Smyslova, M.M.

Background. To date, a significant number of researchers have noted the shortage of highly qualified scientific personnel employed in research organizations. It is due to a number of reasons, among which emigration of scientists to those countries where highly qualified work is paid higher can be marked. In this regard, issues related to the international mobility of postgraduate students, including educational mobility, are very important.

Objective. The study focuses on the socio-psychological characteristics of postgraduate students’ attitudes to educational migration.

Study Participants. The study involved students of postgraduate schools at research organizations involved in the training of graduate students in the field of educational sciences, as well as pedagogical universities in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and other regions of the Russian Federation. A total of 803 respondents were interviewed.

Methods. The article is based on the materials of a monitoring questionnaire.

Results. The study revealed a connection between socio-demographic factors (gender, age) and attitudes related to educational migration: men more often indicate a desire to improve their professional qualifications abroad; with age, the number of graduate students wishing to study abroad decreases. In addition, the influence of socio-stratification factors (the income level of graduate students and the educational status of the family) on attitudes towards educational migration was revealed: high-income graduate students, as well as those graduate students whose parents have academic degrees, are more focused on professional development abroad. The study also showed that migration attitudes related to temporary educational migration are significantly more widespread among graduate students than among researchers.

Conclusion. The attitudes of graduate students related to educational migration are determined by the influence of a number of socio-demographic and sociostratification factors. At the same time, studying abroad is considered as a career elevator, primarily by those postgraduate students who do not plan to link their further professional activities with scientific work and teaching at budgetary institutions. Also, the larger migration mobility has been revealed in postgraduate students as a socio-professional group in comparison with researchers.

The relevance of the study of the socio-psychological well-being of graduate students (including such an indicator of social well-being as their assessment of the significance of various life fears and threats) is associated with the intensive changes taking place with the Institute of postgraduate studies in connection with the transition to the “economy of knowledge”, as well as with the socio-economic and socio-cultural processes that are transforming Russian society.

Objectives. The study of socio-psychological features of life fears of graduate students depending on the influence of socio-demographic, socio-stratification and socio-psychological factors.

Methods and selection. The article is based on the materials of an anonymous monitoring questionnaire conducted in 2019 by employees of the Information and analytical center of Russian Academy of education. The study involved students of post-graduate research organizations that train post-graduate students in the field of education Sciences, as well as pedagogical universities in Moscow and the regions of the Russian Federation. Empirical data were processed using mathematical statistics methods (statistical software packages SPSS and StatSoft Statistica).

Results. The paper analyzes the influence of socio-demographic, socio-stratification and socio-psychological factors on the assessment of life fears and threats by graduate students. The relationship between the assessment of life fears by postgraduate students and the assessment of their life prospects, material and family status, the level of education of parents, and the presence of emigration plans is shown. The correlation analysis revealed a stable, age-independent structure of fears and threats for graduate students.

Conclusions. Graduate students' assessment of the importance of life fears is determined by the influence of a number of socio-demographic, socio-stratification and socio-psychological factors. The conducted special correlation analysis showed that the basis of the structure of graduate students 'fears is a complex complex that includes six interrelated “centers”: “risk of losing health”, “economic failure”, “lack of professional prospects”, “lack of social protection”, “unemployment”, “tightening of the regime in the country”.