Identity development across the transition from secondary to tertiary education: A 9-wave longitudinal study

The transition from secondary to tertiary education could be considered as an opportunity for psychological growth and might play a meaningful role in educational identity development during adolescence. In the present study, we aimed to examine how adolescents differ in their educational identity development across the normative transition from secondary to tertiary education in the Netherlands, and if differences between classes could be described at the socio-demographic, academic, individual, and relational level.

The present study conducted parallel process piecewise Latent Class Growth Analyses in a sample of 685 Dutch participants (47.0% girls, M_age = 17.29 years old at the time of transition). Longitudinal data from adolescent (bi)annual surveys were centered around the final year of secondary school, with 4 years before the final year and 4 years after.

Heterogeneity in the development of identity commitment and reconsideration across the transition was best classified by a 4-class solution. These four classes were labelled Increasing Self-Certainty, Stable Self-Certainty, Post-Transition Uncertainty, and Enduring Uncertainty. Adolescents' patterns of identity development were meaningfully associated with sociodemographic, academic, individual, and relational characteristics.

The present study discusses the merits of taking a person-centered approach, which indicated adaptive development for the majority of adolescents but also captured distinct patterns of struggles in educational identity development across the transition for a sizable minority.