Students' University Identification: An Exploratory Study in the United States and Italy

Students’ identification with schools or universities predicts many positive aspects such as cooperation and completion of studies. Two hundred and eleven Italian students and 226 U.S. students wrote responses to open-ended questions about a time that they either felt connected (identified) or disco...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inInternational journal of educational psychology Vol. 12; no. 1; pp. 33 - 61
Main Authors Di Battista, Silvia, Smith, Heather, Mongelli, Lucia, Berti, Chiara
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Hipatia Press 01.02.2023
Subjects
College Students
Differences
Educación superior
Foreign Countries
Group Membership
Higher education
Identificación universitaria
Métodos cualitativos
Pertenencia de los estudiantes
Qualitative methods
Self Concept
Student Attitudes
Student belonging
Student Experience
Students’ identification
United States
Italy
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Summary:Students’ identification with schools or universities predicts many positive aspects such as cooperation and completion of studies. Two hundred and eleven Italian students and 226 U.S. students wrote responses to open-ended questions about a time that they either felt connected (identified) or disconnected to (not identified) with their university. In Italy, students prompted to identify with the university mainly focused their descriptions on didactical aspects such as academic training experiences. Italian students prompted not to identify with the university mainly described their experiences with the university’s organizational and administrative aspects. U.S. students prompted to identify or not with the university mainly focused on the social aspects of their university experience such as their involvement with fraternities and sororities. In both nations, students rarely mentioned instrumental aspects of their university experience such as the evaluation of how much the university matters for professional training. These qualitative results help to fully understand the contents of the experience of university students. Understanding students’ identification can be vital in order to improve the quality of university teaching and to support professors in developing their roles.
ISSN:2014-3591
2014-3591
DOI:10.17583/ijep.7980