Abstract
As they make the transition to tertiary study, first year students adopt complex new identities. In professional courses, this entails both academic and professional identities. This paper reports on a study of the first year experience at UNSW Canberra (the Australian Defence Force Academy). UNSW Canberra aims to provide a quality liberal education for future military officers. With on-going military training and supervision, students develop a strong sense of professional identity as members of the Defence Forces. But what of their identity as scholars? This paper discusses the question of academic identity in an institution with a specific professional goal and reflects on the implications for learning advisers and lecturers in professional courses at other universities. Using a framework of social identity complexity, our findings suggest that students who manage these dual identities effectively are more likely to succeed than those who are unable to reconcile their professional and academic selves.
Highlights
As they make the transition to tertiary study, first year students adopt complex new identities
This paper reports on a study of first year university students in Australia’s military academy, UNSW Canberra
This paper uses Roccas and Brewer’s model to analyse the emerging identities of first year students at UNSW Canberra, the Australian Defence Force Academy, a context in which military and academic identities interact in complex ways
Summary
Identity has long been recognised as a central factor in student learning, closely related to key determinants of student learning such as engagement, motivation and self-efficacy. While identity formation is always dynamic and fragile, for first year students entering the world of tertiary learning, there are particular challenges As they experience new lives, interact with new people, and meet new disciplines and new ways of constructing knowledge, they are simultaneously working out how they position themselves in terms of this new academic community. In the specific context of social work education for example, Kaighin and Croft (2013) note that students’ sense of connection is key to engagement and academic success These researchers aimed to develop students’ sense of identity as social workers, as well as students, by inviting guest speakers from the profession and arranging internships (p.118). The link between identity and learning outcomes has been demonstrated empirically by Yopyk and Prentice (2005) who found that student athletes who were primed with their student identity before completing a Maths test performed much better than when primed with the athlete identity
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