Development of technical students’ motivation for innovative professional activity

Preparing technical students for innovative professional activity is considered a pressing issue. The community’s burning interest in technical specialists lies in the fact that this activity provides innovative knowledge-intensive, high-tech, and internationally competitive facilities and production technologies recognized as intellectual property. From the ontogenesis standpoint, the motives of technical students’ innovative activity are divided into four groups: material and professional ones, as well as self-assertion, and self-realization. Material motivation has objective nature-aligned pragmatic origins. Launching an ambitious innovative engineering project, many technical specialists wish to benefit from it pragmatically. The source of self-assertion/prestige is the specialist’s nature-aligned desire and willingness to confirm the status of his/her qualification and competence through the results of the innovative engineering activity. Technical specialists’ professional motivation for innovative activity is inseparable from their natural aspiration and desire to use acquired professional knowledge and skills for solving both career and vocational tasks to the best advantage. Self-realization reflects the objective and nature-aligned aspiration of an individual to achieve personal professional self-development.