Becoming a professional: comparing four interventions to promote an identity change

Abstract

This study describes the main results obtained in a research in which the aim was to promote a positive developmental transition involving an identity change: from being a student to becoming a professional. Taking into account recent literature on promoting positive youth development we designed an ideographic process-oriented intervention. This aimed to compare the effects of four different kinds of intervention: remediative, generative, life-learning and an integration of all three. Twelve students belonging to two different groups (6 students from university studies and 6 students from technical studies) were studied during three months from an initial interview. Every participant was assigned to an experimental group depending on the kind of intervention taking place: G1. Remediative Intervention, G2. Generative Intervention, G3. Life Learning Intervention, G4. Integrative Intervention, G5. Interview, G6. Control Group. In addition to the interview and intervention there were two qualitative tests of changes taking place one month and 3 months after the first interview. In this article we will describe the characteristics of the different interventions, the comparison of their main effects and the main issues appearing in the sessions. We will finish with the presentation of some useful concepts in order to prepare developmental interventions dealing with transitions.

Key words: transition, identity, intervention, process, ideographic.