Psychological characteristics of the level formation of students’ professional identity

Abstract

The authors of the article consider the topic of professional identity as a criterion for professional development and formation of students. The article provides the description of stages in formation of students’ professional identity depending on the type of individual’s activity: school, academic, educational-professional, and professional; and the status of professional identity, depending on the degree of its formation: achieved identity, moratorium, premature, diffused, pseudo-identity. The article also presents research data of scientists on the relationship between the status of professional identity and the year of study at the university. It reflects the distinctive characterological features of the process itself: cyclical, activity-related, probabilistic, fluctuant and individual. The authors consider the psychological characteristics of students at different stages of the formation of their professional identity: the ability for reflection, self-knowledge and self-understanding, the ability to set goals that are adequate to their needs and the ability to achieve them, an active desire for meaningfulness and orientation of their lives, empathy, attitude to the chosen profession, and commitment to self-development. People with different statuses of identity also differ in other criteria: in style of thinking, in cultural interests, in style of communication and depth of relationship. The formation of professional identity occurs by overcoming crises in which person resolves the contradictions between social and professional requirements for them, on the one hand, and their personal desires, abilities and capabilities, on the other. A prerequisite for the formation of identity is person’s self-determination in profession and ideology.