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This study was intended to investigate some variables influencing the identity of Korean adolescent students, to compare the developmental levels of identity among normal, blind, and deaf-mute students and to clarify how handicaptee’s personal and environmental variables exercise to influence on the development of different kinds of factors of identity. The data were collected by means of questionnare and interview with their teachers. Subjects served for this study consisted of 1815 adolescent students in Korea, randomly sampled from Korean student population using census method. The students ranged in age from 12 to 21. The actual number of cases put into the analysis was 1607 including 957 normal, 267 blind and 383 deaf-mute adolescents. The data were analyzed by a Prime 750 computer housed in the Hangang Sacred Heart Hospital of Hallym College using SPSS program. The statistical methods employed were x^2 test and simple correlations for personal and environmental variables ; R-type factor analysis for item analysis ; T-tests for comparing the factor scores between normal, blind, and deaf-mute groups ; and stepwise multiple regression analysis to ascertain the relationships between the adolescent’s personal and environmental variables and their identity. The results were as follows: 1. The identity questionnaire given to normal adolescent students analysed the following factors in male:’ego-identity(subfactors ; ego-group, ego-affect, self-achievement)’ ’self-confidence’ ’ego-career’ ’gender-identity’ ’anticipation of achievement’ and ’altruism’, and in female:’ego-identity(subfactors ; ego-affect, ego-group)’ ’ego-career’ ’integrity’ ’gender-identity’ ’altruism’ and ’trust’. 2. The blind, and deaf-mute adolescents, regardless of their sex, had a lower level of development in overall identity than the normal students. 3. Among the male blind adolescents, the subjective difficulties in life and subjective feelings about handicap variables were the most influential to the level of development of overall identity and strongly influenced the strength of the ’ego-identity’ ’ego-career’ and ’altruism’ factors. Secondly, the family expectations of subject and teacher’s educational practice were less influential variables but still strongly influential in forming levels of identity. 4. Among the female blind adolescents the teacher’s educational practice was the most influential to the level of development for all factors of identity except ’gender-identity’ and ’altruism’. Subjective feelings about handicap strongly influenced the formation of all factors of identity, on the other hand, the objective evaluation of seriousness of handicap did least to form the level of development of identity, especially ’gender-identity’. After subjective feelings about handicap, age upon becoming handicapped was the second strongly influential factor in the formation of ’gender-identity’. The ’integrity’ factor, which was unique to the female group, was least influenced by family expectations about subject. ’Trust’, on the other hand, which was also unique to the female group, was greatly influenced by family expectations about subject. 5. Among the male deaf-mute adolescents, the teacher’s educational practice and subjective difficulties in life were the most influential variables on the overall developmental level of identity and on all of its subcategories. The objective evaluation of seriousness of handicap was also strongly influential to the level of development of not all but many factors. 6. In the female deaf-mute adolescent group, the objective evaluation of seriousness of handicap was the most strongly influential of the variables to the development of overall identity. The teacher’s educational practice had a strong influence on the developmental level of ’ego-identity’ ’ego-affect’ and ’integrity’ factors. It should be stressed the age upon becoming handicapped variable had a strong negative correlation with the developmental level of identity. Thus the younger the age upon becoming handicapped, the higher the development of identity. Among the female deaf-mute adolescents, the subjective feelings about handicap and the age upon becoming handicapped variables were not so influential to the development of identity. 7. The seven tested personal and environmental variables of blind, and deaf-mute subjects showed significant influence in the formation of identity. The variables significantly influenced the developmental levels of the total identity, ’ego-career’ and ’ego-group’ in both male and female blind, and deaf-mute groups. And the variables also influenced levels of ’self-confidence’ and the ’anticipation of achievement’ among the male blind and the male deaf-mute, and influenced the self-perceived ’integrity’ of both female handicapped groups. Among the male and female deaf-mute the variables were greatly contributory to the development of overall identity and to each of its subfactors. Each of the personal and environmental variables was also contributory to the developmental level of the different handicapped groups ; teacher’s educational practice was influential to the blind, and the deaf-mute among males and females ; subjective difficulties in life was influential to the male blind, and the deaf-mute ; family expectations of subject was influential to the male blind ; age upon becoming handicapped and subjective feeling about handicap exerted influence on the development of identity of the female deaf-mute ; and the objective evaluation was influential to that of the deaf-mute among either males and females, but age starting education was least contributory to their identity.
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