Moral Identity and Its Relationship to Higher Education Mentoring and Community Service Engagement

Problem A moral action is a result of the engagement of multiple psychological processes set in motion when an individual faces a moral conflict. Research suggests that an individual's moral reasoning and moral identity strongly influence the psychological processes that precede a moral action. Recent studies have shown that higher education positively influences students' moral reasoning; however, there is a lack of understanding as to the degree to which higher education can influence the moral identity of students. Method This study performed a quantitative cross-sectional study to investigate the relationship between independent variables—mentoring experiences and community service engagement—and dependent variables—moral identity internalization and symbolization. The study surveyed 502 students from eleven faith-based universities across the United States who took the College Students Mentoring Scale to assess mentoring experiences, the Moral Identity Scale to measure the degree to which students' identity centers on moral traits, and students' self-assessment of their community service engagement. Results Mentorship and community service engagement appear to be significant factors in moral identity development, but their individual effects are relatively modest. Of the four components that encompass the college-mentoring process, the mentoring experiences with college role models showed the highest statistically significant correlation with moral identity internalization and symbolization. The multiple regression statistical model showed that the existence of a mentor who becomes a role model accounted for 4.2% of the variation of the moral identity internalization and 11.6% of the moral identity symbolization variation. In comparison, community service engagement accounted for 3.9% of the variation of the moral identity internalization and 12.1% of the moral identity symbolization variation. However, when both the mentor role model and community service engagement were part of the multiple regression analysis, the multiple regression model accounted for 6.5% of the variation of the moral identity internalization and 19.1% of the moral identity symbolization variation. Conclusions Research results suggest that community service engagement and college mentoring experiences with mentors who are also role models have a fair influence on students' moral identity. Although each factor contributed independently to moral identity, their combined influence appears to be synergistic. This suggests that a comprehensive approach to moral education, integrating both individual and community strategies, may be particularly effective in fostering moral development.