Student youth conceptualization of scientists’ work motivation: general and special aspects

Abstract

Background. The research relevance is determined by the increasing importance of involving talented youth in science. Revealing the ideas of student youth about the hierarchical structure of motivation for scientific activity will help in identifying and creating favorable conditions for young people to build a scientific career. 

Objective. The purpose of the study is to reveal general and special aspects of student youth conceptualization of positive and negative motives of the scientific activity. 

Sample. The investigation involvedthe bachelor, specialist and master degree students (N=721) from five universities, located in the Republic of Crimea, Nizhny Novgorod, Samara and Yaroslavl regions of the Russian Federation. 

Methods. The authors designed ad hoc questionnaire permitting to acquire common information about the respondents, to elicit their readiness to develop a scientific career, to reveal their conceptualization of positive and negative motives of the scientific activity. To process the data obtained a set of tools was applied: descriptive statistics, Mann — Whitney non-parametric U criterion, correlation analysis, cluster analysis. 

Results. In the student youth conceptualization, positive and negative motives of the scientific activity are formed into a motivational complex, where intrinsic work motivation prevails, extrinsic negative motivation occupies a middle position, and extrinsic positive motivation takes the third place. According to the students’ representations, the dominant positive motive of the scientists’ work is generativity (p = 0,021*), and the negative one is poor work conditions (p = 0,000**). 

Conclusion. In the student youth conceptualization, intrinsic motivation of scientists prevails over extrinsic negative and extrinsic positive ones; both positive and negative scientists’ work motivation contain three substructures of motives, that are conditionally nominated as the most important, important and the least important ones; the most important positive and negative motives of the scientific activity are determined, in the first place, by the needs for growth (self-realization, recognition, and esteem). The students, who are ready and not ready to follow a scientific career, imagine motivation of scientific activity in different ways.

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