Identity System in University Students: Transformation Dynamics during Learning Process

Abstract

Higher education is not only about professional knowledge and skills: it also develops one’s self-awareness. Students’ self-identity changes as they expand their competencies and self-awareness, master new activities, and develop professional values. According to the systemic and constructivist approaches, self-identity is a system of identities that develop in during one’s life and based on one’s conscious identity with any subjects of psychic reality. During their university years, students' self-identity transforms in terms of structure, general state, and attitudes towards certain types of identity. In this empirical research, senior students identified more with family, close social environment, external representation, and personality assessment. They demonstrated a positive attitude towards ethnicity and family roles as their self-identity system grew less stable and autonomous. As a result, self-identity became more dependent and blurred. The same tendencies manifested themselves in the dynamics of professional identity. The more they learnt about their future profession, the more they grew aware of its limitations, and the image of the profession became more ambiguous. All these changes led to self-identity crisis in some graduates.