From their perspective: Discovering the sources of impact on older women undergraduates' identity development and mapping those experiences

This two-phase, mixed methods study examined (a) the sources of impact that women undergraduate students, 35 years old and older, perceived to have affected their personal identity development and (b) how they conceptually organized those experiences. Through a purposeful sampling strategy, 62 undergraduate women (whose ages ranged from 35 to 58) participated in the first phase of the study by completing the College Years Experience Questionnaire (CYEQ). Using a variant of Flanagan's (1954) Critical Incident Technique, the CYEQ asked participants to reflect on their experience as a college student and report experiences that had affected their sense of who they are. A team of three doctoral students identified 12 categories of impact in the incidents. These categories were used in the Phase Two paired comparison questionnaire, in which students were asked to rate the similarity of each possible pair of the 12 categories. Eighteen Phase One undergraduate women participated in Phase Two and rated the similarity of the categories.; Using multidimensional scaling, a two dimensional concept map was created from Phase Two data to illustrate how the women organized the experiences. The dimension weights were used to plot the coordinates of the 12 themes and the dimensions were named (Constructive versus Destructive Experiences; External Affirmation versus Personal Perseverance). Hierarchical cluster analysis was used to define a three cluster solution that illustrated how the themes were qualitatively different. The raters named the three clusters to describe the types of themes contained in each cluster.; The 12 themes that emerged during the analysis of Phase One data were associated with key factors that theory and prior research identified as influencing personal identity development and demonstrated the profound effect of college on the study participants' personal identity development. The clusters and dimensions illustrated the importance of relationships, especially student-faculty relationships, to the women. That the clusters and dimensions were consistent with prior theory and research provides validation for the results. Limitations of the study, suggestions for future research, and implications for higher education practitioners were also discussed.