Vocational self-determination of students: components of the structure and support tools

Introduction. According to the data of the International Labor Organization, in all states of the world, regardless of the group of countries they belong to according to the economic model “core – periphery”, the unemployment rate and the employment level in jobs that do not require qualifications raise concerns. Young people suffer the most from the employment crisis. The current socio-economic situation in Russia, taking into account the global recommendations formulated in world-scale documents, brings to the fore the training of highly qualified specialists already at the level of general education. Aim of the study: to develop a structural model of professional self-determination and universal tools for the identification, accumulation, and support of students’ professional self-determination. Materials and methods. The material of the study included sources revealing the theory and existing practice of vocational guidance work, as well as the current regulatory documents governing its organization in general education institutions. The research applied the comparative method, aimed at revealing the invariable structural components of the studied phenomenon, and the descriptive method, used to characterize its specific aspects. KEYWORDS professional self-determination, professional future, support Results. The authors established the structure of professional self-determination, including four components: motivational, basic, operational, and communicative. The first component shows the subject’s aspiration for self-realization in professional activity. The second component characterizes the coherence of a person’s natural psychophysical features with the kind of professional activity he or she prefers. The third component is the internalized general labor and special operational-regulatory actions of the labor activity desired for the subject. The fourth component is the ability to engage in socio-professional communication. The above-mentioned components are accepted as criteria for analyzing the formation of professional self-determination as a whole. The content of each criterion is determined by indicators, the assessment of which helps to determine the quality of the subject’s professional self-determination in a certain age period. Unified indicators and possible criteria that characterize them will make it possible to determine the actual level of students’ professionalization, to present it through the construction of an individual profile, and to suggest directions of work in the field of career guidance. Conclusion. The obtained research materials are significant for identifying the degree of maturity of students’ professional self-determination and deepening the teachers-navigators’ understanding of the essence of professionalization support. The use of the proposed toolkit will help to create conditions for filling the gaps in professional self-determination, correcting defects, and further prospective development.