Identity Formation In Education Research Articles

A Pilot Study of Supporting GTA Professional Development and Educator Identity in Engineering

Graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) significantly contribute to the learning and experiences of undergraduate students. Thus, supporting and enhancing GTA pedagogical knowledge and competencies can improve the learning experiences of undergraduates. Towards this goal, a discipline-specific pedagogical professional development program was created for GTAs in the Faculty of Engineering at a Canadian university. This case study explores the perspectives of participating GTAs, including how they engaged in learning about teaching, what they learned, their emerging educator identity formation, and the challenges they faced during the program. Situated learning theory informed the analysis of participant interviews and focus groups. Findings indicate that GTAs appreciated the situated and embedded nature of the program, reporting limited prior familiarity with pedagogical tools and practices and their application. Results also highlight the need to align GTA roles and responsibilities, providing opportunities to put their learning into practice with the pedagogical knowledge they developed in the program.

Develop Your CORE2 for Career Flourishing: A Career Development Workshop for Hospitalists.

Appreciative inquiry harnesses an individual's strengths to realize positive change, and a flourishing-focused mindset emphasizes engagement, social connectivity, and seeking meaningful work. Though the impact of these models on physician well-being and career planning has been evaluated in graduate medical education, their integration into career development initiatives for faculty has been limited. We designed a workshop to nurture hospitalist career development, based on our CORE2 conceptual framework (character strengths, overall vision, role assessment, explicit goals, and evaluation). We presented the workshop at the 2022 and 2023 Society of Hospital Medicine (SHM) annual conferences. This 1.5-hour workshop comprised four modules and three small-group activities designed to help participants identify their signature character strengths, draft a professional vision statement, prioritize professional roles, and develop SMART goals aligned with these roles. At the 2023 SHM annual conference, 36 participants attended the workshop, and 32 (89%) completed pre- and postworkshop surveys. After workshop completion, participants' self-assessed familiarity with their signature character strengths, knowledge of evidence-based principles to develop SMART goals, and confidence in their ability to write a vision statement and SMART goals all increased significantly (p < .05). This workshop provides a valuable framework for self-directed longitudinal career development and reflection. We build on prior curricula on educator identity formation by guiding participants from identity definition to professional vision development to professional role evaluation to aligned goal creation and iterative evaluation. Our workshop's principles are readily generalizable to clinician-educators across medical disciplines.

How community and organizational culture interact and affect senior clinical educator identity

Purpose The development of Educator Identity has a significant impact on well-being, motivation, productivity, and the quality of teaching. Previous research has shown that conflicting responsibilities and a challenging work environment could negatively affect the development of Clinical Educator Identity within an organization. However, there is a lack of research that identifies the factors affecting Clinical Educator Identity Formation and provides guidance on how organizations can support its development, maintenance, and advancement. Methods To examine the phenomenology of Professional Identity Development in experienced Senior Clinical Educators in Singaporean hospitals, the study utilized an exploratory qualitative approach. The data was collected from September 2021 to May 2022 through one-to-one interviews. Four investigators analyzed the data using constant comparative analysis to identify relevant themes. Results Eleven senior educators revealed that personal, relational, and organizational factors influenced the development of Clinical Educator Identity. The relational aspect was a vital enabler, while organizational culture was a strong barrier. The study also identified several ways in which organizations can support Educator Identity development. Conclusion The study findings provide insight into how organizations can support the development of Clinical Educator Identity. The results could aid organizations in understanding the areas where they can channel resources to support Clinical Educator Identity development.

Transition theory and the emotional journey to medical educator identity: A qualitative interview study.

Medical academia is in crisis, with fewer people entering and growing concern at numbers leaving. While faculty development is often seen as part of the solution, there are significant issues with faculty not engaging with and resisting development opportunities. Lack of motivation may be linked to what might be called a 'weak' educator identity. We studied medical educators' experiences of career development to gain further insights into: how professional identity may develop; individuals' accompanying emotional responses to perceived identity change; and consideration of the accompanying temporal dimensions. Drawing on new materialist sociology, we explore medical educator identity formation in terms of an affective flow that places the individual within a constantly shifting assemblage of psychological, emotional and social relations. We interviewed 20 medical educators at various career stages, with differing strengths of medical educator self-identity. Using an adapted transition model as a basis for understanding the emotions experienced by those undergoing identity transitions, we explore the process that, for some medical educators, appears to lead to decreased motivation, ambiguous identity and disengagement, but for others results in renewed energy, a stronger and more stable professional identity and increased interest and engagement. By more effectively illustrating the emotional impact of the transition process leading to a more stable educator identity, we show that some individuals, especially where the change was not sought or welcomed, express their uncertainty and distress through low mood, resistance and an attempt to minimise the significance of undertaking or increasing teaching duties. Understanding the emotional and developmental phases of the transition to medical educator identity has several key implications for faculty development. Faculty development approaches should be alert to the individual educator's stage of transition since this will affect that individual's readiness to accept and respond to guidance, information and support. A renewed emphasis on early educational approaches that will support the transformational and reflective learning of the individual is needed, while traditional approaches emphasising skills and knowledge may be more useful in the later stages. Further testing of the transition model and its applicability to identity development in medical education is indicated.

A Qualitative Study on the Outcomes of Participation in a Longitudinal Clinician Educator Curriculum During Internal Medicine Residency.

Despite increasing prevalence of longitudinal clinician educator tracks (CETs) within graduate medical education (GME) programs, the outcomes of these curricula and how participation in these tracks affects early career development remains incompletely understood. To describe the experience and outcomes of participating in a CET and its effects on recent internal medicine residency graduates' perceived educator skills and early career development. We conducted a qualitative study between July 2019 and January 2020 using in-depth semi-structured interviews of recently graduated physicians from 3 internal medicine residencies at one academic institution who had participated in a CET, the Clinician Educator Distinction (CED). Iterative interviews and data analysis was performed via an inductive, constructionist, thematic analysis approach by 3 researchers to develop a coding and thematic structure. Results were sent electronically to participants for member checking. From 21 (out of 29 eligible) participants, thematic sufficiency was reached at 17 interviews. Four themes related to the CED experience were identified: (1) motivation to go beyond the expectations of residency; (2) educator development outcomes from Distinction participation; (3) factors enabling curricular efficacy; and (4) opportunities for program improvement. A flexible curriculum with experiential learning, observed teaching with feedback, and mentored scholarship allowed participants to enhance teaching and education scholarship skills, join a medical education community, transform professional identities from teachers to educators, and support clinician educator careers. This qualitative study of internal medicine graduates identified key themes surrounding participation in a CET during training, including positively perceived educator development outcomes and themes surrounding educator identity formation.

Dermatology residents as educators: a qualitative study of identity formation

BackgroundOne of the many identities a physician comes to form during their career is their identity as an educator. Exploring formation of this identity may enrich our understanding of how physicians make decisions related to their roles as educators, their behaviors, and how this ultimately influences the educational environment. It is the aim of this study to investigate educator identity formation of dermatology residents while early in their careers.MethodsDrawing on a social constructionist paradigm, we conducted a qualitative study, utilizing an interpretative approach. We examined longitudinal data over a 12-month period using dermatology residents’ written reflections from their professional portfolios and semi-structured interviews. We collected this data as we progressed through and beyond a 4-month professional development program designed to encourage residents’ growth as educators. Sixty residents in their second, third, or final year of residency programs located in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia were invited to take part in this study. Twenty residents participated with sixty written reflections and 20 semi-structured interviews. Qualitative data were analyzed using a thematic analysis approach.ResultsSixty written reflections and 20 semi-structured interviews were analyzed. Data was categorized according to themes corresponding to the original research questions. For the first research question regarding identity formation, themes included definitions of education, the process of education, and identity development. For the second research question, 1 theme entitled professional development program included, the following sub-themes: individual act, interpersonal activity, and an organizational undertaking, with many believing that residency programs should prepare residents for their educator roles. Participants also described newfound leadership ambitions of creating new dermatology fellowship programs as a result of taking part in the Resident-as-Educator program.ConclusionsOur study provides insights on the dynamic formation of educator identities amongst dermatology residents. Investment in developing residents as educators through professional development programs may instigate transformational change on the individual physician level and profession’s level.

The Role of Parental Socio-Economic Status and Perceived Career-Related Behaviors in Developmental Trajectories of Educational Identity in Adolescence: A Four-Wave Study

Personal identity formation is a key developmental task of adolescence, with the educational domain being a core life domain. Parents are gatekeepers of adolescent career development but their role in facilitating educational identity formation still needs to be uncovered. The present study investigated developmental trajectories of educational identity processes (commitment, in-depth exploration, and reconsideration of commitment) across two academic years. Educational identity processes, parental socio-economic status, and parental career-related behaviors (support, interference, lack of engagement) were appraised through a four-wave longitudinal study with 5- to 6-month intervals ( N = 744; M age = 15.2 years, 55% girls). Results of the latent class growth analysis revealed five educational identity trajectories (i.e., Undifferentiated, Searching moratorium, Foreclosed, Diffusion, and Achievement). Commitment and in-depth exploration processes were stable for all five trajectories. The undifferentiated trajectory (medium stable levels for all identity processes) was the most prevalent. Parental socio-economic status and perceived parental support correlated positively with achievement and searching moratorium trajectories and negatively with diffused and undifferentiated trajectories. Foreclosed adolescents perceived their parents as the most engaged. Trajectories characterized by high reconsideration of commitment also correlated the most with perceived parental interference. The results bring forward valuable insights into the role parents play in their adolescents’ educational identity development.

The Educational Identity Formation of Jehovah’s Witnesses

Through qualitative research this study addresses the inadequate amount of research investigating the educational identity formation of individuals who are raised as Jehovah’s Witnesses (JW). Narratives from semi-structured interviews suggest participants negotiated multiple identities in multiple frames—their identity as religious members and their personal educational identity in their secular education. Individuals whose parents subscribed to the religion’s notion that higher education was unnecessary and detrimental, formed educational identities that rejected their talents, suppressed their motivation, and foreclosed opportunities for autonomy and self-satisfaction in personal goal setting and career selection.

Shadows and Light: Professional Women Educators Transitioning to Academe

Many professional women educators make the transition from school settings to academe after significant graduate work in their field(s). This transition, which often occurs on a mid- to late-career trajectory, places such individuals within liminal spaces on many levels as they inevitably must navigate unfamiliar, often alien, territory that frequently does not recognize or respect the experiences with which they enter their new university contexts. The collaborative autoethnographic study we embarked upon involved examining our own experiences of making this transition. By revisiting an academic year’s worth of recorded conversations and analyzing them through an ecofeminist lens, we considered the lessons we had learned through engaging in a program renewal process and designing and co-teaching new courses in our first few years as faculty, as well as how these lessons impacted our emerging identities as new teacher educators. Our findings included three broad lessons learned: Beware of Institutionally Invisible Work; This is not High School, Dorothy; and Two Heads and Hearts are One. These lessons taught us to navigate the shadow places (Plumwood, 2008) of academe, including the delegitimization of teaching, nurturing and service work and the dematerialisation (Plumwood, 2008) associated with such delegitimization, and to embrace the light we found rooted in interconnectedness, an ethic of care, and our mutual recognition of the other. Moreover, these lessons offer others in the field ways of understanding the difficult transition to academe undertaken by professional women educators and the complexity of academic/teacher educator identity formation. Keywords: professional women educators, ecofeminist, institutionally invisible work, teacher educator identity, transition to academe, program renewal, collaborative autoethnography, borderland discourse, mutual recognition, shadow places, ethic of care

A faculty development workshop to support educator identity formation

Although faculty members may relate strongly to their clinical and/or research identities, they frequently struggle to develop and maintain an educator identity, which may be underdeveloped or in t...

Educator Identity Formation: A Faculty Development Workshop.

IntroductionHealth professions faculty members often struggle deciding on career paths balancing their identities as clinicians, educators, and scholars. Identity formation research has identified three major influences: context, roles, and agency. Identity influences career decisions and, in turn, affects engagement in medical education and faculty development. We designed a single-session workshop to foster educator identity formation.MethodsThe workshop varied from 1 to 3 hours. It explored how identity develops and considered how self, role, and context could be shaped to grow and sustain identity. Participants used a handout called Identity Quakes to indicate satisfaction with their support, engagement, and empowerment. The workshop employed direct instruction to provide language and tools to scaffold conversation and self-reflection leading to future plans aligning participants' professional identities and roles with resources to support further development.ResultsFrom 2016 to 2020, we offered the workshop to faculty members from diverse professions, including medicine, nursing, dentistry, physical therapy, and others, on 11 occasions (locally, nationally, and internationally) with audiences of 15–200 participants. At offerings that collected evaluations, the workshop received high ratings of 4.61–4.90 (very good-excellent) on a 5-point scale.DiscussionThis single-session workshop is a valuable opportunity to reflect on identity, which faculty members rarely get to do formally. The Identity Quakes handout prompts participants to challenge their assumptions about their professional identities and roles, employ their agency/choice, and consider future career choices.

The Nurse Leader’s Role:: A Conduit for Professional Identity Formation and Sustainability

The development of professional identity in nursing (PIN) is essential to the education, advancement, and brand image of nursing, and to demonstrate the impact on patients’ health and well-being. Unfortunately, the construct of PIN has not been well-established. To further shape and distinguish the concept, 3 think tanks were held between 2018 and 2020, resulting in the recognition that nursing leadership is a primary conduit to influence PIN. How leaders role model, improve practice environments, and foster lifelong learning greatly contributes to the formation and sustainability of the professional identity of nurses and the next generation of leaders.

The Power of Peers: Faculty Development for Medical Educators of the Future.

The Power of Peers: Faculty Development for Medical Educators of the Future.

The influence of postgraduate qualifications on educational identity formation of healthcare professionals

Demand for postgraduate qualifications in medical education can be judged by the increase in providers worldwide over the last two decades. However, research into the impact of such courses on identity formation of healthcare professionals is limited. This study investigates the influence of such programmes on graduates’ educational identities, practices and career progression. Informed by constructivist grounded theory (CGT), semi-structured interviews were conducted with 27 graduates (2008–2012) from one postgraduate programme, who were at different stages in their careers worldwide. The audio data were transcribed and analysed using a CGT approach. Participants enrolled in award-bearing medical education courses for various intrinsic and extrinsic reasons. The findings from this study highlight their development as educators, and educational researchers, leaders and learners, as their self-efficacy in educational practices and engagement in scholarly activities increased. Graduates attributed career progression to the qualification, with many being promoted into senior positions. They also described substantial performance attainments in the workplace. The findings contribute to understanding the complexity and nuances of educational identity formation of healthcare professionals. A qualification in medical education encouraged transformational changes and epistemological development as an educator. Awareness of these findings will inform both those considering enrolment and those supporting them of potential benefits of these programmes.

Reciprocal Associations between Educational Identity and Vocational Identity in Adolescence: A Three-wave Longitudinal Investigation.

Education and vocation are core identity domains in adolescence. School is a normative social context in this developmental time frame and the formation of an educational identity is embedded in the goals that youth pursue in school. One of the main goals of education is to prepare young people for their future careers. Hence, educational identity should support the formation of vocational identity during adolescence. Considering the limited evidence on the longitudinal links between these two domain-specific identities, we conducted a three-wave investigation, testing the moderating role of age group, gender, and type of school. Participants (N = 1030; 59.3% female) were adolescents (M age = 16.72 years, SD age = 1.23, age range 14-19 years) who completed self-report measures of educational and vocational identity three times during an academic year. We underscored reciprocal associations between educational identity and vocational identity. The results indicate that strong educational commitments supported the formation of strong vocational commitments across time. Adolescents who were involved in the in-depth exploration of their educational choices also reported more vocational exploration during the school year. In turn, vocational identity processes also supported educational identity formation, especially the reconsideration of educational commitments. In terms of moderators, we underscored that vocational commitment making and vocational flexibility bolstered educational commitment only in early-to-middle adolescents. Educational in-depth exploration fostered the identification with vocational commitments only in girls. Educational reconsideration of commitment promoted vocational self-doubt only in adolescents attending work-bound high-schools. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Educating Men-and-Women-for-Others: Jesuit and International Educational Identity Formation in Conversation

In a globalising world that often appears overrun by corporate and consumerist values, international education can be tempted to follow suit and support elitist transnational learning. Such an outcome may emerge intentionally or through an unreflective embrace of an unjust status quo. It follows that students and alumni of international education institutions may have little concern for more broadly communitarian values such as social justice, solidarity, and active care for those on the margins of local and global societies. However, for those craving alternatives that counteract segmented interests, this article demonstrates one such alternative. It maps how ‘men-and-women-for-others,’ a concept with worldwide traction in Jesuit education, can both inform and learn from international education concepts and practices. Further, this article employs the case of two remarkable Jesuit nativity schools to ground that dialogical process of meaning making, as men-and-women-for-others interacts with the International Education Studies literature in a mutually enhancing manner. The results will be of interest to those committed to fostering social justice, solidarity-based action, and a glocal ethic of care amongst the students and alumni of both Jesuit and international educational institutions.

Instrument Teacher's Narrative Identity and Professional Growth

The purpose of the study was to discover the dynamics of a music educator's identity formation and the preconditions of professional growth in her life. The music educator's profession was described through her stories and beliefs.First, the research task was to determine when and why individual/social sources of self were successful (dominant) at particular times in her life. Second, the task was to determine when and why certain changes in her life occurred. The instrument teacher had worked at different music institutes and had recently retired.The data has been collected through an episodic, in depth-interview. The data consists of meaningful episodes in the teacher's life and her beliefs on different themes in this study. The data analysis strategies included paradigmatic analysis of narratives and narrative analysis.According to the results, the success of instrument teacher's sources of individual/social selves was defined by her efforts to achieve harmony. Aspirations to achieve integrity arise from the need to define oneself. Thus, answering the question who a person is requires individual/social definitions. According to this study, progression in her professional growth is a maturing process. First, it involved getting to know herself, second, committing to herself and finally achieving autonomy. The instrument teacher's profession is characterized by a relationship between personas. According to her story, instrument teaching is a lifelong preoccupation.

The role of best friends in educational identity formation in adolescence

This 4-year longitudinal study examined over-time associations between adolescents' educational identity, perceived best friends' balanced relatedness, and best friends' educational identity. Adolescents (N = 464, Mage = 14.0 years at baseline, 56.0% males, living in the Netherlands) and their self-nominated best friends reported on their educational commitment, in-depth exploration, and reconsideration. Target adolescents also reported on the level of balanced relatedness provided by their best friend. Cross-lagged panel models showed that balanced relatedness significantly predicted adolescents' reconsideration, and was predicted by in-depth exploration and, in an inconsistent pattern, by commitment. Best friends' educational identity did not positively predict adolescents' educational identity. Perceiving a best friend as high on balanced relatedness seems to reduce adolescents' problematic educational reconsideration, while, in turn, adaptive educational identity processes might foster balanced relatedness.

Theorizing teacher identity: self-narratives and finding place in an audit society

Noting the need for richer theories of identity and identity formation in education, the author describes aspects of D. P. McAdams’ psychosocial constructivist framework enriched by select concepts drawn from Life Course research for conceptualizing and analyzing identity development within audit-driven societies and educational systems. Drawing on the language and concepts of the framework, the author illustrates some of its interpretative power by conducting a ‘close reading’, a method drawn from literary theory, of portions of a head teacher’s published self-narrative.

Identity formation in educational settings: A critical focus for education in the 21st century

There is growing recognition that identity formation must become an important focus in education. Particularly in the 21st century, when modes of knowledge construction and accessibility to different types of knowledge are rapidly increasing and diversifying, academic learning cannot be divorced from students’ development of values, goals, social roles, and worldviews. The articles in this special issue present a diverse collection of research on students’ identity formation in educational settings. Yet, despite the diversity in perspectives, educational contexts, samples, and research and analytic methods, all of the articles highlight the role of the educational context in identity formation processes. We begin this introduction with a brief review of the increasing attention to identity formation in education. We follow with synopses of each of the articles in this special issue.