Supporting the Development of Academic and Professional Identity in Students of Bachelor Study Programmes through Automous Learning
Abstract
This paper explores the opportunities of autonomous learning tasks such as giving an academic presentation in English language courses of higher education for the development of academic/ professional identity. The aim was to study effects of an autonomous learning situation while using formative peer feedback and teacher's fluid guidance.
The study was based on the content analysis of students' writings reflecting the process of preparing and giving an academic presentation. The student attitudes and feelings were then categorized into themes according to explorative/normative/avoidant identity status as these might help the teacher to understand what level of guidance is appropriate for individual students.
The themes were also tested in a small-scale descriptive survey to test their distribution on the sample of 76 students of Humanities and Social Sciences. The results indicate that undergraduate students appear to be in a transitional phase where the need of teacher's support can be still quite strong while the appreciation of autonomous learning and learning together with other peers is also rising.
As the academic success relies heavily on the student's ability to develop their autonomy and alignment with their discipline, it is vitally important for a teacher to design learning tasks so that they support autonomy and personal growth of individual students. The results of the study also help to clarify how to arrange learning activities that make the processes of identity status formation more visible and accessible to the teacher, who can then respond to them appropriately.