Identity Formation: Role of Academic Achievement and Gender Among College Students

Abstract

Erikson's work on identity development focused on the question, 'who am I'? As in society, identity formation is argued to be one of the key developmental tasks. This study aims to explore identity formation among undergraduate college students of Punjab across gender and achievement. The study was carried out on 200 undergraduate students (80 males and 120 females) from colleges under Punjab University, Chandigarh. The objective was to measure the Ego Identity Status which was done by using a tool developed by Bennion and Adams (1986). Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to test the hypothesis formulated for the study. It was found that majority of undergraduate college students are in diffusion and achievement identity status. Female students outnumbered the male students in 'Identity Achievement', 'Foreclosure' and 'Moratorium' status. There were no significant gender differences in the academic achievement of undergraduate college students. There was an interaction effect of gender and identity formation on achievement. It was found that among males identity achievement and foreclosure identity status groups performed better than moratorium and diffusion groups of undergraduate college.