Dr.Sc.Psych., Professor B.P. Yakovlev¹
Postgraduate student G.I. Gafarova¹
Ph.D., Associate Professor A.V. Sal'kov¹
Ph.D., Associate Professor I.B. Okhrimenko¹
Postgraduate student N.R. Usaeva^1
1Surgut State University, Surgut

Keywords: educational activity, motive, motivation focus, life­purpose orientations, sports activity, university students.

Introduction

It is the major reforms that are being implemented in the higher professional education system of Russia with transition to the third-generation Federal State Education Standards (FSES) that put on the agenda the need for new education quality assessment criteria being applicable in the professional education sector. As provided by the new education standards, it is the new specialist’s education quality that must be given a top priority in the professional education process to satisfy the relevant multiple needs and meet the purposes, requirements, standards etc. And this objective, in its turn, implies fairly high motivations that are needed to acquire the professional knowledge and competences and to provide an impetus for persistent self-development and successful professional career [5-7].

The competency building approach to the professional university students’ sport education standards that is being implemented today needs to be based on the relevant system of educational accomplishments.

In this context, the personal career objectives and motivations in the professional education and off-class activity of every student may be used as a basis for a set of education quality assessment criteria applicable in the professional education process of a future bachelor.

The bachelors’ education curricula may be mastered with high quality and effectiveness when certain knowledge base, skills and experience are acquired in the process being supported by a variety of motivations, goals and personal needs that may be collectively referred to as the “motivation focus” that, in its turn, is of significant influence on the degree and pace of professional maturity of any specialist.

The modern higher education system shows high and constant interest in studies focused on the education process motivations, with the theoretical base and practical methodology in this research field being basically formed by many classical works of foreign and native scientists who studied different aspects of motivation psychology (L.S. Vygotskiy, A.N. Leontiev, B.G. Ananiev, L.I. Bozhovich, V.N. Myasishchev, A. Maslow, H. Heckhausen, J. Nuttin, G. Murray, J. Atkinson et al.).

When the new category of values- and priorities-related component of the personal motivation structure and education activity motivation factors came to the forefront as a prime subject for research, it has provided a new impetus for the motivation-focused research and theoretical works (by G.A. Vaizer, V. Morosanova, A.A. Derkach, E.P. Ilyin, D.A. Leontiev, L.M. Mitina, V. Frankl, V.E. Chudnovskiy, B.P. Yakovlev). However, despite the relatively high interest to the subject and many research works including monographs that have addressed the aspects of professional and competence-centred motivations of university students in the higher professional education process, there are still many specific problems in this sector that need to be studied in more detail.

Analysis of the available modern literature on the above aspects of the higher professional physical culture and sport education process give reasons to state that modern sport science is still in need of special studies to address the matters of education and professional activity of university athletes who have to repeatedly revise their personal hierarchies of motivations and goals in the professional education process and reshape the core motivation structure to address the varying life­purpose orientations. Personal goals and priorities of university athletes are quite specific in the sense that they have to be successful at the same time in the academic studies and the relevant professional sport discipline. These challenges are being addressed by the researchers giving a high priority to studies of professional education and training specifics of university athletes with a special emphasis being made on different aspects of their personal values, goals and priorities in the context of the professional formation process.

The objective of the study was to explore the hierarchy of life­purpose orientations and key motivations of a university bachelor education process for a variety of physical culture and sport specialties.

Methodology and structure of the study

Our studies to explore the university students’ motivation structure were completed at Surgut State University of the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Region (Yugra) in Russia.

Subject to the study were 90 first-year students (including 39 men and 41 women of 17-19 years of age) majoring in Recreation and Health Tourism (specialization "Health Tourism"); in Physical Education for Underdeveloped Individuals (specialization Adaptive Physical Education"); majoring in “Physical Education” (specialization "Sports Training and Sport Management).

The research methods included a “Life­purpose orientations” Questionnaire (known as LPO method) [3] developed and offered by D.A. Leontiev; and “Sport Training Motivations” survey offered by A.V. Shaboltas [4].

The researchers applied the CVP test based on factor analysis technique adapted by D.A. Leontiev (1993) and his students M.O. Kalashnikov and O.E. Kalashnikova. The CVP test is designed to specify the general career valuation and prioritization criteria further detailed by five sub-scales to address three specific life­purpose orientations (with accounts of the career goals, career effectiveness and personal satisfaction with career success levels) plus two locus of control aspects (including “Self-identity” locus of control and “Career” locus of control) [3].

In the CVP test context, career is considered meaningful when based on certain career goals, accomplishments and satisfaction with the career accomplishments; the success, in its turn, fosters confidence in the own ability to set forth goals, reveal and address challenges in the career situations and attain the desired objectives in the process. The higher is the values-driven attitude of the student to the education process and the higher is his/her degree of educational motivation, the more the student is believed to be success-oriented; and even some misfortunes on the way are recognized as inevitable circumstances and helpful incentives in the education goals achievement process [6].

The methodology offered by A.V. Shaboltas is designed to highlight the dominating motivations (and personal objectives) of sport training process and includes 10 categorical motivations that generally correspond to certain ready statements offered by the survey [4].

Results and discussion

We have completed intra-correlation motivation analysis using Pearson criterion and based on the both above mentioned methodologies (Table 1). The analysis helped put together the relevant correlation matrices that we used later on to form a few correlation groups (pleiads) [1, p. 79-85]. As demonstrated by the revealed correlations of criteria in responses of the university physical culture and sport bachelors, the emotional pleasure (EP) motivation factor and socially emotional (SE) aspect are found to be in close positive correlation (r = 0.57; р>0.05). This finding may be indicative of the sport events, physical efforts and intensive motions being associated by the students with positive emotions, fun and pleasure.

Table 1. Intra-correlation criteria in the survey responses of the university physical culture and sport bachelors

It should be further noted that the civil and patriotic (CP) motivation is found to be in positive correlation with the social self-assertion (SSA) motivation aspect (r =0.44; р<0.05) and the sport success (SS) factor (r=0.63; р<0.05). The highest intra-correlation was found in between the sport education (SE) motivation factor and the few life­purpose orientations, including the career importance (CI), “Self-identity” locus of control (SILC) and the “Career” locus of control (CLC) factors.

More specifically, the sport education motivation aspect is found to be in close correlation with the career-driven motivations, including the career importance (r =0.33; р<0.05), career process (r=0.29; р<0.05) and the “Career” locus of control (r=0.23; р<0.05) factors. The university athletes are fully aware of their future being related to and dependent on the success in the physical culture and sport profession. This is the reason why the sport education motivation aspect is accepted as a leading factor of the personal self-assertion and dominates among personal motivations of the university athletes; that may be indicative of the professional education process and sport training system being valued and prioritized from the personal success viewpoint.

In addition, the correlation analysis showed the socially emotional (SE) motivation being in negative correlation (r=-0.45; р<0.05) with the “Self-identity” locus of control factor that may be indicative of the fact that highly emotional athletes tend to “burn out” in the process with their behaviour becoming less controlled and less responsible. One more negative correlation was found in between the physical self-assertion (PSA) motivation and the career importance (CI) factor (r=-0.32; р<0.05). It may mean that the desire for physical development is not always conscious enough in some students, and they may still fail to fully appreciate the role of physical culture and sport in their lives [2].

Conclusions

The study results demonstrate certain correlations between the sport success motivations and the life­purpose orientations of the university athletes. The close relationship of the motivations and life­purpose orientations show that the university education process in the speciality of the student’s choice may be highly effective when based on due personal and career-centred self-assertion motivations; and the purposeful choice of profession makes the individual career being rated as important by the students and thereby helps the student be more successful in the professional education and sport activity.

Studies of individual motivations in the professional education process with due emphasis on the factors of prime importance for motivation structure revision in the course of professional education and sport careers give the means to duly correct motivations in the education process and thereby control the professional growth of university bachelors. Reasonably designed controls of the key career-centred growth factors in their relationship with educational motivations of high importance for the personal professional formation and growth are considered among the top priority objectives of the modern psychology and pedagogical science in solving the problems of professional education of future specialists.

References

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Corresponding author: apokin_vv@mail.ru