Academic identity for Chinese top-notch innovative undergraduates: definition, framework and measurement

• In Event: Issues in Higher Education Institutions: New Missions and Challenges

Proposal

There is a rising globally need for academic innovators, particularly in in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), due to the increasingly tough rivalry in research and technology. However, the retention rate of talents in basic scientific and STEM subjects still reminds low in many countries, as many students choose to switch their undergraduate majors or find employment in other sectors after graduation (Chen et al., 2021; Lytle & Shin, 2020). For instance, only 50% of those entering STEM college majors matriculating into STEM fields in the US (U.S. Department of Education, 2015). How to encourage outstanding students in foundational fields to select and stick with academic professions has emerged as a prevalent and significant issue in higher education around the world (McCartney et al., 2022).
Identity has been found to be a powerful lens for explaining and predicting the choice and persistence of undergraduate students in STEM fields (OECD, 2020; Patrick, 2018). Students with strong science or engineering identity tend to perform better in their majors and are more likely to pursue related careers in the future (Toson, 2014). In addition, identity also provides a perspective for the discussion of student diversity in STEM fields, especially about the underrepresentation of women and minorities (Stout et al, 2011; Williams & Jackson, 2007). Therefore, it would be a good approach to use the notion of identity in order to examine the selection and cultivation of top-notch academic talents in the Chinese context.
According to the vision and objective of fostering top innovative talents in China, this study concentrates on top undergraduate Chinese students who want to pursue scientific research in fundamental subjects or core technological domains as their future careers. Scholars have used a variety of terms to represent undergraduate students' perceptions of their alignment with science or engineering fields, including science identity (Carlone & Johnson, 2007), STEM identity (Stewart, 2022), identity as a scientist (Robnett, 2015), and engineering identity (Morelock, 2017). However, the broad academic career orientation, containing both the scholarship of discovery in universities or research institutes and the scholarship of application in frontier technology companies, still lacks a coherent conceptual and explanatory framework. Additionally, the above-mentioned identity studies have primarily concentrated on European or American educational scenarios. The concept of identity has not been applied sufficiently, to understand and assess the dynamism and autonomy of academic career choices of students, in Chinese higher education practice.
This study proposes the concept of academic identity for undergraduate students in basic disciplines, which describes undergraduate students' ongoing understanding of their future identities as academic researchers and members of academic communities, as well as the accompanying affective experiences and behavioral patterns. In contrast to the academic identity of mature scholars, academic identity for undergraduates is preparatory, serving as both a foundation for professional identity development and a key to career preparation (Tomer & Mishra, 2016; Jackson, 2016). It is also dynamic and tend to be balanced through a process of exploration, negotiation, and commitment between self-perceptions and social expectations (Pesigan, Luyckx, & Alampay, 2013). After five undergraduate students with extensive research backgrounds were interviewed in the study, some core components of academic identity progressively became apparent, such as interest, self-confidence, a sense of belonging, and a sense of value related to research, etc. Then, referring to the most widely used quantitative model in STEM education research, the study develops an academic identity framework for undergraduate students in basic disciplines, in which key factors of academic identity are framed by cognitive, emotional and behavioral dimensions.
The three most important aspects in the cognitive dimension are academic self-efficacy, academic value-identification, and recognition by others. Academic self-efficacy describes students' believes about their capacity to complete academically related tasks (Bandura, 1997), and has been well demonstrated as a mediating variable of experience and identity in STEM field (Chemers & Zurbriggen, 2011). Academic value-identification shows how highly individuals value academic work, to some extent reflecting their perceptions of academic careers, according to the Expectancy-Value Theory (Wigfield & Eccles, 2000). Since an individuals' self-perception in a field is intimately tied to how others see them within the field (Gee, 2000;Kim et al., 2018), the recognition of significant others is also indispensable in the cognitive dimension. As for the emotional dimension, academic interest and sense of belonging are two typical factors. Academic interest refers to a student's desire, curiosity, or pleasure of academic activities (Lent, Brown & Hackett, 1994; Hazari, 2010), while sense of belonging is defined as one's perception of fitting in (or not feeling excluded) in their academic community (Hazari, 2020). It is important to emphasize that the sense of belonging may be a greater influence for Chinese students rather than European or US students. Finally in the behavioral dimension, the breadth and depth of academic exploration define the sufficiency and accumulation of students' research-related experiences (Luyckx et al., 2008), whereas the intention or action of academic career choice can be regarded as a behavioral consequence to which one's academic identity leads.
Based on the definition and framework above, this study developed a 27-item scale measuring academic identity for college freshmen, without including items measuring exploratory behaviors. The reliability test and factor analysis show that the scale has good reliability and validity. A survey of 1326 freshmen in T university of China revealed that, although most of the students had high levels of academic values, their total academic identities varied significantly by gender, major, and enrolment method.
This study broadens the scope and orientation of identity research, relocates it to the Chinese higher education context, and offers a fresh research perspective and evaluation tool for the selection and cultivation of academic talents.

Author

• DANG YANG, Tsinghua University