmation, material motives. A significant motivating factor for the effectiveness of students' learning activities is the motive of creative achievement. Recall that the need for achievement is experienced by a person as the desire to succeed is the difference between the past level of performance and the present, it is a competition with himself for success, the desire to improve the results of any business he undertakes. It is also manifested in the involvement in achieving a long-term goal, in obtaining unique, original results both in the product of activity and in ways to solve the problem.

The need for achievement stimulates a person’s search for situations in which he could experience the pleasure of success. Since the learning situation (regular classes, tests, exams, etc.) contains many opportunities to achieve a higher level, it can be assumed that people with a high need for achievement should experience more satisfaction from learning, invest more effort in the learning process, that will lead to higher learning outcomes (to higher student achievement).

The flip side of the need for achievement is the need to avoid failure. Students with a strong desire to avoid failure, as a rule, find a low need to improve their results, prefer standard methods to unique methods, are afraid of creativity. The need to avoid failure underlies the routine performance of activities, the basis of dogmatic instructions in both youth and later life. For students with a predominant motive to avoid failure is characterized by increased anxiety, unconstructive attitude to learning (more often there is a protective attitude towards learning activities). As a rule, they do not study in order to enjoy their academic achievements, but rather in order to get rid of the troubles associated with failure.

Naturally, it is necessary to develop in every way, cultivate the need for achievement, because it contributes not only to the state of satisfaction with learning in high school (or other special educational institution), causes the effect of facilitating learning, increases efficiency in reducing time to achieve educational goals, etc.., but also has a positive effect on the formation of the student's personality in general, promotes personal growth, maximum use of potential opportunities in the process of authorship of their own way of life and its further implementation.

Studies of the motive of affiliation in medical students have shown its significant impact on learning outcomes. It turned out, for example, that studying with "excellent" sophomores with a high affiliation is more difficult than with a number, because communication (especially intense) leads to a large expenditure of their energy and time. However, in the fourth year, it is easier for students with a high affiliation to study “excellently” than with a low affiliation, because high school students have already acquired communication techniques and the process of active communication does not interfere, but helps learning. If there are obstacles (real or even predictable) in meeting the need for affiliation, it can lead to an increase in student emotional stress and anxiety, to a state of frustration, depression, etc.

Thus, the need for communication, the motive of affiliation significantly affect the learning activities of students - either complicating it, or improving, causing satisfaction with learning. The need for self-affirmation, which arose in adolescence, continues to develop rapidly in youth. Motives of self-affirmation (dominance) are manifested in the desire of man to influence other people, to control their behavior, to be authoritative, convincing. They are manifested in the desire to prove the truth to others, to be the winner of the dispute, to impose on others their views, tastes, style and fashion, problem solving. In student learning, this need increases satisfaction with learning, facilitates its process, increases responsibility in relation to learning. The motive of dominance increases the effectiveness of educational activities, especially when an element of competition is introduced, as well as when it is combined with the motive in achievement.

One of the adequate motives for learning (including students) is the cognitive need. It is manifested in the fact that a person seeks to expand experience, knowledge, organize both, seeks to be competent, develops the ability to freely operate with knowledge, facts, seeks to understand the nature of the problem, question, systematizes experience through mental action, seeks to create logically consistent and reasonable picture of the world. The cognitive need in combination with the motive in the achievements has a very strong impact on improving performance, creates a deep satisfaction with studying at a university (or other special educational institution that trains professionals in a particular field of activity).

Study time at the university can be divided into two main stages:

• •    Stage of junior courses, when there is an adaptation of a young student to an educational institution, to activities in the university,

• •    Stage of senior courses (usually starting from the third) - the stage of professional self-determination of the student as a future specialist.

The most difficult is the first stage of the university period. It is sometimes associated with a radical break in the prevailing ideas, habits of the student's need to change and restructure their behavior and activities, “enter” into new conditions. It is during this period that the largest dropouts from the university take place. And since the student is not yet involved in solving real problems that arise in the conditions of production (including in the conditions of pedagogical work), the main and fully meaningful goal is to master the methods and techniques of educational activities, the acquisition of the necessary system of basic knowledge of social student status. The attitude of junior students to the future profession is not yet pronounced and, accordingly, has little effect on their success. Gradually, with the acquisition of professional knowledge, they gain a deeper understanding of the professional subtleties of their future specialty, they form a certain attitude to future professional activity.

Many of them who have reached a sufficiently high level of social maturity, it’s time for a strong professional self-determination. The main signs of this are a meaningful and firm readiness for active independent activity in the chosen specialty, the desire to constantly improve in it.

Along with the analysis of the dynamics of professional selfdetermination of the student, an important role for understanding the process of formation of his personality is played by the analysis of contradictions inherent in student age.