Psychological readiness of Master’s degree students for further academic career

Inga Leonavičiūtė Paper for Master’s degree Psychological readiness of Master’s degree students for further academic career Psychological career readiness includes obtaining of personal, professional, educational and social competence, ability to assume responsibility for one’s activity and to purposefully act in changing situation, i.e. it determines the further career development. Career readiness assessment is important for a person while choosing occupational activities and making choice in favour or prejudice of a career since it allows better understanding of one’s intentions and thus facilitates the decision-making process. The aim of investigations was to analyse the psychological readiness for academic career of students doing their Master’s degree in Psychology. The objectives of the investigations were as follows: 1. To reveal the approach to studies of the students doing their Master’s degree in psychology. 2. To analyse students’ attitudes towards their professional future. 3. To compare the assessment of readiness for academic career of the students doing their Master’s degree in Vilnius Pedagogical University, Vilnius University and Mykolas Riomeris University. 4. To elucidate how the students conceive the academic career. 5. To compare the peculiarities of the approach to academic career readiness of the full-timers to that of the external students. 6. To assess the interdependence between the satisfaction from the studies and the self-assessment of the students. 171 first and second-year students doing their Master’s degree in Vilnius Pedagogical University, Vilnius University and Mykolas Riomeris University participated in the investigations. The results obtained have shown, that the full-timers ( =1,86; σ=1,02) and external students ( =1,81; σ=1,15) consider their studies first and foremost as knowledge which was ranged by them as most important. The second place was given by both the groups to learning as comprehension conception. 83.6% of students pointed out that they would choose psychology as profession, however only 30% of them would choose the academic career. The respondents, as compared by both the form of studies and the University, conceive the academic career as life-long learning and extending one’s knowledge and skills improvement. Academic career readiness, as was noted by both the full-time and external students, first of all means an exceptional interest in the subject studied ( =1,86; σ=1,02). The analysis of satisfaction with Master’s degree studies has shown that the attitude of full-time students whether it is difficult to study statistically meaningfully differs from that of external students ( =1,81; σ=1,15). It has been determined that a statistically meaningful positive relation exists between students’ self-assessment and the satisfaction with their studies. The students satisfied with their studies possess higher self- assessment.Švietimo akademijaVytauto Didžiojo universiteta