Abstract
<p>This article attempts to solve the problem of developing and applying a value-based approach to the formation of the professional potential of students, which is manifested in the contradiction between the need for a scientific approach to the formation of the professional potential of students, ensuring the stability of the state socio-professional reproduction system and its personnel sovereignty, and the lack of a scientific and methodological base sufficient for its study and subsequent formation. The purpose of this article is to describe the author's methodology for studying the value basis of the professional potential of students, as well as the results of its testing. The empirical basis of the study was the results of a sociological survey conducted by the author based on an empirical model of the analysis of the professional potential of students developed earlier (students of universities and branches in 36 regions of the Russian Federation; N = 3864); the data analysis was carried out using the descriptive statistics method. The article analyzes the attitude of students to the terminal and instrumental values of society declared by the state, which form the basis of the professional potential of students as their desired image, which, depending on the level of internalization, are distributed among structural levels. In addition, the article suggests a scheme for assessing the professional potential of students, which is a calculation of the integral indicator of the formation of two groups of values: terminal and instrumental. The article concludes that the value basis of the professional potential of students is very heterogeneous, which is explained by the specifics of the implementation of youth policy, while at the same time determining the prospects for its implementation. The proposed methodology can be used both during further study of the country's student youth and can be expanded to other socio-professional groups.Author's English translation of the article published in Russian: Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. Sociology, 2025, vol. 18, iss. 3, pp. 284-301 (EDN LPWJHD). The Russian original is the version of record. Archived version of this translation: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21508549</p>