Subjective determinants of social activity of the student youth

Faculty of Psychological and Pedagogical and Special Needs Education, Saratov State University, 410012 Saratov, Russia

^* Corresponding author: arend-irina@yandex.ru

Abstract

The article contains the analysis of peculiarities of social activity of students at different levels of professional education, aimed at the identification of typical spheres of its manifestation and subjective determinants. The sample contained 138 college and university students aged from 17 to 25 (Saratov Region, Russia). The questionnaire helped to explore forms of social activity and related spheres of life. In order to study subjective characteristics we used: the questionnaire for studying the structure of subjectivity (E. N. Volkova, I. A. Seregina), ’’Level of personal subjectivity development’’ technique (M. A. Shchukina), personality self-determination test (B. Sheldon, modified by E. N. Osin). It has been shown that the most typical spheres of social activity manifestation among the student youth are leisure, virtual, and educational spheres of life. College students’ subjective determination of social activity was not revealed; its predictors among bachelor’s students are level characteristics of subjectivity development ’’mediation–immediacy’’ and personality’s self-determination markers ’’autonomy’’ and ’’self-expression’’, while level characteristics among master’s students are ’’creativity–mediocrity’’, ’’autonomy–dependency’’, ’’integrity–non-integrability’’, and ’’self-development’’. The higher the level of professional education received by students, the less pronounced is their social activity, which is becoming more and more determined by personal subjective characteristics.