Creative arts therapies students’ professional identity and career commitment: A brief pilot study report

This quantitative pilot study identified, characterized, and provided preliminary insights into profession-related variables of first-year creative arts therapies graduate students in Israel. The 68 student participants studied in four program sub-groups: art therapy, drama therapy, dance movement therapy, and practicing creative arts therapists in the master's program. The profession-related variables investigated were students’ vocational identity and career commitment, need for training and occupational information, and environmental and personal barriers to career decision-making. Results indicated a moderate-positive correlation between students’ professional identity and career commitment. Also, the vocational identity mean score of dance movement therapy students was statistically significantly higher than that of students from the other sub-groups. The author suggests an interpretation for the results and concludes with a proposal for a future mixed-methods longitudinal study to gain more in-depth insights into the professional development of creative arts therapies students throughout their training.