Abstract: Under the conditions of rapid development of the market of further educational services, multiple universities show interest in attracting the students to education upon the program of further professional education. From such perspective, it is extremely important to identify the significant social factors that greatly affect the representations of students regarding further education and their role in creation and establishment of motivation to continue education. This work focuses on analysis of the role of social representations on motivating students to receive further professional training during studying in the university. The research leans on the results of sociological surveys that involved 452 of the Russian students. The results were analyzed using the factor analysis, hierarchical cluster analysis, k-means clustering, and regression analysis. The authors examines the attitude of the Russian students towards further education using the six scales: 1) informedness about such programs; 2) social representations (content, conditions, price); 3) idea of the necessary characteristics of the programs and expectations; 4) desire to receive further professional training currently and in the future, as well as the impeding factors. The four basic representations about the further education have been determined in students’ consciousness. The results of the research demonstrate that social representation have a poor impact upon students’ desire to acquire further professional training during studying in the university, however have substantial effect in long-term perspective.

Abstract: This article reveals the character of establishment of the social capital of students and educators in the context of personal or academic communication as a resource of increasing the quality of education. The relevance of the concept of social capital is caused by the following circumstances: firstly, the professional success of students will depend mostly in the level of development of their communicational qualities and social capital; secondly, the support of civic and social activeness depends on the ability to establish the interpersonal and intergroup trustworthy relationships; and thirdly, mutual assistance within the educational environment does not always attract sufficient attention. For realization of the goals of the research, was created a survey consisting of 60 questions and involving 250 students and 86 educators. The authors determined the purposefulness of joint communication between the students and teachers, as well as characterized the level of trust alongside the level of readiness to provide mutual assistance within or outside the educational environment. The article reveals the key mechanisms of formation of the social capital: constant resolution of contradictions in the process of educational and extra-curricular communication within the existing level of trust between the students and educators, as well as readiness to provide help.