Making sense of marketing students' professional identity construction through multidisciplinary project course

The aim of this study is to analyse, how marketing students make sense of their professional identity during the multidisciplinary service concept development course. The theoretical discussion on the construction of professional identity is based on social identity theory and identity process’s guiding principles of distinctiveness, continuity, self-efficacy and self-esteem (Breakwell 1986, 1992). <RV>The qualitative data is gathered from a university level project course, where design and business students work on developing a new festival concept for the city. The data consists of feedback forms from both design and marketing students and learning diaries where sixteen Finnish marketing students wrote about their thoughts and feelings about a multidisciplinary learning context. The data is analysed using qualitative content analysis.<RV>The results show how students use the principles of identity construction in making sense of their own profession now and in the future. Professional identity evolves in interaction between own profession and other professions and the knowledge and skills needed in own profession become more evident. The practical implications on how educators can enhance the professional identity development among students are presented.<RV>