Ulyana B. Mikheeva

Examination on the self-efficacy among Psychology majors can help to understand the factors influencing their professional development and success in their future careers. This may be useful information for developing and improving educational programs and teaching methods in the field of psychology. The purpose of the article is to show the results of an empirical study of the self-efficacy of psychology students. The sample consisted of 83 students of the Federal State Budgetary Educational Institution of Higher Education "Petrozavodsk State University", Department of Psychology. As a result of the study, it was found out that the professional self-efficacy depending on the course of study is a clear manifestation of the Dunning-Kruger effect – the assessment of their own knowledge by 1-st year students (3.90) and 2-nd year students (4.42) exceeds the assessment by 3-d year students (3.80). The overall level of self-efficacy decreases proportionally from the 1st to the 4th year of study.

The focus of this article is a discussion of the professional motivation for Psychology majors. The purpose of the article is to show the results of an empirical study of the professional motivation for students majoring in Psychology from the point of view of general professional motivation, its orientation (internal, external) and factors of attractiveness/unattractiveness of the future profession. The sample consisted of 83 students of the Petrozavodsk State University. It was found that high motivation for professional activities prevails among students. Factors of attractiveness and unattractiveness vary depending on the year of training and specialization of psychology students. Students with lower professional motivation in the field of Psychology are characterized by lower internal motivation.