Psychological mechanisms of professional identity formation in students during university education

Abstract

Professional identity of a student takes shape during university training and conditions the stability of subsequent professional conduct, yet the psychological mechanisms through which learning and professional activity is converted into personal self-identification with the occupation are described in the literature in a fragmented way and without consistent terminology. The discrepancy between the status-based and the process-based readings of identity, as well as between its treatment as a stable disposition and as a dynamic system, leaves open the question of which internal processes ensure the transition from external academic motivation to acceptance of the professional role. The aim of the work is to reconstruct the system of psychological mechanisms mediating the formation of professional identity at different stages of study and to relate them to the levels of its development. Conceptual and categorial analysis, systematisation of theoretical approaches and structural-functional modelling are applied. An author's model is constructed in which identificational, reflexive, meaning-generating, motivational-axiological and coping mechanisms are distinguished, differing in their leading function and in intensity across the years of study. It is established that the meaning-generating and reflexive mechanisms acquire decisive significance in the middle and senior years, whereas identification with the image of a professional prevails at the initial stage. The coherence of these mechanisms, rather than the separate strength of any single one, explains why similar educational conditions lead to different statuses of graduates' professional identity.