Motivation of educational activity as the main trigger of the improvement of dental students’ academic success in the discipline of “Therapeutic stomatology”

Special attention should be paid to the motivation of educational process, because, the motives themselves, directly affect the quality of professional training and the formation of a professional personality. The aim of the article is to investigate the motivational structure of the students’ educational activity in the dental community and its relationship with academic achievement in the discipline “Therapeutic dentistry”. The structure of motivation for the educational activity of 161 fourth year dental students was studied by the methodology of I. T. Ilyina, which involves the study of motivation according to three scales: “Acquisition of knowledge”, “Mastering the profession” and “Obtaining a diploma”. The interrelation between different types of motivation and the academic success of the interviewed students is studied. It was established that in the structure of motivation of educational activity of dental students positive motives prevail over negative ones in 2.4 times, which indicates the qualitatively high level of motivation of these students. The rather high level of motivation of the interviewed students is probably related to the prestige of the chosen profession, its social significance and sufficient material security. With students who have high and average index of academic achievement cognitive and professional motives are uppermost, which indicates their orientation to obtain strong professional knowledge and practical skills. Students with a low index of academic achievement have a dominant pragmatic motivation for learning, which indicates their superficial motivation in order to achieve the main goal — obtaining a diploma. The given results testify to the favorable influence of positive motivation on academic achievement of students of the dental profile and, as a consequence, on the level of professional training of doctors in the field of “Dentistry”. The prospect of further research is the introduction into the educational processes of the Department of Therapeutical Stomatology in National Pirogov Memorial Medical University innovative pedagogical methods that motivate for educational activity, and research of their influence on the level of academic achievement of dental students.