Int. J.

Human–Computer Studies 151 (2021) 102642

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

International Journal of Human - Computer Studies

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijhcs

The Development and Testing of a Mobile Self-Tracking App to Strengthen

Identity Commitments through Personal Goals
Casandra Timar-Anton a, b, Oana Negru-Subtirica a, b, *, Adrian Opre a
a
Department of Psychology, Doctoral School of Applied Cognitive Psychology, Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
b
Self and Identity Development Lab, Department of Psychology, Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: The formation of a personal identity represents a fundamental task in human development. Personal identity
self-tracking revolves around the commitment to goals, beliefs, and values that are central to who one is. Starting from
mobile app adolescence and continuing into young adulthood, people envision their life and reflect on their career path.
human-computer interaction
Given the fast-paced demands young people face nowadays, having a clear set of identity commitments related to
goals
identity processes
career is often challenging. The present study investigates how best to leverage mobile apps to support young
young adults adults with their career goals. By combining theories from psychology literature with research on HCI, this
exploratory study aimed to design and develop a self-tracking app prototype for monitoring career goals and
investigate its potential influence on young adults’ identity commitments. The InstaGoal app’s design included
features which encouraged self-reflection, such as goal appraising, journal, log of past use, and reminders to
engage. Using quantitative and qualitative analyses, the study’s results revealed that the InstaGoal app represents
a promising avenue for strengthening the adaptive identity commitments. Limitations, theoretical, and practical
implications are discussed.

1. Introduction
Developing one’s personal identity, that is, establishing meaningful
commitments to goals, values, desires, and beliefs, represents a central
focus for young adults (e.g., Arnett, 2004; Attig and Franke, 2019).
Identity formation takes place in several identity domains, such as
career, romantic relationships, friendships (Goossens, 2001). For young
adults, the development of one’s career identity is both important and
complicated to achieve (Skorikov and Vondracek, 2011). By setting
career goals, exploring a wide range of career opportunities, and
enacting identity commitments in the career domain, young adults can
self-construct who they are as a worker or future worker (Nurmi, 1991).
However, a large percentage of youth enter young adulthood struggling
to form their identity commitments (Kroger et al., 2010).
Nowadays, with the advent of smartphones, millions of mobile ap­
plications (‘apps’) are available to young adults, covering nearly every
need (De Nadai et al., 2019), from social communication (e.g., What­
sApp), dating (e.g., Tinder), or healthy lifestyle (e.g., Fitbit) to
increasing productivity (e.g., Better Habits) and managing or main­
taining social relationships (e.g., Facebook). Although previous studies
have shown links between how youth present themselves online through
social media platforms and their identity (Michikyan, 2020; Michikyan
et al., 2015; Thomas et al., 2017; Yang et al., 2017), to the best of our
knowledge no app is specifically designed to help facilitate identity
processes and help young adults in their identity commitments. For
example, recent studies have shown that youth with a low level of
self-concept clarity (e.g., have unclear identity commitments) tend to
present an online identity on social media inconsistent with their true
self (Michikyan, 2020; Michikyan et al., 2015). This online presented
identity is often more socially desirable than their true self (Thomas
et al., 2017), often because of either fear of being marginalized by their
peers or a need for positive feedback (Michikyan, 2020). Thus, social
media as a tool for identity construction may not suit everybody, espe­
cially youth with unclear commitments, as it might lead them to conceal
their true identities to please the majority.
The aim of this exploratory study was to design, develop, and test a
mobile app prototype specifically devised to strengthen identity com­
mitments through personal career goals. By drawing from psychology
research on identity processes and goal-setting, we intended to inform
the design of a self-tracking mobile app aimed at strengthening identity
commitments in a sample of young adults. Hence, this paper contributes
to the Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) field by introducing and

* Corresponding author at: Oana Negru-Subtirica, Department of Psychology, Babeş-Bolyai University, Republicii 37, 400015 Cluj-Napoca, Romania.
E-mail address: oananegru@psychology.ro (O. Negru-Subtirica).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhcs.2021.102642
Received 7 May 2020; Received in revised form 9 March 2021; Accepted 13 March 2021
Available online 18 March 2021
1071-5819/© 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
C. Timar-Anton et al.
applying an established processes-oriented framework for identity
development from psychology to the design of mobile apps, which aims
to help young adults boost their commitments.
The article is structured as follows. Section 2 presents a theoretical
psychological background on identity processes and goal-setting
together with HCI research on self-tracking and examples from related
apps with the aim of defining requirements for the prototype design of
InstaGoal. Section 3 outlines the aims and exploratory research ques­
tions of the present study, namely if identity processes can be enhanced
through the use of a self-tracking app. Section 4 briefly describes the
design process together with the requirements that drove the design of
InstaGoal. Next, Section 5 covers how these requirements were applied
in the design and implementation of InstaGoal. Section 6 describes the
methods, procedures, instruments, and participants involved in testing
the app. A within-participant approach was employed and further
knowledge was drawn through a thematic analysis of the app generated
data. The results are presented in Section 7, while Section 8 further
discusses the implications and limitations of the present study’s findings
and outlines future directions. The conclusions are included in Section 9.
2. Background
2.1. Young Adults’ Identity Development
Contemporary young adults are often regarded as ardent users of
digital technology (Gardner and Davis, 2013). Young adults often ex­
press extremely positive beliefs towards technology’s role in their lives
(Livingstone, 2011; Third et al., 2017; Turkle, 2017). Thus, today’s
youth has been characterized as ‘the app generation’ (Gardner and
Davis, 2013) as they allocate an important proportion of their time
searching, selecting, and engaging with mobile apps from which they
derive most of their information (Gardner and Davis, 2013; Third et al.,
2017).
Young adulthood, between ages 18-25, is marked by increased
changes in instability in personal goals (e.g., career, family, romantic
relationships), self-focus, feeling in-between, and trying out various
roles and possibilities (Arnett, 2004). During this period, in-depth
exploration of career choices represents a central focus (Negru et al.,
2011; Super, 1990). Starting from adolescence and continuing into
adulthood, young adults actively seek to answer the question “Who am
I?”. Providing answers to this question is part of young adults’ quest to
building a personal identity (Luyckx et al., 2006).
In the case of career development, personal identity represents a self-
constructed definition about the self, encompassing goals, aims, desires,
values, beliefs related to one’s career (i.e., identity content; Vignoles
et al., 2011), aspects deemed relevant for who one is as a worker or
future worker. Identity research focuses both on the identity content and
the identity processes, that is, how people construct their identity
(Luyckx et al., 2017). One such process-oriented model of identity
development is the dual-cycle model of identity (Luyckx et al., 2006),
which consists of two identity cycles (i.e., identity formation and iden­
tity evaluation) and comprises five identity processes (i.e., commitment
making, exploration in breadth, exploration in depth, identification with
commitment, and ruminative exploration). The cycle of identity for­
mation begins when young adults start gathering information by
exploring in breadth different possible future alternatives on various
identity options for defining the self (i.e., exploration in breadth). After
exploring these identity options in breadth, people make a commitment
in an important identity concern (i.e., commitment making). After a
commitment is made, the identity evaluation cycle commences and
young adults explore their decisions in depth by gathering new infor­
mation on their chosen option (i.e., exploration in depth) with the goal
of evaluating it (i.e., identification with commitment). The processes of
identification with commitment refers to the degree to which young
adults are certain that their decisions fit with their values, beliefs, de­
sires, aspirations, preferences, or capabilities in light of the new
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International Journal of Human - Computer Studies 151 (2021) 102642
information. When young adults no longer identify with their commit­
ments, as a result of exploration in depth, the cycle of identity formation
starts again with exploration in breadth. While exploration in breadth,
commitment making, exploration in depth, and identification with
commitment are seen as adaptive processes of identity formation,
ruminative exploration represents a maladaptive identity process which
often impedes the person in reaching a decision, hence hindering
commitment making (Luyckx et al., 2008). Ruminative exploration has
been found to be associated with performance-avoidance goals, that is,
avoiding setting goals because of the fear of what others might think
about you if you fail (Flunger et al., 2016). The same study also showed
that high levels of identity commitments together with effort promote
goal achievement, while low identity commitments and rumination
impede action towards the desired goals (Flunger et al., 2016).
The concept of identity is also found in the HCI field, however it has
been approached rather differently, focusing more on the narratives
people construct about themselves (Doherty and Doherty, 2018; Sharon
and Zandbergen, 2017). One such example is Sharon and Zandbergen’s
(2017) work on the self-tracking community, which uncovered that
people construct their identity through gaining meaning from the
self-narratives built around their regularly tracked data. In a systematic
literature review on self-reports including both psychology and HCI
research, Doherty and Doherty (2018) talk about three different selves
(i.e., the experiencing self, the remembering self, and the
future-oriented self), each with its own focuses, characteristics, and
temporal orientation. The experiencing self lives in the present and
builds a more objective momentary reflection based on the perceived
experience. The remembering self looks in the past reconstructing an
experience based on memories, thus indulging in a retrospective
reflection. The future self focuses on the future by envisioning experi­
ences and desired outcomes engaging in prospective reflection. Ac­
cording to their review, inter-self dissonance may exist between how the
three selves experience and reflect due to factors specific to each self.
Thus, bad future choices may be made due to a biased remembering self
who does not equip the future-oriented self with an accurate picture of
experience (Doherty and Doherty, 2018).
The narrative approach of identity construction and the dual-cycle
model of identity formation are conceptually complementary (Van
Doeselaar et al., 2020). At the heart of the narrative approach lie
autobiographical stories representing coherent narratives which seek to
answer the question of who one is by combining one’s past, present, and
future self (McAdams, 2001). In contrast, the dual-cycle model views
identity not as a personal story, but rather as a set of identity commit­
ments, emphasizing how they are formed and evaluated (Van Doeselaar
et al., 2020).
2.2. Self-Tracking
Impressive amounts of personal data can be collected from a plethora
of areas of interest through apps (e.g., health, physical fitness, nutrition,
sleep; Blandford, 2019; Kristensen and Ruckenstein, 2018; Mercer et al.,
2016) giving rise to a self-tracking phenomenon. Self-tracking repre­
sents the activity of recording, monitoring, and reflecting on the
self-generated data to gain knowledge and shape the self (Gabriels and
Coeckelbergh, 2019; Lambert, 2016). Studies on self-tracking have
generally employed members from self-tracking communities (Attig and
Franke, 2019; Choe et al., 2014; Fritz et al., 2014; Li et al., 2010), so
people with no or limited experience with tracking have been rather
overlooked. Even though a primary motivator for self-tracking might be
achieving a desired outcome, people are also interested in the process
(Rapp and Tirabeni, 2020; Rooksby et al., 2014). For example, people
also self-track to document certain aspects they deem important,
self-diagnose by looking at tracked behavior patterns, or for gaining
external rewards related to the performed tracked activities (Rooksby
et al., 2014).
The process of self-tracking has also been found to elicit an emotional
C. Timar-Anton et al.
response to the self-generated data (Lupton et al., 2018). For instance, in
a qualitative study, Lomborg and Frandsen (2016) found that regular
fitness app users viewed self-tracking as a communicative, pleasurable,
motivating, and meaningful activity. In the same vein, Ruckenstein
(2014) noted that people felt reassured and motivated when monitoring
their heart rates and physical activity levels. Moreover, Sharon and
Zandbergen (2017) uncovered that the self-tracked data is not only
valued for its perceived truthfulness and objectivity, but most impor­
tantly because people who practice self-tracking can attribute meaning
to their data, creating narratives resulting in a “continuous process of
identity construction” (p. 11).
2.3. Personal Goals in Mobile Apps
Goals represent a central aspect of identity content, as young adults
develop their identity around their desires, aspirations, and beliefs
(Vignoles et al., 2011). Research in psychology reveals that people set
goals that focus on mastery or performance (Nicholls, 1984). Mastery
goals focus on learning and developing competence (e.g., “I want to
develop an app to learn how to code.”), whereas performance goals
focus on the result (e.g., “I want to develop a mobile app that gets over
10000 downloads.”), or on comparing oneself with others (e.g., “I want
to develop a better mobile app than my competitor”; Latham and Locke,
2007; Pintrich, 2000).
The level of goal performance is influenced by the strategies imple­
mented, the level of effort, and the ability to review one’s progress
(Latham and Brown, 2006). Also, it has been found that people generally
perform better when they set personally meaningful high goals,
compared to vaguely defined “do your best goals” (Locke and Latham,
2002). A high goal is a desired outcome that is considered at the same
time significant, meaningful, attainable, but also difficult to achieve by
the person setting it (Latham and Locke, 2007). When the goal is new
and the knowledge and skills required for attaining it are unknown,
setting a mastery-oriented goal generally leads to a better outcome than
a performance oriented one (Latham and Brown, 2006; Latham and
Locke, 2007). Pursuing mastery-oriented goals generally also brings
more satisfaction than performance-oriented goals (Latham and Brown,
2006). As goals can be used to evaluate one’s performance, achieving
higher more difficult goals brings more satisfaction than lower goals
(Latham and Locke, 2007; Wiese and Freund, 2005). Previous research
from HCI highlights that asking reflective questions may aid people in
clarifying their underlying motives and goals and thus, it enhances
motivation (Fleck and Fitzpatrick, 2010; Lee et al., 2015). One such set
of questions (i.e., goal appraisals) was developed and tested on a pop­
ulation of adolescents and young adults (Negru, 2009). The goal ap­
praisals were part of The Personal Goal Investigation Procedure (PGIP)
and have been constructed based on the theoretical and methodological
guidelines proposed by Emmons (1986), Little (1983, 2007), and Elliot
and Friedman (2007). The appraisals cover both structural goal char­
acteristics through the first two questions (i.e., perceived difficulty and
perceived novelty) and process-relevant facets, tapping into the
achievement goal orientations of mastery and performance through the
latter three questions (i.e., resource allocation, performance orientation,
and mastery orientation).
Most apps featuring goals focus on helping people achieve a desired
outcome (Rapp and Tirassa, 2017) from losing weight (e.g., MyFit­
nessPal), to learning a new language (e.g., Duolingo), or eating healthier
(e.g., Yazio). These apps usually include goal-setting and the process
towards the desired outcome through monitoring and self-tracking
(Gordon et al., 2019). Goal-setting is handled in a multitude of ways
from prompting the user to choose from a predefined list (e.g., Lumosity)
to asking the user to complete a questionnaire during onboarding about
their current state and their desired outcome (Feastr; Villalobos-Zúñiga
and Cherubini, 2020). In addition, typing goals has been found to in­
crease precision in expression, deeper thinking, and accountability, thus
an effective way of promoting setting of personally meaningful high
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International Journal of Human - Computer Studies 151 (2021) 102642
goals might be to encourage users to type their desired outcomes (Kim
et al., 2016; Kocielnik et al., 2018).
After goal-setting, most apps use reminders in the form of messages
to keep users on track with their goals. These messages are sent around
the time the users should perform activities related to their goals and can
be either set by the users (e.g., 30 Day Fitness) or by the app designers (e.
g., Arise app; Villalobos-Zúñiga and Cherubini, 2020). The number,
moment of delivery, and content of the reminders need to be optimized
to nudge the users towards their desired goals without being perceived
as controlling, irrelevant, intrusive, or disruptive (Bakker et al., 2016;
Mehrotra et al., 2016). Upon clicking on a notification, some apps
prompt the user to track their activities and progress towards their
desired goal. For example, in the nutrition app Yazio, during the
morning, users are prompted to input what they ate for breakfast. By
providing data to the app, users reaffirm their interest in continuing the
activity (Villalobos-Zúñiga and Cherubini, 2020), thus reinforcing their
commitment. In addition, the practice of actively and regularly logging
certain activities gives self-trackers the ability to better notice and
analyze aspects related to the tracked subject (Sharon and Zandbergen,
2017). In apps, the self-tracked data is often presented through a history
feature, that is, a chronological representation of the tracked activities
users performed in their goal pursuits (Villalobos-Zúñiga and Cherubini,
2020). This component enables users to self-reflect on their effort and
progress to gain self-knowledge by mentally juxtaposing their achieve­
ments or failures with factors which might have influenced their per­
formance in specific moments (Bakker et al., 2016; Li et al., 2010;
Villalobos-Zúñiga and Cherubini, 2020).
3. The Present Study
Considering the background presented in the previous sections, the
aim of the present exploratory study was to design, develop, and test a
self-tracking app prototype aimed at strengthening young adults’ iden­
tity commitments through personal career goals. To this end, we first
identified requirements for the design of the app, created an app pro­
totype based on these requirements, and then proceeded to investigate
whether the prototype accomplished its goal of strengthening young
adults’ identity. We designed and tested the app making use of the dual-
cycle model of identity development (Luyckx et al., 2006, 2008).
Additionally, to further improve the app in the future, we also investi­
gated how different goal appraisals used in the app related to the users’
identity processes and how young adults defined and tracked their goals
through the app. Thus, the present study sought to answer the following
exploratory research questions:
RQ1: Does the use of a self-tracking app (i.e., InstaGoal) contribute to
improvements in identity commitments?
RQ2: How do the career goal appraisals used in InstaGoal relate to
identity processes?
RQ3: How do young adults use InstaGoal’s features to define, pursue,
monitor, and subjectively experience their career goals?
4. The Design Process
The InstaGoal app was designed with the specific aim to improve
young adults’ identity commitments drawing on the psychology theories
of identity processes and goal-setting, and on HCI research on self-
tracking outlined in the background section. The requirements inform­
ing the design were theory-driven, but also inspired from other apps
featuring goals and self-tracking. The research team came up with the
following design requirements after multiple brainstorming sessions:
• Users can make identity commitments in the form of career goals
(commitment making);
• Users are encouraged to explore in-depth these career commitments
(exploration in depth);
C. Timar-Anton et al. International Journal of Human - Computer Studies 151 (2021) 102642

• Users can change their commitments (identification with

commitment);
• Users are prompted to type their goals instead of selecting from a
predefined list (encourage accountability, precision of expression,
awareness, and setting of personally meaningful goals);
• Users are encouraged to set meaningful high goals through reflective
questions in the form of goal appraisals (e.g., perceived difficulty,
perceived novelty, resource allocation, performance orientation, and
mastery orientation);
• Users are sent reminders to stay on track with their goals;
• Users can actively self-track their goal pursuit through a journal
(which has been previously found to combat rumination, promoting
self-awareness and deeper thinking);
• Users can review their history of past use (enabling documentation of
activities, self-reflection, self-diagnosis, and better aligns the expe­
riencing self with the remembering self);
• Users are encouraged to focus on their subjective experience;
• Users can easily use the app without external guidance.

5. The Design and Implementation of the InstaGoal App

Building upon the requirements outlined in the previous section,

InstaGoal was designed as a daily self-tracking app for monitoring per­
sonal career goals with the aim of enhancing young adults’ identity
commitments. The app was developed for the Android Operating System
and distributed on Google Play. InstaGoal’s name expresses how easy it
is to set and monitor goals using the app, it seems ‘instant’. The app
features several core components: goal-setting (Figure 1), goal ap­
praisals (Figure 2), goals dashboard (Figure 3), goals history (Figure 4),
Figure 2. Goal Appraisal Screen.
and journal (Figures 5 and 6).
An important general requirement for the app was to be easy to use
without external guidance. In order to achieve this, we focused on
creating a streamlined First-Time User Experience (FTUE), designed as a
step-by-step process which gave all the necessary information about
how to use the app and took the user through the core loop of setting,

Figure 3. Goals Dashboard.

appraising, and monitoring a career goal. When starting the app for the
first time, three information screens displayed in sequence informed the
user about the app. Next, users were asked to type their first career goal
Figure 1. Goal Setting Screen. and to appraise it on five different dimensions (perceived difficulty,

4
C. Timar-Anton et al.
Figure 4. Goals History Screen.
Figure 5. Journal Dashboard.
perceived novelty, resource allocation, performance orientation, and
mastery orientation). During the FTUE, the navigation buttons between
the different sections of the app were removed to focus the entire
attention of the user on the core loop of setting, appraising and
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International Journal of Human - Computer Studies 151 (2021) 102642
Figure 6. Journal Entry Screen. Note. For the purpose of this paper the app
images have been translated into English.
monitoring of the goal. After setting the first goal, the app automatically
switched to the journal dashboard where users could type about any
thoughts, feelings, challenges, or accomplishments related to their goal.
The first time this screen was shown, users were informed about the
purpose of the journal and were encouraged to visit the page often. This
was also the moment when the navigation tabs of the app became
available to the user.
InstaGoal’s main navigation was done through always visible and
accessible tab bars positioned at the bottom of the screen, allowing users
to quickly switch between the goals and journal sections of the app. Each
tab included an icon and the name of the section. The active tab was
highlighted with a brighter tone and its title was also displayed in the
header of the page to help direct the user.
The central component of the InstaGoal app was the “Goals Dash­
board”. From here participants could set, appraise, change, and view
their career-related goals (Figures 1, 2, 3). A two-step process was
employed for goal-setting. First, users were prompted to type a self-
relevant goal on a dedicated page. This design choice was deliberately
made to enable users to set personally meaningful goals and not to
choose from a predefined list of potentially less relevant goals for the
user, facilitating commitment-making. This design decision should
further motivate users to pursue their goal. As pointed out in Kocielnik
et al.’s (2018) study, typing promotes better precision regarding
expression and deeper thinking. At the same time, this activity drives a
sense of commitment and responsibility, while also serving as a mental
note (Kocielnik et al., 2018). Second, immediately after setting the goal,
users were asked to appraise it on five different dimensions (i.e.,
perceived difficulty, perceived novelty, resource allocation, perfor­
mance orientation, and mastery orientation; Negru, 2009). Previous
research from HCI highlights that asking reflective questions may aid
people in clarifying their underlying motives and goals and thus, it en­
hances motivation (Fleck and Fitzpatrick, 2010; Lee et al., 2015). The
choice of goal appraisals is grounded in psychology theories regarding
goal-setting and motivation and were selected to guide the users in
C. Timar-Anton et al.
setting higher goals (Elliot and Friedman, 2007; Emmons, 1986; Little,
1983, 2007).
On subsequent uses of the app, the “Goals Dashboard” reminded
participants of their current goal (written in the center of the screen) and
allowed them to reassess or change the goal by clicking the “Change
Goal” button in line with their current identification with commitment.
This button was conveniently placed in the lower part of the screen to be
easily reachable on larger smartphones with the thumb. The “Goals
Dashboard” also included a “Goals History” page, which gave partici­
pants the option to visualize their log of past goals. This feature was
designed to enable users to reflect on their past activities, which was also
recently supported by Villalobos-Zúñiga and Cherubini’s (2020) sys­
tematic review of mobile apps.
In addition to the “Goals Dashboard”, InstaGoal also featured a
“Journal Dashboard”. The journal encouraged users to record, visualize,
and reflect on their thoughts, feelings, behaviors, challenges, and ac­
complishments related to their career goals, facilitating subjective self-
tracking. This section helps young adults document their progress and
self-diagnose potential failures in their goal-pursuit (Rooksby et al.,
2014). Through journaling, young adults were encouraged to explore in
depth their career goals. In addition, journaling was also employed to
impede the maladaptive process of ruminative exploration (King, 2001;
Pennebaker, 2003; Teismann et al., 2014). In InstaGoal, through the
“Journal Dashboard”, young adults could attach journal pages to their
goals. Each page contained a user-typed title and description and an
automatically generated timestamp. The timestamp was used to visu­
alize the pages in chronological order, facilitating the creation of iden­
tity narratives, while the typed title and descriptions afforded the
tracking of subjective experiences going beyond mere numbers.
Push notifications were employed to remind users to engage with the
app. The reminders were designed to keep users on track with their goals
and had the message “How is your goal pursuit going?”. When the
message was clicked, InstaGoal would open with the “Goal Dashboard”
allowing the user to quickly reassess their goal or change it if they no
longer identified with it. In addition, the journal was also only one tap
away.
6. Methods
6.1. Participants
The sample for this exploratory study initially consisted of 55 young
adults from North-Western Romania. The inclusion criteria were: 18-25
age interval (specific to the young adulthood period) and owning a
smartphone capable of running the app (e.g., Android OS). Based on the
inclusion criteria, a final sample of n = 25 participants (n = 20 female;
Mage = 22.8, SDage = 2.12) was selected. Participants were recruited
through a convenience sampling method by online dissemination of the
announcement of the research to study groups of university students at
bachelor and master levels. Thus, the recruitment was not based on the
membership to a particular group of trackers who usually include people
with experience in such technologies (e.g., Quantified Self Community),
but rather from a general student population. This is particularly
important, as previous studies have usually employed people with prior
experience, for example professional athletes or runners (Attig and
Franke, 2019; Choe et al., 2014; Fritz et al., 2014; Li et al., 2010).
However, prior experience with self-tracking was not explicitly assessed.
Additionally, we acknowledge that the convenience sampling method
and the elimination of non-Android users limit the generalizability of
our results.
6.2. Procedure
To gain insight into how the mobile app would support young adults’
identity processes, a within-participants design with the assessment
times as independent variable and the identity processes as dependent
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International Journal of Human - Computer Studies 151 (2021) 102642
variables was employed. Upon entering the study, participants were
informed that they would need to use a mobile app and fill out an online
questionnaire before using the app (T1) and after four weeks of app use
(T2). The study was introduced as investigating how young adults set
and track their career goals using a mobile app. Participants were asked
to use the various app features (e.g., goal-setting, goal appraising,
journal, log of past use) whenever they observed changes in their goal
pursuit or when receiving push notifications. Participants were assured
that all their data was kept private and anonymous. Also, they were
informed that they could withdraw from the study at any time. More­
over, participants were encouraged to contact the research team by e-
mail for any additional clarifications.
After giving their informed consent, participants received a unique
code, which was used to link their app use with the data collected in the
online questionnaires. Next, participants were invited to complete the
T1 questionnaire consisting of demographic information and the Di­
mensions of Identity Development Scale (DIDS, Luyckx et al., 2006,
2008). Upon completing the questionnaire, participants received access
to download and install the mobile app and were asked to use it for the
next four weeks. Participants were reminded every week through push
notifications to monitor their goals. The goal monitoring consisted of
setting personally relevant goals, appraising those goals on different
dimensions (i.e., perceived difficulty, perceived novelty, resource allo­
cation, performance orientation, mastery orientation), and writing in
the journal about thoughts, feelings, and challenges related to these
goals. After four weeks of use, participants completed the T2 question­
naire consisting of the same identity processes scale as the T1 ques­
tionnaire. Data collection took place in April-May 2017, the first date
representing the login of the first participant and the latter the closing
period of the last participant.
The T1 and T2 identity process measurements were compared to gain
insight into the extent to which the use of InstaGoal contributes to im­
provements in identity commitments (RQ1). To better understand how
appraising career goals in InstaGoal related to identity processes (RQ2),
the goal appraisals from InstaGoal were analyzed in relation with the T1
and T2 identity processes measurements. A thematic analysis using the
goals and journal entries was employed to tap into how young adults use
InstaGoal’s features to define, pursue, monitor, and subjectively expe­
rience their career goals (RQ3).
6.3. Measures
6.3.1. Identity development
The Romanian version (Negru-Subtirica et al., 2016) of the 25-item
Dimensions of Identity Development Scale was used (DIDS, Luyckx
et al., 2006, 2008) to assess five identity processes: commitment making
(e.g., “I have decided on the direction I want to follow in life”; 5 items),
exploration in breadth (“I think about the direction I want to take in my
life”; 5 items), ruminative exploration (“I keep looking for the direction I
want to take in my life”; 5 items), identification with commitment (“Plans
for the future offer me a sense of security”; 5 items), and exploration in
depth (“I think about the future plans I have made”; 5 items). Partici­
pants responded to each item on a scale from 1 (completely disagree) to
5 (completely agree). High scores reflect high levels of the associated
identity process. Exploration in breadth, commitment making, explo­
ration in depth, and identification with commitment are regarded as
adaptive processes of identity formation, while ruminative exploration
represents a maladaptive identity process (Luyckx et al., 2008). Cron­
bach’s Alphas for the five subscales ranged between .73 and .93 at Time
1, and between .68 and .91 at Time 2.
6.3.2. Career goal appraisals
When setting goals in the InstaGoal app, participants were asked to
type their current career-related personal goal. After setting the goal,
they appraised it by answering one question for each of the following
dimensions: perceived difficulty (i.e., ”How hard is it for you to achieve
C. Timar-Anton et al.
this goal?”), perceived novelty (”How different is this goal compared to
other goals that you have previously pursued?”), resource allocation
(”How much time, energy and resources do you allocate to pursue this
goal”), performance orientation (“To what extent do you compare your­
self with others [colleagues, friends, family] when pursuing this goal?”),
and mastery orientation (i.e., ”To what extent do you improve your
abilities and knowledge through the pursuit of this goal?”). Asking
people their motives for engaging in an activity triggers their underlying
motivations (Lee et al., 2015). Assessment of each goal dimension was
conducted on a 6-point Likert-type scale, where 1 indicated low levels
(e.g., “Very low difficulty”) and 6 indicated high levels (e.g., “Very high
difficulty”) of each goal appraisal. The goal appraisals were part of The
Personal Goal Investigation Procedure (PGIP), which was developed and
tested on a population of adolescents and young adults (Negru, 2009).
The PGIP has been constructed based on the theoretical and methodo­
logical guidelines proposed by Emmons (1986), Little (1983, 2007), and
Elliot and Friedman (2007). The appraisals cover structural goal char­
acteristics through the first two questions and process-relevant facets,
tapping into the achievement goal orientations of mastery and perfor­
mance through the latter three questions.
7. Results
7.1. RQ1: Does the use of a self-tracking app (i.e., InstaGoal) contribute
to improvements in identity commitments?
The data used in the analysis of RQ1 consisted of the Dimensions of
Identity Development Scale (DIDS) before using the InstaGoal app (T1)
and after 4 weeks of app use (T2). The five identity processes were
modeled as dependent variables and time (T1, T2) as independent var­
iable. First, we computed the scores for each of the five identity pro­
cesses (i.e., commitment making, exploration in breadth, ruminative
exploration, identification with commitment, exploration in depth) at
T1 and T2 from the DIDS scale. Second, we calculated the internal
reliability of the scale for the five identity processes at T1 and T2 (see
Table 1). Third, we checked if all the assumptions for conducting a one-
way Repeated Measures Multivariate Analysis of Variance (RM-MAN­
OVA) were met. Thus, we checked the data for univariate and multi­
variate outliers, we performed the Shapiro-Wilk test for normality, and
Pearson correlations to identify linear relationships between the
dependent variables (Table 2). Finally, we performed a RM-MANOVA to
evaluate whether the identity processes improve after using InstaGoal. A
significant effect was found, Pillai’s Trace = .46, F(5,20) = 3.38, p =
.022, η2 = .46. A series of five repeated measures analysis of variance
(RM-ANOVA) on each of the dependent variables was conducted as a
follow-up to the RM-MANOVA (Table 3). The results showed that
commitment making (F(1,24) = 7.06, p = .014, η2 = .23) and identifi­
cation with commitment (F(1,24) = 13.09, p = .001, η2 = .35) increased
after using the app. These results provide an indication that after using
the InstaGoal app for four weeks, participants were more secure about
Table 1
Descriptive and reliability statistics.
Cronbach’s alpha
T1 T2
Commitment making .94 .82
Exploration in breadth .75 .74
Ruminative exploration .91 .91
Identification with commitment .88 .91
Exploration in depth .74 .69
Note. T1 = measurement before using the app, T2 = measurement after using the app; M = mean, SD = standard deviation.
7
International Journal of Human - Computer Studies 151 (2021) 102642
their goals and considered their commitments as more aligned with their
values and beliefs. However, those results can only be interpreted as a
preliminary insight due to the lack of a control group.
7.2. RQ2: Is the use of InstaGoal app to appraise personal goals related to
identity processes?
To investigate RQ2, the goal appraisals from the app were correlated
with the identity process measurements. Because the number of mea­
surements for goal appraisals was not equal among participants, with
some participants using the app more intensely than others and at
different times of day, we computed one average score for each goal
appraisal (i.e. perceived difficulty, perceived novelty, resource alloca­
tion, performance orientation, mastery orientation) for each participant.
We then assessed if the data is suited for Pearson correlations by
screening for outliers and conducting a Shapiro-Wilk test for normality.
The Shapiro-Wilk test was significant for resource allocation (p = .034)
and close to significance for mastery orientation (p = .052), thus the
normality assumption for the two goal appraisal dimensions was not
met. Thus, after the preliminary analyses were completed, non-
parametric Spearman correlations were conducted instead of Pearson
to test linear relationships between identity processes and goal ap­
praisals (Table 4). Results indicated that performance orientation was
positively related to ruminative exploration (rs(25) = .53, p < .01) and
exploration in depth at T2 (rs(25) = .59, p < .01). These results imply
that after using InstaGoal, young adults who tended to set goals focused
on achieving a higher performance rather than mastering a particular
career topic, tended to exhibit recurrent doubts and worries about their
career goals, but also explore more.
7.3. RQ3: How do young adults use InstaGoal’s features to define, pursue,
monitor, and subjectively experience their career goals?
To answer RQ3, a deductive (i.e., top-down or theory driven) The­
matic Analysis (TA) of the self-set goals and journal entries was con­
ducted. Personal goals were analyzed on two dimensions: goal content
and goal characteristics (Austin and Vancouver, 1996). Our approach
was informed by Braun and Clarke’s (2006) guidelines for conducting
TA. The employed process included the following stages: (a) the goals
and journal entries were read thoroughly several times to prompt
familiarization with the data and preliminary ideas were highlighted;
(b) initial codes were created around the contents of the goals and
journal entries by two coders (i.e., the first and second author) inde­
pendently, attaching data that was representative for each code; (c) to
enhance reliability, disagreements were solved through discussion
among the authors; (d) codes were organized and grouped to form initial
themes; (e) the initial themes were revised and a thematic map was
generated (see Figure 7). Next, we detail the main themes with examples
translated into English from the goals and journal entries written by
participants. The text excerpts are accompanied by the participant’s
Descriptive statistics
T1 T2
M SD M SD
3.82 0.90 4.12 0.63
3.78 0.55 3.82 0.69
2.67 1.02 2.58 1.05
3.90 0.72 4.14 0.73
3.23 0.70 3.22 0.72
C. Timar-Anton et al. International Journal of Human - Computer Studies 151 (2021) 102642

Table 2
Pearson correlations between identity processes before and after using the app.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

1. T1 Commitment making –
2. T1 Exploration in breadth -.01 –
3. T1 Ruminative exploration -.67** .43* –
4. T1 Identification with commitment .82** -.15 -.71** –
5. T1 Exploration in depth -.18 .61** .58** -.32 –
6. T2 Commitment making .79** .03 -.58** .79** -.32 –
7. T2 Exploration in breadth .04 .48* .23 -.09 .41* -.13 –
8. T2 Ruminative exploration -.47* .36 .82** -.64** .59** -.52** .54** –
9. T2 Identification with commitment .77** -.29 -.75** .89** -.43* .81** -.30 -.76** –
10.T2 Exploration in depth -.09 .56** .41* -.23 .61** -.20 .66** .65** -.42*

Note. T1 = measurement before using the app, T2 = measurement after using the app.
*
p < .05
**
p < .01.

code ranging from p1 to p25 to ensure anonymity.

Table 3
Repeated measures ANOVAs.
7.3.1. Dimension 1: Goal Content
Identity processes ANOVA Three main themes pertaining to goal content were uncovered: pro­
F(1,24) p η2 fessional development, university-related, and work-related.
Commitment making 7.06 .014 .227
Exploration in breadth 0.14 .711 .006 7.3.1.1. Professional Development. For some participants, their career
Ruminative exploration 0.49 .490 .020 goal was related to preparing for admission in a professional develop­
Identification with commitment 13.09 .001 .353
ment program: “to study civil law for the admission at the National
Exploration in depth 0.016 .900 .001
Institute of Magistracy” (p15). For others, professional development was
reflected by engaging in volunteering activities: “engage in volunteering

Table 4
Spearmans’s rho correlation results DIDS T1, T2 and Goal Dimensions.
Perceived Difficulty Perceived Novelty Resource Allocation Performance Orientation Mastery Orientation

T1 CM .12 .14 .20 -.1 -.00

T1 EB .11 -.06 -.19 -.03 .09
T1 RE .25 .09 -.17 .36 -.01
T1 IC .05 .12 .17 -.26 -.06
T1 ED .31 .14 .09 .32 .20
T2 CM .20 .24 .00 -.30 -.17
T2 EB .20 .16 -.35 .36 .07
T2 RE .17 .18 -.15 .53** .11
T2 IC .06 .10 .07 -.32 -.16
T2 ED .17 .31 -.10 .59** -.14

Note. T1 = measurement before using the app, T2 = measurement after using the app; CM = Commitment making, EB = Exploration in breadth, RE = Ruminative
exploration, IC = Identification with commitment, ED = Exploration in depth.
**
p < .01.

Figure 7. Thematic Map.

8
C. Timar-Anton et al.
activities for disadvantaged children” (p23). Participants also saw their
career-related goals as a means for raising professional visibility:
“obtaining an academic achievement by being accepted at a conference
[…]” (p21), “to finalize the paper for [the conference in] Bistrita” (p2),
or “to write at least a 1000 thousand words article on my blog” (p11).
The goals also included aspects related to establishing daily routines and
improving work ethic: “waking up early to be able to start working at 8
am every day” (p1) or “reading at least 10 pages from a book per day”
(p9).
7.3.1.2. University-Related. As several participants were students in the
final year of bachelor or master levels, most of their career-goals focused
on exam preparation, reading mandatory course materials, or working
on assignments. Also, these goals were often linked to the upcoming
exam period: “to start working for the final semester projects and pre­
pare for exams” (p6), “to finish reading my immunology book” (p3), or
“to pass all my current and failed exams” (p18). In addition, participants
were also preoccupied with preparing their thesis: “to write 5 pages for
my thesis” (p4), “to finalize the theoretical section for the thesis” (p14),
“to write the introductory section for my thesis” (p24), or “to present to
my supervisor the last chapter I wrote for my thesis” (p10).
7.3.1.3. Work-Related. Although most participants were still enrolled in
university studies, some of them were already actively engaged in the
job market by exploring their future options (e.g., “analyze my career
options as a clinical psychologist”; p21), searching for jobs (e.g., “to find
work”; p8), applying for work online (e.g., “to bid on two UpWork
projects daily”; p1), or starting a new job (e.g., “to transition well into
the new team”; p25). For participants who were already employed, goals
focused more on job-related tasks: “to outperform my target at my new
job” (p25) or “organize the SAP training for the new employees” (p14).
7.3.2. Dimension 2: Goal Characteristics
Pertaining to goal characteristics, four main themes were uncovered:
time framing, goal status, goal-related affect, and performance orientation,
defining process-relevant aspects of the career-goals set by the
participants.
7.3.2.1. Time Framing. Participants’ goals included a time-frame for
goal completion. For example, “to prepare myself for the CSR course
project presentation on Friday” (p6) or “to publish a version of the app
until 15 of May” (p1).
7.3.2.2. Goal Status. Some participants used the journal to assess their
progress while pursuing their goals. For example, they reported if the
goal was achieved “I read the vices of consent from the civil law manual”
(p15), overachieved “I read the book and I also took notes for the exam.
[…]” (p3), partially achieved “Today I have only found one job offer on
UpWork which I liked” (p1), still pursued “I have started working on the
projects, but there is still work left” (p6), or not achieved “I have not
read anything today” (p9).
7.3.2.3. Goal-Related Affect. During goal pursuit, some participants
used the journal to express subjective experiences related to their goal
striving, most often related to their success or failure. Our data reflected
dichotomous emotional valence, namely satisfaction “I finalized the
paper and I am very satisfied about the results” (p2) and dissatisfaction
“I overcame one exam, but I did not study enough, and I am not content
with myself. Tomorrow, I have another exam and still did not study
enough […]” (p18). Also, some participants wrote about motivational
aspects “To become what we want to be or what we could be is all that
matters” (p13) or about their underlying beliefs for not achieving the
desired outcome “I have read a quarter of the book. From Friday I felt
sick and it was my excuse for sleeping all day.” (p20), “Today I made use
of the learnt principle, I had an insight about positive thinking, and I
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International Journal of Human - Computer Studies 151 (2021) 102642
achieved much more than I already planned for” (p11).
7.3.2.4. Performance Orientation. When the participants set their goals,
they sometimes specified different criteria for goal completion. These
ranged from self-others comparison, for example: “[my goal is] to study
for the upcoming exam and be the best” (p12), objective measurable
goals “to get at least an 8 at the pharmacology exam” (p13), or vaguely
framed “to get high grades during the exam period” (p5).
8. Discussion
8.1. Commitment Making and Identification with Commitment Increased
After Using the InstaGoal App
The quantitative results of the study suggest that the processes of
commitment making and identification with commitment increased
after using the app for four weeks. These results provide indication that
the app might have helped young adults set meaningful career goals
which better aligned with their values and beliefs system, leading to
becoming more certain about their future career plans. This result builds
upon Sharon and Zandbergen’s findings (2017) who through a quali­
tative approach found that self-trackers construct their identity by
crafting a personal narrative based on the meaning derived from their
self-generated data. In our case, InstaGoal was designed to facilitate the
setting of meaningful high goals using reflective questions about the
underlying motivations of setting the goals, in line with Lee et al. (2015)
and through subjective self-tracking. We believe that by providing
young adults with the necessary tools for self-tracking, namely a goal
history and journal, they could better diagnose what aspects of their goal
pursuit should be optimized (Rooksby et al., 2014) and hence set sub­
sequent goals which are better aligned with their values and capabilities.
This is also in line with Doherty and Doherty’s (2018) work on the three
selves. Possibly, by providing the necessary tools to record their
thoughts, feelings, and beliefs related to the pursued career goal in real
time, and later use this information to self-reflect, the dissonance be­
tween the selves is reduced, resulting in better, more aligned goals
(Doherty and Doherty, 2018). Moreover, it is important to note that
changes associated with the use of InstaGoal app were found on both
cycles of identity development, namely identity formation (i.e.,
commitment making) and identity evaluation (i.e., identification with
commitment). This points to the fact that the app might have helped
young adults not only to strengthen their commitment to goals, but also
that these goals were in fact evaluated as self-meaningful, as their
identification with commitment also increased.
8.2. Exploration In-Depth, Ruminative Exploration, and Performance
Orientation
The quantitative analysis also found positive correlations between
the performance orientation goal appraisal and the identity processes of
exploration in depth and ruminative exploration, after using the app.
This result might be explained by the fact that exploration in depth in­
volves consulting with others about the commitments one has already
made to gain a deeper understanding (Luyckx et al., 2006). Ruminative
exploration has been previously found to be linked with performance
goals (Flunger et al., 2016), which in turn revolve around comparing
one’s results on a goal with others’, providing precedent to our findings.
In the next section, we will discuss the results of the thematic analysis
and will look at the content of the goals in more detail, focusing on the
tendency of some participants to set performance-oriented goals.
8.3. How do young adults use InstaGoal’s features to define, pursue,
monitor, and subjectively experience their career goals?
To better understand if InstaGoal’s features were used as intended
C. Timar-Anton et al.
and how they could be improved in the future, a thematic analysis was
conducted on the self-set goals of the users and on the journal entries.
We charted users’ subjective experience of goal-setting, in order to track
goal themes that can inform future versions of the app. More specif­
ically, we aimed at depicting a preliminary exploratory thematic map of
young adults’ career goals, which can inform the development of
personalized tips for career goal management for future versions of the
app. We looked at young people’s goals and journal entries attached to
their goals on two dimensions: goal content and goal characteristics. The
goal content revealed that young adults viewed their careers as some­
thing that can be constantly improved by tweaking their habits, rou­
tines, and engaging in experimenting different work roles. Goals were
related to young adults’ university studies, work- related tasks, and
professional development. From a goal characteristic perspective, we
identified that some participants set performance-oriented goals where
the desired outcome was sometimes measurable (e.g., getting over 8 at
an exam), sometimes focused on comparing oneself with others (e.g., be
the best), but sometimes also vague (e.g., get a good grade at an exam).
As psychology theories on goal-setting (Latham and Locke, 2007)
emphasize that people perform better on well-defined high goals, a more
refined version of the app could consider features that would help young
adults define their goals even better, possibly including tips or reflective
questions about measurable success criteria for the goals. Additionally,
the thematic analysis revealed that young adults used the journal to
track their progress, write down about the status of their goals, and
sometimes write about their feelings related to the goal pursuit. These
results showed that the journal was used both to track progress related
feelings associated with their goal pursuit (i.e., satisfaction or dissatis­
faction), but also objective measures of progress. Writing about objec­
tive measures of progress might have helped young adults boost their
commitments by making them feel more accountable for their goal
pursuit. This idea is also supported by the fact that the feelings of
satisfaction or dissatisfaction were expressed in the same journal entries
where progress, goal achievement, or goal failure was reported. These
feelings were reported by young adults in conjunction with higher, more
personally meaningful goals, which is in line with psychology findings
that outline that high and meaningful goals bring more satisfaction
when achieved than lesser goals (Wiese and Freund, 2005).
8.4. Theoretical and Practical Implications for HCI
Considering the previously discussed results, the present study brings
important theoretical and practical contributions to the field of HCI.
First, it brings into the attention of HCI the dual-cycle model of identity
construction (Luyckx et al., 2006, 2008), which can be used as a
framework for investigating the influence of apps or other apparatuses
on individuals’ personal identity. Through the DIDS scale (Luyckx et al.,
2006, 2008), this quantitative framework can be added to the existing
toolset of qualitative methodologies already used in the HCI field to
investigate the self in relation to computers. Second, using DIDS to test
InstaGoal, the present study provides indication that apps may be
created to help young adults develop their identity.
Third, the requirements for designing apps for identity elaborated
during this study can be used as a starting point by other researchers or
developers interested in this field. With respect to designing apps
focused on increasing identity commitments, it is important to include
features that enable users to self-reflect and think deeper about their
motivations when setting a goal. In our case, we asked young adults to
type and appraise their goals during goal commitment, to help them
think deeper about the goal, thus filtering out meaningless alternative
goals and focus on higher goals. In addition, InstaGoal featured a journal
both to record young adults’ thoughts, feelings, and beliefs in real time
and to provide the ability to read through and review the contents of the
journal and goal history at any later time. This was designed to afford
self-tracking and self-reflection and is in line with theories about the
dissonance and drive to reduce dissonance between the three selves
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International Journal of Human - Computer Studies 151 (2021) 102642
(Doherty and Doherty, 2018).
Fourth, through our thematic analysis we observed that young adults
linked their most meaningful goals to emotional experiences. The the­
matic analysis also revealed that young adults used the app to track a
variety of goals, ranging from short-term tasks related to work or their
university studies to long-term career milestones, such as getting their
first job or completing their studies. Therefore, the results indicate that
online self-tracking apps, such as InstaGoal, may be used by young
adults as an aid in addressing offline developmental tasks (i.e., preparing
for a career or finding a job). For this reason, HCI research should
consider further investigating identity processes in relation to digital
technologies, potentially resulting in the creation of career counseling
apps.
8.5. Limitations and Future Research
This exploratory study constitutes a first step towards designing a
self-tracking app for strengthening young adults’ identity commitments,
yet we recognize that the approach of the study has several limitations.
First, even though young adults’ commitments were stronger after the
app use period, the study can only report indications that InstaGoal app
strengthened the identity commitments of young adults, due to the lack
of a control group. Second, some features of the app such as setting goals
and journals can also be afforded by a low-tech solution such as a
physical pen-and-paper journal. The present study did not compare the
efficacy of the app with a low-tech solution, but even if no significant
difference was found, given that young adults use smartphones exten­
sively (Gardner and Davis, 2013; Livingstone, 2011; Third et al., 2017;
Turkle, 2017), an app should at least be more convenient. Third, the
present study used a convenience sampling method which resulted in a
mostly female distribution of students all using Android smartphones.
Thus, the results cannot be generalized, as we do not know if the findings
would be the same on different distributions of young adults (e.g.,
non-female, non-students, or iOS users). Fourth, the requirements for
the design of the app were theory-driven and decided by the research
team without being validated through a user-centered design method­
ology, such as an iterative process where user feedback would be inte­
grated into the app’s design (Albert and Tullis, 2013). Also, the study did
not employ any methods of assessing which requirements or features
were the most important for achieving the goal of the study. Thus, the
guidelines for design put forward by this study should be viewed only as
a starting point with more work needed to refine them.
In light of the outlined limitations, future studies could improve on
this work by employing an iterative user-centered design approach to
refine and validate the guidelines put forward by the present study.
Additional work could include employing interviews or focus groups
with the app users and applying established usability assessments such
as the USE Questionnaire (Lund, 2001), or reaction cards (e.g.,
ASSURANCE; Veral and Macías, 2019) to further iterate and refine on
the design. In addition, a more diverse sample could be used to explore if
different requirements should be considered for different user de­
mographics. The results of the present study did not find any significant
changes in identity exploration after using the app, thus a future study
might also be interested in investigating how apps could be designed to
also facilitate identity exploration and not only identity commitments.
In the present study, mastery or performance motivations for pursuing
career goals were only employed as goal appraisals to facilitate deeper
thinking when setting goals. Future studies might want to expand on this
by creating features specifically designed to encourage users towards a
mastery or performance orientation for learning goals (Latham and
Brown, 2006; Latham and Locke, 2007). Additionally, the present study
only investigated creating apps for the career identity domain, leaving
other domains such as romantic-relationships, family, friendships,
educational, political, religious, or spiritual identity not investigated.
Future studies could attempt to investigate if apps for other identity
domains need to consider different design requirements or approaches.
C. Timar-Anton et al.
Additionally, InstaGoal was designed to only allow participants to pur­
sue one goal at a time. This is not often the case in real life, where people
usually follow multiple goals concurrently (Austin and Vancouver,
1996; Heckhausen et al., 2010). Future studies might investigate if this
feature of InstaGoal has a positive effect on identity commitment pro­
cesses, in comparison to a version of the same app which allow multiple
goals to be pursued at the same time.
9. Conclusion
This exploratory study contributes to the HCI research field by being
the first to develop a self-tracking app for monitoring career personal
goals and investigate its potential impact on identity commitment pro­
cesses. The InstaGoal app included features designed to enable and
encourage self-reflection, such as goal appraisals, reminders to engage,
journal, and log of past use. The study included a quantitative analysis
investigating identity processes and a thematic analysis focused on
exploring the content and subjective meanings of young adults’ personal
goals. Results showed that the identity processes of commitment making
and identification with commitment increased after using the InstaGoal
app, indicating that self-tracking apps represent a promising avenue for
enhancing adaptive identity processes. The journal section aided par­
ticipants to track goal’s progress and to express their personal experi­
ences and insights. The thematic analysis results also showed how
versatile the InstaGoal app is, being used to track a variety of different
goals and allowing users to log their thoughts and feelings along the
way. By combining the identity processes theory from psychology and
HCI research on self-tracking, this study brings to the fore a new lens of
thinking about self-tracking apps focusing on identity processes.
Credit Author Statement
Casandra Timar-Anton: Conceptualization, Methodology, Formal
analysis, Investigation, Writing - Original Draft, Writing - Review &
Editing. Oana Negru-Subtirica: Conceptualization, Methodology,
Formal analysis, Investigation, Writing - Original Draft, Writing - Re­
view & Editing, Supervision. Adrian Opre: Conceptualization, Meth­
odology, Formal analysis, Investigation, Writing - Review & Editing,
Supervision.
Declaration of Competing Interest
None.
Acknowledgements
Funding: This work was partially supported by grants of the Roma­
nian Ministry of Education and Research: Babes-Bolyai University
doctoral grant 17300/14036/1.10.2018 and CNCS - UEFISCDI grant PN-
III-P4-ID-PCE-2020-0179.
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