Ylanova A., k.p.n. Ivanyushkin A., k.f.n. Sharova M., k.e.n. Gubina N.

Kaluga State University named after K. E. Tsiolkovsky, Russia

Modern student’s educational capital’s impact on his attitude to studies, results and future professional activity

The investigation of dependence of strategies of modern students’ life was conducted in October 2015 in Kaluga’s State University (KSU) by teachers and students of departments of Philosophy and Sociology, who are studying «Organization of working with young people» at the KSU’s Institute of Social Relations’.

One of this investigation’s aims was to clear up, if the modern students’ educational capital influences their motivation in choosing the domain of study, behavioral strategies in the studying’s process and also the notion of their future career. Survey was chosen as the main method of Investigation. Full-time KSU students of different ages seeking a bachelor's degree: from-the first- year students to the fourth-year students - formed the statistical universe. The selection of respondents from the total of 240 was realized by the method of cluster sample.

The direct relation of the educational capital of a modern student’s family to his attitude towards the educational process and the results of studying was assumed as the operational hypothesis, that means that the students will manifest different attitude towards the studies – its process and results - depending on whether their parents have got a higher education or not.

Today's young have found themselves in quite a tight situation in selection and getting the professional education and future job if compared to their parents.

Modern young people’s parents have got education in 1980-1990 the time marked by the impact of the Soviet ideology, with its «worker’s» worship and correspondingly with the high esteem of the secondary special education. But the ideology has changed, the unstable economic situation and the market dictated rather tough terms, while the demographic downturn and the commercialization of education enable the majority of people concerned to get the second education - the higher one. Due to these reasons the prestige of the secondary special education has declined nowadays, and the higher education is considered to be essential, offering hope (often illusive) to get a high-ranking and highly paid job.

As a result of the changes stated above the key aspects of the higher education system have changed:

· First of all, intellectual and general education level of an average student in the system of higher school. For example, the statistic analysis of the passing scores to universities in 1990s and 2000s shows its decline at least by 1 point.

· Secondly, the goals of the higher education. The priorities have shifted from the high value of the professional education (which importance was pointed out by 53% of the respondents) to the degree’s high value (its importance was pointed out by 82% of the respondents)

The results of another similar study, where the problem of the aim of getting education was raised as an alternative, showed that 40% of the students pursued the knowledge, 30% of the students – the degree, and the others’ reasons had nothing with the profession. The survey of the students from different faculties (both the humanities and natural sciences) shows, that no more than 1/3 of the total intended to link their lives to the profession. The disappointing statistics are confirmed by the fact, that only 27% of the students envisage their oncoming profession in detail, 57% - in general, and 16% of the respondents never imagine it.

This statistics are especially regrettable because 50% of the respondents are half-graduates and 25% - seniors. What is the reason for such statistics? Is it a University with a poor quality of education to blame, or the reason is that the education and future job are no more related in the minds of nowaday students? To make the situation clear, let’s examine some more questions and answers.

To begin with, let’s verify the university’s blame. In the course of the responses’ analysis it became clear that 71% of respondents liked to study in general, 82% said that the teachers paid them enough attention, 81% answered that the necessary facilities were available. 35% of the respondents spent no less than 3-4 hours for their independent work, 65% spent 1-2 hours every day. 74% of the students used more that 50% of their abilities and skills in their studies. All in all nothing hampered 2/3 of the students in studying, except for their own laziness and inorganization (50% of the students mentioned them). 25% of students answered that their attempts to earn a little extra hampered their study, but this had no effect on their progress in studies (only 12% of the working students noted some decline in their academic performance or 6% of the total sample).

So we can conclude that the quality of the educational process isn’t perfect, but it satisfies students and it meets the existing standards, hence we should look for the reasons of priorities’ shifting in another sphere.

Let’s examine the version concerning the loss of correlation between the standards of study and the future job. 62% of respondents answered that they had chosen the University to study all by themselves, the rest answered that they had acted according to somebody’s advice. To the question «How many years ahead you make your life’s plans?» a half of the respondents answered that they were planning only their near future – less than a year, 31% of respondents made plans for next 2-5 years, 11% - for next 5-10 years, i.e. within their youth and early adulthood, only 4,5% of the respondents planed their lives for more than 10 years. So the majority of the students don’t consider their professional activity and that means that when choosing the domain of study they were guided not by what they were planning to do, but by the everyday logic, such as «it’s easier to get a high-ranking and highly paid job when you got higher education», or «all employers nowadays require higher education», or «I’ll choose the university where I can pass by my exams’ points». The question about the modern students’ fears revealed that the fears are mainly referred to the problems of the job placement to make a living (52% and 41%, correspondingly).

The confirmation of this is found in the answers to question concerning possible continuation of education. 34% of the respondents are going to start working immediately on their graduation, 50% of the respondents are going to continue their education, though half of them are going to choose some other sphere. The fact that the future career isn’t connected with the education (need to say that 50% of students are trying to earn a little extra) is indirectly proved by the observation that only 15% of students attempts to earn a little extra are closely connected with the sphere of their education, 23% of students’ attempts to earn a little extra slightly connected with their sphere of education, 60% of students state no relation between their work and education.

To understand whether these trends were caused by the objective terms of the environment such as economic and political instability of our society, globalization, or by the increase of intensity of different changes… or whether it is connected with the quality and quantity changes of modern students of the higher school, it is expedient to examine if there is difference in the answers of the students with the different level of their parents’ education. We divided the students in 3 groups according to the level of their parents’ education: both parents have a higher education (high level of the educational capital), only 1 parent has a higher education (middle educational capital), and the group where the parents haven’t got a higher education (low educational capital).

There are some differences within groups of students with the different level of their educational capital:

1. An impact of their parents’ education on the intention to get a higher education is absolutely insignificant. The number of students whose parents haven’t got a higher education is higher only by 5% than the number of students with both parents having higher education.

2. The educational capital doesn’t strongly influence the intention to continue the education. The parents’ education insignificantly affects the plans to continue their children education in some other sphere (21-25%).

3. The students with the low educational capital prefer to spend less time for their independent work (61% vs. 45%). The percentage of the students from all the groups who don’t fulfill their independent work is average.

4. The usage of the students’ abilities in the educational process and their activity in the university’s scientific life don’t depend on the parents’ education.

5. The educational capital affected the influenceability in the process of choosing of a university to study in: in the families where parents haven’t got a higher education the percentage of those who decided all by themselves was higher (69 vs. 56%) compared to those who followed parents’ and teachers’ advice (32 vs. 19%).

6. Among the students who dislike studying (though there are few) there are twice as many from the group with the low educational capital than from the other groups (6% vs. 12%).

7. There are more by 10% students earning a little extra with a low educational capital than others (56% vs. 46%). There is a small tendency of the educational capital’s impact on the choice of occupation: when it’s high the attempts to earn a little extra more often are connected with the sphere of education (30, 37, 46%)

8. Alongside with the general tendency of students’ disposition to independence the family’s support is more important for the students with the high educational capital (28% provided that the average is 20%). The students with the average educational capital are the most independent (86% provided that the average is 79%).

9. The planning of job placement doesn’t depend on the educational capital. But as the educational capital increases the percentage of the students who prefer to work in their neighbourhood decreases (from 54 to 43%) and the number of those who want to travel in search of “a better life” increases. Almost half the students with the high education capital, who want to leave their region, would rather work abroad.

10. There is a tendency among the students with the high educational capital to prefer stability to risk. Almost a half of the students with the average educational capital (47 vs. 34% in other groups) prefer «small but stable earnings, sense of security», they are leading in the choice of their own business (30%), especially if compared to those who have the high educational capital (18%); and the lowest percentage of undecided (10% vs. 18% in the other two groups) and ready to work hard for hire (10% vs. 28% and 21% in other groups) are among them as well.

11. The Students with the different educational capital prefer self-realization to earning (26%-gap for the students with the high educational capital and 9% - for the students with the low educational capital).

12. As the educational capital increases the value of flextime insignificantly decreases (from 70% to 57%) and the value of the organizational microclimate (from 79 to 90%) and of a practice area (from 80 to 90%) increases. The level of the estimated income, the firm’s status, the opportunity of self-expression and of professional advancement are of equal value for the students with different educational capital levels.

Thus we see that the educational capital’s impact of the modern student bears little influence on his attitude to the studies and the result, hence the trends described above are caused by the objective changes in the socio-economic system of our society, which successively caused alteration of education as one of social institutions. The students with the high educational capital have a higher level of aspiration to their future job, but also they have more mature vision of the objective reality.

Literature

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3. Maximov V.F. The investing in people: Textbook, management, curriculum, tests on the discipline / Moscow State University of Economics, Statistics and Informatics. - M., 2004. - 48 p.