Page 126 - Medical students’ self-regulated learning in clinical contexts

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Iden ty development and transi oning into an experienced student
Leading authors have recently postulated that the development of a professional iden ty should be a principal goal of medical educa on.5 James Marcia’s Ego-Iden ty status theory describes four statuses of iden ty development which are in uenced by context. These four statuses represent modes of reac ng to an iden ty crisis in late adolescence. The four statuses were originally iden ed in college students and are characterized by the presence or absence of crisis, and by commitment in the areas of occupa on and ideology.6 Looking at the SRL behavior pa erns reported in chapter 5 and the transi on from ‘novice’ to ‘experienced’ student as reported in chapter 3, from the perspec ve of iden ty development, we observed a resem- blance between pa erns of SRL behavior found in this thesis and Marcia’s statuses of iden ty development.
There is a large overlap in the behavior associated with the ‘engaged’ and ‘cri cally opportunis c’ pa erns and the Iden ty Achievement status described by Marcia. In the Iden ty Achievement status, individuals are commi ed to an ideology, have con- sidered various alterna ves and have made a decision on their own terms. The be- havior of students associated with the ‘uncertain’ and ‘restrained’ pa erns appears to resemble the behavior of individuals in Marcia’s Moratorium. In Moratorium, indi- viduals are in an ac ve struggle to determine which commitments to make, are very aware of how they appear, and try to compromise between societal demands and their own capabili es. Lastly, behavior associated with the ‘e or ul’ pa ern seems to be closely related to the Foreclosure status of iden ty development. In this status individuals have not gone through a crisis, but rather become what others expect them to become. The resemblance between the pa erns and the iden ty develop- ment statuses is comprehensible because what students want to learn and what they nd important might result from students’ process of iden ty development. This is coherent with theore cal beliefs that self-regulated learning, and regula on of be- havior speci cally, is a consequence of trying to convey a speci c iden ty towards others and that students may experiment with possible alterna ve iden es.7 We did not nd behavior pa erns that we could relate to Marcia’s Iden ty Di usion sta- tus. The Iden ty Di usion status is hallmarked by a lack of commitment. It is possible a behavior pa ern re ec ng low mo va on and lack of commitment did not show up in our study because of a corresponding lack of mo va on from these students to par cipate in this study, or because this status is uncommon among medical stu- dents who are generally known to be highly mo vated.8