Sense of Identity and Collegiate Academic Achievement

In a sample of 434 university freshmen, Sense of Identity was found to be positively related to GPA, even controlling for the Big Five personality traits of Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Emotional Stability, Extraversion, and Openness. Similar correlations were found for racial and gender subgroups. When all study variables entered a stepwise multiple regression analysis to predict GPA variance, Sense of Identity accounted for 9%; Emotional Stability, 1%. Results were discussed vis-a-vis Chickering and Reisser's (1993) and Hamrick, Evans, and Schuh's (2002) emphasis on identity as a key outcome of college student development. Directions for future research and study limitations were described.