Abstract:

The choice of educational trajectory is an extremely important and challenging task for both recent high school graduates and those who already have qualifications and want to continue their education. Despite a variety of vocational tests available, most of them either have low reliability and validity or only assess students' hard and soft skills. According to numerous research, in addition to acquired knowledge and skills (whose level of changeability and complementarity is quite high), it is also important to take into account personal characteristics of students, as they directly affect behavioural tendencies, learning styles, and interaction with others.

The aim of our project was to develop a psychometric assessment tool to evaluate the alignment of personal characteristics of the HSE University applicants with the chosen educational trajectory. The assessment tool can help students find or adjust their educational environment in a way that is comfortable, interesting, and manageable from the very beginning. For the pilot project, 5 master's programs at the Higher School of Economics (HSE) in Moscow were selected. The novelty of the project lies in the methodology of designing the tool's content: the set of necessary personal characteristics is formulated based on the expert opinions of academic program leaders, as well as through interviews of groups (students and graduates) with significantly expressed student characteristics. Therefore, the tool can provide quite a precise measure of the personal characteristics rather than knowledge or skills necessary for a comfortable study process.

The test results provide additional information to the students about their potential opportunities, thus making them more responsible for their educational choices. The high agency of students is one of the key factors for both successful progress and successful completion of their studies. By taking responsibility, along with the freedom of action, the student is better able to maintain motivation at a high level, reducing the chance of not completing their education by quitting at any stage.

Keywords:

Personal traits, psychometric instrument, educational choice, enrolment.