THE EFFECT OF THE TRAINING PROGRAMME ON STUDENTS MOTIVATION FOR RESEARCH ACTIVITY

Abstract

One of the main goals of higher professional education is to provide national communities with highly qualified human resource. In turn, the global challenge of transition to a knowledge-based society influences the national systems of professional training and predetermines a substantial increase in the role of innovations and scientific research in the countries’ economic and social progress. Therefore, it is essentially important that the system of professional education be aimed at developing students’ research competence in higher educational settings. As shown, the Russian students are mainly aware of the necessity of research work as a part of the educational curriculum and its importance. On the other hand, most of them do not have much interest in their own research projects. The paper discusses the problem of students’ motivation for research activity from the psychological-acmeological point of view. This approach seems to be beneficial since it takes into account the idea of sustainable development and lifelong learning. The study presented was aimed at evaluating the effect of the training programme on students’ motivation for research activity which was implemented into the educational process. The results of the programme implementation have shown a significant change in students’ motives for doing research among undergraduate students whose majors were natural sciences, mathematics and electrical engineering. Key words: higher professional education, personal and professional development, research activity, research-based teaching, students' motivation.