The educational and professional motivation of students of different professional training areas

Purpose: to determine the individual combinations of the most and least relevant for students’ educational and professional motives. Methods: analysis of theoretical approaches to understanding of motivation, which allows interpreting empirical data in the context of educational practice. The empirical research was carried out using the method of Sh. Richye and P. Martin “The motivational profile of personality”. Results: the motivation of a person to work is understood as a set of driving forces that encourage a person to perform certain actions. These forces are outside and inside the person and make him consciously or not consciously perform some actions. The study revealed the similarities and differences in the motivational profiles of students, to determine the dynamics of expectations of future professional activity during the learning process at the University, to reveal the prevailing motives of students in different areas of professional training and to identify the factors affecting the educational and professional motivation of students. Scientific novelty: the article contains data that allow to change the characteristics of the educational process and, accordingly, to influence the changes of motives. The theory of goals teaches to set complex goals related to development and achievements; the theory of self-determination encourages students to become personally responsible for the level of their professional and personal development; the theory of self-efficiency involves the creation of conditions that ensure the formation of quality characteristics of a specialist, adequate to modern conditions of professional activity. Practical significance: the main provisions and conclusions of the article can be used in teaching activities when considering the use of incentives, the essence of the management of motives that encourage a person to achieve personal or group (collective) goals.