Students’ Research Activity in the Context of Professional Self-Determination

. The period of studying in a professional educational organization is the most important in the life of a future specialist, as it is the time when a person becomes a participant of industrial relations, forms views on the profession, changes the system of values, develops motivation for professional activity. The strengthening of social and professional responsibility of a person should be accompanied by the strengthening of an educational institution’s responsibility for the quality of training of a specialist. Researchmethodology. Professional self-determination is considered by researches both as a process, and as the result of the development of a professional, each phase (stage) of which is characterized by different content. The age of adolescence plays here an important role, as the problem of choice of a profession becomes “an affective centre of the living situation” at that exact time. Researchresults. Competitiveness of a specialist becomes one of the priorities of improving the system of professional education in Russia and the most important criterion of its quality. This competitiveness includes not only the intimate knowledge of a profession, understanding of related areas of activity, readiness to practice the chosen profession effectively on a level with the highest world standards but also a high level of social and professional self-determination of graduates, developed self-concept of an individual. Discussion. The main characteristics of self-determination as a psychological and pedagogic phenomenon are belonging to a subject, procedurality, consciousness, self-sufficiency.Conclusion. Professional self-determination is an activity of a person (a component of personal self-determination) which is carried out during social development and maturity and, if necessary, adjusted with the help of a specially organized interference – career-guidance, teaching and educational process, theoretical and practical work.