Abstract:

Educational motivation is an important predictor of academic performance. There are also other factors of educational success: affiliative and achievement motivation, self-control, success orientation, goal setting, etc. We assumed that the educational motivation of university students is positively associated with systemic reflection. At the same time, there may be differences between students of technical and humanitarian fields.

The study involved 110 students (45 male, 65 female) aged 18 to 25 years. Of these, 57 respondents are students of social and humanitarian areas (psychology, sociology, linguistics) and 43 respondents are students of technical areas (mechanical engineering, nanotechnology, standardization and metrology, geodesy, cartography).

Methods were used to study educational motivation:
1) «Educational Motivation Questionnaire» (N. Badmaeva), which allows measuring communicative, professional, learning, cognitive, social motives, as well as motives of creative self-realization, avoidance, and prestige;
2) «Alienation from Study» (E. Osin);
3) «Differential Type of Reflection» (D. Leontiev et al.), which allows studying constructive and non-constructive reflection.

As a result of the comparative analysis, it was determined that students of the socio-humanitarian direction have more pronounced communicative (p=0.04), professional (p=0.00) and educational-cognitive (p=0.00) motives and less pronounced avoidance motives (p=0.00) compared to students of technical directions. Humanities students have less pronounced alienation from the study (p=0.00) and a higher level of systemic reflection (p=0.03). The gender factor has less influence on educational motivation and the level of reflection: it is observed only in relation to «rumination» (indicators are higher among female students) and social motives (indicators are higher among male students).

According to the results of correlation analysis, it was determined that non-constructive reflection (quasi-reflection) is strongly associated with alienation from the study, regardless of gender and direction of study (r=0.48; p=0.00). At the same time, systemic reflection is associated with educational (r=0.22; p=0.05), creative (r=0.38; p=0.00) and professional (r=0.27; p=0.01) motivation. Students who are capable of systemic reflection have a more complete picture of themselves in the educational process, they have the opportunity to realize their own role in educational achievements. On the contrary, alienation from study is negatively associated with these motives: educational and cognitive (r= -0.43; p=0.00), creative (r= -0.21; p=0.05) and professional (r= -0.48; p=0.00). Alienation from the study is expressed in the denial of one's own active role in the educational process, a sense of helplessness, and the idea of the impossibility of influencing one's own academic success.

The conclusion is made about the role of system reflection in the development of educational motivation of university students.

Keywords:

Educational motivation, systemic reflection, alienation, university students, socio-humanitarian and technical directions.