Survey of students‘ professional motivation

When assessing students‘ personalities and motives of the profession choice generally the paradigm of education for the career is followed, which is based on the coherence of student‘s individuality and expression of sociality. The latter paradigm suggests that a student, when choosing a profession, must firstly understand his/her own personal relationship with the object of the chosen profession. Therefore, it is important to evaluate the main motives of profession choice, which affect both the students‘ choice of degree programs and perception of the career category as well as methodologies of educational technologies of the projected study programs. Authors of the article when exploring motivational assumptions of the career posed the aim of the study – to identify the level of professional motivation expression among the students of Pharmacy Technique and Cosmetology study programs at Kauno Kolegija / University of Applied Sciences (KK), Health Care Faculty (HCF). The study was intended to support (or disprove) the following hypotheses: 1) it is presumed that the effective professional career development of the HCF KK students’ is mostly influenced by the motives of professional excellence. 2) it is probable that professional motivation between the students of Pharmacy Technique and Cosmetology study programs differs significantly. In the study the quantitative research method has been used – a questionnaire survey applying methodology of motivation study meant for determining motives of vocational activities. 194 Pharmacy Technique and Cosmetology program students of the first, second and third year, studying at KK Health Care Faculty participated in the survey. It has been found that the higher year of the students the more professional motivation of the students is weakening (p=0,024), and motivation for learning is being increasingly supported not by the ambition to achieve higher competence at work but by the motives of social sign It has been found that the higher year of the students the more professional motivation of the students is weakening (p=0,024), and motivation for learning is being increasingly supported not by the ambition to achieve higher competence at work but by the motives of social significance of the job. The reason for the lowering professional motivation among the Cosmetology program students is associated with the not so fast fulfilling professional expectations and with the necessary great efforts of will to achieve higher professional mastery. Professional motivation among the Pharmacy Technique program students starts to increase during the third year of studies