An analysis of psychological research on the problems of motivation of subjects of educational activities is presented. The essence of motivation is considered, the main domestic and foreign approaches to understanding the motivation of human activity and behavior, and to its development in education are systematized. The processes of transformation of students' cognitive motivation into professional motivation in contextual learning, in which the subject and social content of the acquired professional activity are modeled, are analyzed. Methods for studying motivation are described and an extensive list of references is provided. For teachers and students of humanities and technical universities, researchers, and all those who are interested in problems of human motivation.