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Healthcare vs social sciences students: who identifies the most?

Alba Barbarà-i-Molinero (OBS Business School, Barcelona, Spain)
Cristina Sancha (OBS Business School, Barcelona, Spain)
Rosalia Cascón-Pereira (Virgili Facultad de Ciencias Economicas y Empresariales, Universitat Rovira, Reus, Spain)

Journal of Applied Research in Higher Education

ISSN: 2050-7003

Article publication date: 5 September 2018

Issue publication date: 17 October 2018

100

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to analyse and compare the level of professional identity strength between healthcare and social sciences students.

Design/methodology/approach

Based on a sample of 339 students, the authors conduct an ANOVA analysis in order to compare students’ professional identity strength across the abovementioned groups.

Findings

The authors’ results show that there are significant differences in professional identity strength between healthcare and social sciences students. In particular, healthcare sciences students show stronger professional identity than social sciences students.

Originality/value

This study contributes to the existing literature on professional identity in higher education by being the first study comparing student’s professional identity between bachelor degrees from different professional fields of study and by showing the relevance of discipline as a contextual variable in the study of students’ professional identity.

Keywords

Citation

Barbarà-i-Molinero, A., Sancha, C. and Cascón-Pereira, R. (2018), "Healthcare vs social sciences students: who identifies the most?", Journal of Applied Research in Higher Education, Vol. 10 No. 4, pp. 583-594. https://doi.org/10.1108/JARHE-02-2018-0013

Publisher

:

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2018, Emerald Publishing Limited

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