ACADEMIC IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT AND GOAL ORIENTATION AMONG ADOLESCENTS

Abstract

Identity development is an interdisciplinary topic in developmental and educational psychology. This study is a latest attempt to study academic identity in Pakistani students’ sample that are all set to decide their career paths. Owing to the dearth of literature on this topic, the present study explored the relationship between goal orientation and academic identity. Total 632 participants were approached using stratified sampling technique, and they were administered a demographic form followed by Academic Identity Status Scale (Rahiminezhad, Kazemi, Farahani & Aghamohamadi, 2011) as well as Academic Goal Orientation Scale (VandeWalle, 1996). The data was analyzed using SPSS v. 21. The findings of the regression analysis revealed that identity status does contribute in goal orientation. Using t-test, One Way Analysis of Variance and Post-hoc analysis the findings were further explored in the light of educational boards students were enrolled in. Moreover, demographic variables such as gender and mother’s education level were also considered in the statistical analysis. The study highlight some interesting findings which have research implications