The Relationship Between Personal And Motivational Characteristics And The Success Of First-Year Medical University Students Teaching

Abstract

Background. Among the urgent problems facing higher education today, special attention is paid to the problem of successful mastering by students of the chosen specialties, which is impossible without proper adaptation to the conditions of the new social environment.

 Objective. The purpose of the work was to study the personal and social motives, the peculiarities of the adaptation processes of first-year medical university students and their connection with the form of recruitment and the order of admission to study, academic performance and expulsion.

 Methods. The paper uses the method of psychometric research (through anonymous testing), which includes methods for diagnosing personal adaptive potential (behavioral regulation, communicative potential, moral normativity) and assessing personal and social motives for learning (the need for external stimulation, the level of subjective control). The personal and social motives for learning, personal adaptive potential of 198 first-year students of Sechenov University (Moscow, Russian Federation) were investigated. The results were processed using the hardware-software psychodiagnostic complex “Multipsychometer”.

 Findings. The conducted research has shown a direct, statistically significant correlation between personal and social motives for learning and the level of personal adaptive potential of students with the success of their studies, depending on the form of recruitment and the order of admission to the university, which is essential for the prognosis of the development of medical specialties. Thus, integral indicators on the scales of questionnaires of students studying at the expense of budgetary allocations allowed them to be attributed to a group with more effective adaptive capabilities. At the same time, their academic performance was 7% higher compared to students of other comparison groups. Integral psychometric indicators of students who signed a contract for tuition on a paid basis were on average 10% lower than those of other comparison groups, which indicates less effective adaptive capabilities. At the same time, students in this group were 7% more predisposed to conflict initiation, delinquent behavior and had significantly lower academic performance. In addition, more than 50% of students who were expelled for two years of study at the university studied under a contract on a fee basis.

 Conclusions. The generalized Russian and foreign experience, as well as the results obtained in the course of this study, are the methodological basis for the development of psychodiagnostic tools used in additional entrance tests of medical university applicants in order to identify and then possible correction of personality qualities and properties, forecasting and forming an individual educational trajectory and improving the work of all participants in the educational process.