Can social identities improve working students’ academic and social outcomes? Lessons from three studies

Previous research has linked working for pay while attending university with negative academic and health outcomes; yet, working students are often resilient when experiencing such adverse circumstances. This makes it crucial to explore potential psychological mechanisms that transform adverse experiences into sources of motivation and persistence for working students. We explore one mechanism—social identification—and its different foci—identifying as a student, employee, working student, or a student of one’s discipline of study—as potential predictors of important academic (academic self-efficacy, approaches to learning, and academic achievement) and social (status in society) outcomes in three cross-sectional studies. In Study 1, part-time working hours (but not identification processes) were associated with academic self-efficacy. In Study 2, discipline identification and part-time working hours were associated with using deep approaches to learning. In Study 3, student identification was associated with increased status in society. Overall, discipline identification may be solely linked to academic outcomes, but student identification should be explored further as a potential enhancer of social and graduate outcomes. We discuss additional mechanisms that can help to transform working students’ experiences through their social identities and suggest boundary conditions that can affect the link between these identities and important outcomes.</p

Discipline identification, identity incompatibility, belonging and their association with deep approaches to learning and academic self-efficacy during COVID-19 in the UK

Previous research indicates that discipline identification — the level of integration of one’s discipline of study into the self-concept — is associated with deep approaches to learning and academic self-efficacy. However, it is not known whether these relationships would hold in the context of learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. The present study investigates this, as well as exploring whether belonging, identity incompatibility, and virtual and in-person time spent with fellow students and with faculty act as potential antecedents of discipline identification. A cross-sectional online survey with n = 385 students in the UK was conducted during the spring term (February–May) of the 2019–2020 academic year, when UK universities were under COVID-19 restrictions. Of those students, n = 109 completed a follow-up survey during the autumn term (September–December) of the 2020–2021 academic year. Due to pandemic-related changes, the two waves of data were analysed separately using path analysis. During the spring term, identity incompatibility and discipline identification were significantly associated with both deep approaches to learning and academic self-efficacy. There were also significant indirect effects of belonging on both deep approaches to learning and academic self-efficacy via discipline identification. During the autumn term, discipline identification was again significantly associated with both academic outcomes. Identity incompatibility was significantly associated with academic self-efficacy. There were also indirect effects of identity incompatibility and belonging on deep approaches to learning via discipline identification. These results add to the literature on the importance of discipline identification and associated social-psychological processes in predicting important higher education outcomes during the COVID-19 pandemic