The image of the future profession among psychology students at the initial stage of professional training

Abstract

The article deals with issues of studying and shaping the image of a future profession as conceived by psychology students at first stages of their professional training in higher education institutions. The topicality of the research lies in the necessity to design a model for building the future profession’s image in this group of students. Such a model should advance knowledge of the occupation being obtained and of the future professional activities. The research objective was the theoretical and empirical substantiation of the model for shaping the image of a future profession among psychology students at the initial stage of vocational training at a university. The study suggests that the structure of image of the future profession consists of three parts: motivational, cognitive, and emotional. These components are interconnected, building an integrated whole, which was confirmed by correlation and factor analyses. Five types of the image of future profession were identified in psychology students. At the stage of the ascertaining experiment of the study, the following distribution of the sample according to the types of image of the future profession was revealed: “Non-professional” and “Professional marginal”— 33%, “Professionally Knowledgeable”— 48%, “Pre-professional” and “Professional”— 19%. The study proved that the formation of the image of the future profession among psychology students at the initial stage of professional training can be facilitated by the introduction of a comprehensive program. The results of the study will be useful to universities in shaping the image of the future profession of first-year students.