The socio-psychological features of the professional dispositions of students becoming specialists in psychology

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The socio-psychological features of the professional dispositions of students becoming specialists in psychology

Spitsyna L.V.,

PhD (Candidate of Psychological Sciences), Associate Professor (Docent), the Department of Psychology, Zaporizhzhia National University

В статті розглядається, яким чином професійне становлення студентів і його відображення у формі професійних диспозицій, останнім часом стає одним з найбільш актуальних сьогоденних питань, на-слідки і впливи якого виявляються в різних сферах нашого суспільства. Цього року в процесі навчання студентів у ВНЗ відбулися помітні зміни, пов'язані, насамперед, із глобальною ситуацією пандемії, переходом багатьох навчальних закладів на онлайн-формат навчання, зі суттєвими соціально-економічними змінами. У зв'язку з цим ми також можемо спостерігати системні зміни в уявленнях студентів щодо своїх майбутніх професійних планів та очікувань, у їх соціально-психологічних установках, у кар'єрних орієнтаціях та перспективах. Метою нашого дослідження стало розкриття соці-ально-психологічних особливостей становлення професійних диспозицій студентів-психологів під час навчання у вищих навчальних закладах.

Проаналізовано підходи у вивченні соціально-психологічних аспектів формування професійних диспозицій, також наведено результати емпіричного дослідження соціально-психологічних особливостей професійних диспозицій студентів. На основі проведеного аналізу ми розглядаємо професійні диспозиції як сукупність соціально-психологічних установок, що відображають бажання оволодіти професією, готовність суб'єкта виконувати обов'язки, норми, приписи даної професії; кар'єрні орієнтації розглядаються як один із видів професійних диспозицій, що дає змогу передбачити траєкторію кар'єрного розвитку людини.

У результаті емпіричного дослідження виявлено пріоритетні професійні диспозиції і кар'єрні орієнтації студентів-психологів. Показано, що існує щонайменше п'ять різновидів професійних диспозицій, які зосереджені на: досягненнях; саморозвитку; життєвому благополуччі; цінностях професії; стабільності. За результатами нашого дослідження також виявлено ресурси, які можуть бути використані в процесі здобуття вищої освіти для подолання студентами емоційних, психологічних проблем, виходячи з актуальних професійних пріоритетів. Насамперед, це ресурси прихильності до обраної професії - орієн-тація на реалізацію цінностей професії, служіння, досягнення професійної компетентності, саморозвитку, досягнення високих результатів у своїй справі, а також ресурси сімейних стосунків, орієнтації на стабільне життєве благополуччя.

У продовженні подальших досліджень видається перспективною спрямованість на поглиблення розуміння основних тенденцій у формуванні професійних диспозицій та кар'єрних орієнтацій майбутніх фахівців у зв'язку з актуальними змінами в системі вищої освіти.

Ключові слова: професійні диспозиції, соціально-психологічні чинники, кар'єрні орієнтації, атитюди, професійне становлення.

Abstract

Spitsyna L.V.,

PhD (Candidate of Psychological Sciences), Associate Professor (Docent), the Department of Psychology, Zaporizhzhia National University

THE SOCIO-PSYCHOLOGICAL FEATURES OF THE PROFESSIONAL DISPOSITIONS OF STUDENTS BECOMING SPECIALISTS IN PSYCHOLOGY

Over the past year, the issue of students' professional development is becoming one of the most important, since it largely determines the development of all spheres of society in the near future. This year, very noticeable changes were noticed in university training, associated, first of all, with the global pandemic and the transition of many educational institutions to the online format of education, as well as with significant socio-economic changes. In this regard, we can also observe changes in students' ideas about their future professional tasks and opportunities, on their socio-psychological attitudes, career orientations and prospects. Taking into account the traditional interest in the topic of young specialists' professional priorities, we have noted an even greater increase in interest in this topic recently.

At the same time, as shown by the scientific-theoretical analysis, today we do not really have generalized works devoted to the study on social- psychological factors influencing higher education students' professional dispositions.

The aim of the research was to reveal the social-psychological features of psychology students' professional dispositions.

The approaches to the study on social-psychological aspects of the formation of students' professional dispositions and career orientations were analyzed to achieve the aim of our research. The article also presents the results of the empirical study on the social-psychological characteristics of students' professional dispositions.

Based on our analysis, we have defined professional dispositions as a set of social-psychological attitudes, reflecting an individual's readiness to perform tasks, to meet norms and prescriptions for a certain profession. Career orientations have been defined as a type of professional dispositions, which predict the trajectory of a person's career development.

There are also tendencies to group individual professional attitude and career orientations into integral professional priorities.

We determined five disparate professional dispositions, which focus on: achievements; well-being of life; values of the profession; self-development, stability. In addition, there was a tendency to group individual career priorities into a respondent's personal profile, which indicates students' focus on high achievement.

Our research also revealed possible resources that can be used by students during higher education training for coping with emotional, psychological problems, based on current professional priorities. First of all, we talk about resources of adherence to a chosen profession - orientation towards the realization of professional values, service, achievement of professional competence, self-development, achievement of high results in one's work, as well as such personal resources as family relations, life realization - orientation towards stable life.

Therefore, the further research is promising if it aim will be to deepen the understanding of the main trends in the formation of future professionals' professional dispositions and career orientations in connection with the actual changes in the higher education system.

Key words: social-psychological factors, professional dispositions, career orientations, attitudes, professional development.

Introduction

In the ХХІ century, the issue of students' professional development is becoming one of the most important, since it largely determines the development of all spheres of society in the near future.

Over the past year, very noticeable changes took place in university training, associated, first of all, with the global pandemic and the transition of many educational institutions to the online format of education, as well as with significant socio-economic changes. In this regard, we can also observe regular changes in students' ideas about their future professional tasks and opportunities, on their socio-psychological attitudes, career orientations and prospects. Taking into account the traditional interest in the topic of young specialists' professional priorities, recently, we have noted an even greater increase in interest in this topic.

Today we are taking into account these changes in social representations, and our study on professional orientations and dispositions is based on the work of many national and foreign authors.

Theoretical analysis of recent research and publications

psychological professional dispositions student

The scientific research on an individual's professional becoming was actively developed in the works of psychologists (Bodrov, 2001; Virna, 2003; Derkach, 1995; Zeyer, 2003; Klimov, 1993; Kokun, 2012; Kudryavtsev, 1983; Markova, 1996; Povarenkov, 2002; Pryazhnikov, 1996; Shadrikov, 1996); in the context of studying both individual aspects of professional development and integral process of an individual's professional formation and development (Bodalyov, 1998; Maksimenko, 2011; Punok, 2003; Shevchenko, 2005).

Many researchers (Begicheva, 2011; Volianyuk, 2006; Zeer, 2003; Klimov, 1993; Pryazhnikov, 1996; Tolochek, 2006; Shadrikov, 1996; Super, 1983; Schein, 2002) analyzed the patterns of professional becoming and career advancement, factors influencing the choice and development of a professional, his/her motivation and attitudes.

The study on professional dispositions and career orientations occupies a significant place in the examination of these patterns. Unfortunately, at present, it is hardly possible to find an unambiguous definition of these complex phenomena. Nevertheless, let us outline the main contours of the concepts under study.

We can define professional dispositions as a system of socio- psychological attitudes that reflect the desire to master a profession, an individual's readiness to perform tasks, to meet norms and prescriptions in his/her occupation.

There is no generally accepted definition of professional attitudes, and, according to the author, this fact is only a methodological reflection of the complexity of this phenomenon, because researchers focus on its separate aspects. Some researchers emphasized that professional attitudes reflected “the desire to master a profession, receive special training and achieve success in it, a certain social status” (Markova, 1996). Levitan defined professional dispositions as “an individual's readiness to perform tasks, to meet norms and prescriptions for a certain professional role, which includes both a psychological predisposition (positive attitude) to a certain professional activity, and professional skill for performing this activity” (Levitan, 1989).

There is also the approach according to which the professional attitudes were considered as “an active choice of tasks and modelling their own behaviour in accordance with them” (Kondakov, 1997). One of the widespread views on professional dispositions was their definition as a professionally growing subject's system of orientations to social requirements for professional work, psychological readiness to solve age- specific tasks of entering into the world of professions (Kudryavtsev & Shegurova, 1983).

One of the types of professional dispositions are career orientations, which are mostly defined as an individual's representation about their abilities, value orientations, motives, meanings and needs related to the promotion in a chosen occupation (Begicheva, 2011). The general development of professional representations in the field of career plans, career orientations, in fact, reflect social attitudes in the field of career, status advancement, and are the most consonant with the model used in American social psychology (Schein, 2002).

Understanding the socio-psychological factors influencing career orientations and professional attitudes strongly depends on a broad or narrow interpretation of a career. In the first case, a career is viewed as “professional growth, a transition from one level of professionalism to another”, and in this interpretation, professional attitudes describe the trajectory of a person's movement to the heights of professional “acme”. In the second case, a career is understood as job promotion, where “achieving a certain social status, occupying a certain position” comes to the fore (Markova, 1996, p. 123).

D. Super has started the tradition of considering career development as a certain sequence of stages, including “the sequence and combination of roles that a person performs throughout his/her life” (Super, 1983).

Considering the most generalized approach to division into periods for the professional formation processes, we can say about primary and secondary professiona l ization. Primary professionalization is seen as a process of becoming a specialist, during which an individual becomes a real subject of profe s sional activities and professional relations, receives a certain professional status and, thus, begins to realize the possibility of active participation in social processes (Bazilenko, 2014).

The key factor and th e central component of the primary professionalization i s the professional training, when future specialists obtain a specialty in universities or other professional educational institutions. The main purpose of vocational education in this period is to acquire certain knowledge, skills and abilities necessary for the successful implementation of particular professional work. In the socio-psychological dimension, the most important tasks of this period are the formation in future professionals o f socio-professional qualities, beliefs, worldviews, most of which are fixed in the form of socio-psychological and professional dispositions that create the foundation for further professionalism.

Continuing this tradition, Pryazhnikov considered the career building as a process of professional self-determination with constant choices: after leaving school, after graduating from university, when moving to other professional field (P r yazhnikov, 1996). Professional self-determination was considered by this scientist as an integral part of life and personal selfdetermination. That is why a career, professional and social attitudes are correlated. Within the same approach, several studies were carried out in the field of professional becoming (Klimov, 1988; Chistyakova, 1993), in which the emphasis was placed on personal aspects of this process (Mogilevkin, 2007).

Researchers' attention was also focused on identifying attitudes in relation to certain aspects of career development - career motivation (Super, 1983; Pryazhnikov, 1996), career specialization, subjective career success (Mogilevkin, 2001; Mutet, 2003), career crises, including the crisis of professional expectations (Moos, 1986; Shlossberg, 1996).

There is also the approach showing that so-called role transitions take place during the transition to the next stage of professional development (Sokil & Lois, 1984); such transitions are accompanied by changes in psychosocial dispositions, beliefs about oneself or about the organizational and social environment.

At the same time, as shown by the scientific-theoretical analysis, today we do not really have generalized works devoted to the study on social- psychological factors influencing higher education students' professional dispositions. The object of the research: the professional dispositions of students in psychology.

The aim of the research: to reveal the social-psychological features of psychology students' professional dispositions.

The research participants. The total sample consisted of 260 respondents, aged from 19 to 23 years. The sample was homogeneous in terms of social status (all respondents were students and acquired the same specialty - Psychology). Regarding gender distribution, the sample consisted mainly from women (76, 5% of the respondents). Accordingly, 23, 5% of the respondents indicated that they were men.

Methods and tasks of the research

We used Crites' Career Maturity Inventory modified by Kondakov to achieve the main research objectives. The professional dispositions were examined with five bipolar scales (factors) that determined the implementation of multidirectional dispositions in the situation of a professional choice. Depending on values obtained by a respondent for a certain scale, his/ her dispositions can b e identified as the indecision in professional choice, rationalism of profes s ional choice, optimism about the professional future, high self-esteem and the dependence in professional choice.

Schein's Career Ancho г s method examining career orientations was used in the translati o n and adaptation of Chiker-Vynokurova; this method identified significance of the main value-professional orientations of the examined respondents regarding their career development, such as technical/functional, general managerial, autonomy/independence, security/stability, entrepreneurial creativity, service/dedication to a cause, pure challenge, lifestyle.

The descriptive statistics, correlations and factor analyses were used for statistical processing of the obtained data. The obtained empirical data were processed with the statistical software package SPSS 21.0 for Windows.

Analysis of the research results

As we have already noted, students' primary professionalization takes place during their study in higher educational institutions; the specificity of this stage is that students become real subjects of professional activities and professional relations while they master a chosen specialty (Kokun, 2012; Pryazhnikov, 1996). But it is important that the specialty acquisition does not exhaust the content of this stage of professionalization. This process is reflected not only in the acquisition of certain knowledge, skills and abilities necessary for the successful professional work, but also in the formation of future professionals' system of socio-professional beliefs, worldviews, socio-psychological and professional dispositions (Spitsyna, 2014; Begicheva, 20l1).

That is why, at the first stage of our research, we proceeded from two main tasks: to identify the features of students' career orientations and to find out their possible correlations. For this purpose, we analyzed the data obtained with Schein's Career Anchors.

According to the obtained data, the most stable and a significant career orientation for student psychologists was “service/ dedication to a cause”. Other orientations were quite individual and their importance was only at the level of trends. In particular, such trends were observed for the orientations “lifestyle” and, to a lesser extent, “pure challenge”.

At the same time, the most common career orientation was “service/ dedication to a cause”, the most common as a subcontracting one was the “pure challenge” orientation, the least significant career orientation was “stability of a place of life”.

In order to analyze qualitatively students' career orientations, correlation coefficients were calculated for the obtained data (Table 1).

Table 1