Investigates motives behind Soviet students' occupational choices. Discusses a survey of eighth-grade students in Berdiansk and upper-grade, rural and urban Crimean students. Finds that student interests provide the main motive for choice. Differentiates between motives and stimuli and between personal and social motives. Reports that 20.6 percent…

Examines relationships between student interests and aptitude in selected academic fields and their success in intensive courses on these subjects. Discusses a two-year study of 33 mathematics students and 32 literature students in the eighth and ninth grades in the Soviet Union. Shows that differentiated, intensive study did not strengthen…