Motivational sphere of primary school students: a comparative analysis of the capital and rural regions

The article is devoted to the study of the motivational sphere of primary school students. This sample is represented by rural schoolchildren. The motivational sphere is studied with the help of the projective technique “Tsvetik-Semitsvetik” by I. M. Vitkovskaya. The data obtained on our sample are compared with a similar study conducted by E. E. Danilova in the 2017-2018 academic year on a sample of children in the capital region. All motivational preferences of children were divided into personal, “for other people” and universal human motives. All children of primary school age are characterized by a steady dominance of personal motives: first of all, children want to have material goods (in terms of importance these are toys, gadgets, vehicles, financial resources, clothes, etc.); further, among personal motives, there are desires associated with the acquisition of new skills, qualities, the development of certain abilities; the third place is occupied by motives related to schooling (these answers reflect a positive attitude towards school, a desire to study well). Desires “for other people” are expressed by schoolchildren much less frequently. Children are focused on the family, next of kin; further on peers and classmates; among the desires addressed to other people, the desires for teachers were the least represented. Universal human motives are the least represented in the children’s answers. Topics of such desires: health, well-being, human relations, environmental issues. In general, the motivational preferences of children are primarily aimed at the possession of material goods (toys; gadgets; vehicles – a bicycle, a scooter; financial resources), as well as at satisfying the need for self-development, self-improvement and successful learning. The authors agree with the opinion of researchers who note that modern schoolchildren are much less socially oriented, social goals and objectives than their predecessors of the Soviet period.