Career trajectories of vocational education and training institutions’ students professional self-determination

Abstract

Theoretical aspects of the relationship between professional and career self-determination of vocational education and training institutions’ students are considered. It is established that developments in the theory and practice of professional self-determination are not sufficient to ensure in modern social and economic conditions the successful professional development of the individual at his post-оption stages. It is determined that one of the directions of this contradiction solving is the use of a competence approach to the professional development problems, as well as moving to research the professional self-determination of the individual through the definitions of “professional career” and “career self- determination”. The professional self-determination sphere includes only aspects concerning the formation of a person in the profession, the content of definitions of “career” and “professional career” includes other aspects of person’s life. The career context for an individual is wider than professional activity, as   it additionally contains life claims and nonprofessional aspects of life. According to this approach, it is reasonable to introduce the scientific concept of “career self-determination”; it can be considered as the process of creating the professional career image by person and determining the means of their realization. The psychological and pedagogical support of career self-determination presupposes  the use of, firstly, the tools for ensuring professional self-determination, i.e. professional orientation, and specific tools that develop psychological structures of personality concerning the future professional activity, but are wider and allow defining and implementing life plans.