Measuring Professional Identity in Professional Education: A Developmental Perspective

• In Event: Creating a Professional Identity Within Career and Technical Education

Abstract

A 19-item scale was created to measure professional identity in polytechnic education for all types of professions. This instrument was subsequently used to chart the development of professional identity in these students. 2,930 students’ responses were obtained from a polytechnic in Singapore. Confirmatory factor & reliability analysis of the data found the single-factor measure with 5 factors to be valid and reliable. The analysis of the development of professional identity at the polytechnic provided some insights into the development of different groups of students – those who enrolled in diplomas related to their future work, students who did not or who were unsure; those who scored low and scored high on the scale. Improvements to the scale are suggested.

Authors

• Chin Pei Tan, Republic Polytechnic

• Henk G. Schmidt, Radboud University Nijmegen