This study examined professional identity of biology faculty at four-year colleges and universities and the relationship between their perceived identity, as a scientist or a teacher, and their participation in activities related to evidence-based teaching practices. This study drew upon online survey results of 328 college and university biology faculty from across the country. Results from ordinary least squares regression indicated faculty who work at very high, high, and Master's institutions had higher perceptions of science identity. Nontenure track faculty showed higher perceptions of teaching identity. Additionally, the results of this study indicated a strong teaching identity and favorable views on evidence-based teaching related to greater participation in evidence-based teaching practices. Science identity, though positively relate to the outcome, was not a statistically significant predictor of participation in activities related to evidence-based teaching practices. An implication for practice is to recognize biology faculty members' use of newer teaching methods, such as demonstrations of student-centered teaching in lectures in promotion and tenure review. An important implication for future research would be to explore if recognition for outstanding teaching through promotion and tenure cause an increase in the number of faculty who gravitate toward more education-based scholarly activities and, in turn, develop a higher teaching identity.

International test results posed concerns about the future of science education in Canada, the UK, and the USA. Stakeholders such as Let's Talk Science and AMGEN Canada and The Royal Society, UK observed that fewer students were pursuing post-secondary studies and careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) related fields in their countries, compared to their counterparts in China, India and Singapore. These stakeholders contended that science teachers required the agency to enhance their classroom efficacy and to challenge their students to pursue post-secondary studies and careers in STEM related fields. Reform initiatives, including professional development programmes, have been established across western countries to support science teachers' agency to act as change agents. This study was based on two assumptions; first, science teachers need professional development, experiences to shape their professional identity to act as change agents in science education reform, and secondly, science teachers' professional identity may be influenced and reshaped through experiences during professional development. This research explored the influence on secondary school science teachers' professional identity by their experiences of professional development programmes. A methodological approach of hermeneutic phenomenology facilitated the understanding of science teachers' experiences, while a sociocultural theoretical framework based on Wenger's community of practice, underpinned the research. Narrative interviews, semi-structured interviews, and a questionnaire provided evidence from thirteen purposefully selected science teachers in one school board in Canada for this study. Interpretive phenomenological analysis of interviews and qualitative survey analysis of the questionnaire, identified cognitive development, social interactions, emotional changes, and change in beliefs and classroom practice as the science teacher's experiences of their professional development programme. Such experiences are regarded as indicators of influence on professional identity. The cognitive development, social interactions, and emotional changes experienced by the science teachers, are considered as their dimensions of experiences during learning. Although nine science teachers experienced change in their practice, two of the reported change sin their professional beliefs. It is significant that eleven science teachers did not experience a change in their beliefs, despite changes in their classroom practice. The science teachers who did not experience a change in their beliefs were confident of their existing professional identities that influenced their learning and their views regarding changes in their beliefs and practice. It appears that science teachers' prior professional identity was a determining factor in influencing and reshaping their professional identities. Nevertheless, findings from this study imply that, to some extent, science teachers' professional identity was influenced, perhaps not reshaped, by their experiences of their professional development programme. Findings fro my research have implications for science education reform-minded stakeholders and providers of in-service professional development programmes. They would be informed of research on the role of professional identity in professional learning and classroom practice in a climate of science education reform, as well as the role of prior professional identity in such initiatives.

In the professional formation of pharmacists, participation in real-life professional practice occurs mostly in pre-registration training, in the year after completion of the four-year undergraduate MPharm course. As such, development of professional identity and practice are likely to happen predominantly in the pre-registration year. The study is conducted against a background of a sparsity of knowledge about professional formation in pharmacy, particularly in the pre-registration year. The aim of this study is to investigate the professional formation of pharmacy graduates in the pre-registration year. The research questions address what professional practice the graduate engages in during the pre-registration year, how they perceive their own identity and the reasons for this. Understanding professional formation requires a focus on the interplay between agency and structure. As such, Bourdieu's conceptual tools are deployed to explore individual agency and relationships between key players, in a process named becoming a pharmacist. This process is further conceptualised as achieving a feel for the game in which recognising and repositioning in regard to hysteresis is central to success. Via this conceptualisation, Bourdieu's thinking tools are used to describe and understand becoming a pharmacist, shaping the study through their use to inform data collection, analysis and interpretation. Four community pharmacy pre-registration trainees working in the north-west of England were recruited to take part. A case study methodology was chosen to retain the holistic characteristics of real-life events, with qualitative methods used to collect data. Portraiture was chosen as a method of presenting and describing the study's findings. Interview transcripts, observational data, self-selected records from trainee portfolios and researcher field notes were used to construct the portraits. Each portrait was subjected to a critical analysis to understand each trainee's unique experience using the lens of Bourdieu's conceptual thinking tools. A cross portrait analysis was then additionally carried out using key theories of identity and professional practice as well as Bourdieu's conceptual tools. Key findings included that identity and practice were strongly influenced by cultural capital and the existence of a dyadic relationship with the pharmacist tutor. Legal and corporate restrictions on practice constrained the development of professional expertise, which contributed to a period of acute stress experienced immediately upon qualification. The identification of practices of assertion and practices of deference as a way to describe trainee practice and identity was proposed and explored. Conclusions include that practices of assertion and deference can be useful in allowing researchers to unpack the bundles of influences on identity and practice. Through its findings, the study therefore makes a contribution to what is known about professional formation in pharmacy but also more broadly through the use of Bourdieu's conceptual tools to reveal complex relationships between structure and agency.

Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka hur organisationer gör för att nyanställda ska kunna skapa sin yrkesidentitet. Vi har i denna studie valt att betrakta yrkesidentitet som en social identitet som skapas och upprätthålls i en specifik yrkespraktik. Vi har valt att utgå från det sociokulturella perspektivet där mänskligt handlande och tänkande ses som situerat i sociala kontexter. Lärande betraktas utifrån detta perspektiv som en pågående social, meningsskapande och aktiv process i vilken kunskap skapas med andra människor. Den empiriska datainsamlingen grundas på semistrukturerade intervjuer där vi intervjuat sju HR-ansvariga inom olika organisationer.  Materialet är transkriberat och analyserat med hjälp av kodning och tematisering. De teman som redovisas och analyseras är det sociala samspelet, delat ansvar, introduktion och företagskulturens inverkan. Resultat visade att organisationer arbetar aktivt för ge den nyanställde rätt förutsättningar för att kunna skapa sin yrkesidentitet där handledaren har en central roll i socialiseringsprocessen. / The purpose of this study is to examine how certain organisations enable new employees to develop a professional identity. Professional identity is in this sense defined in the study as a social identity that is established and consolidated in regard to a specific profession. The basis of this study is the socio-cultural perspective in which all human action and thought is seen as situated in a certain social context. Learning is viewed in this perspective as an ongoing social and active process that bestows meaning to substance, through which knowledge is attained by interaction with others. The collection of empirical data is grounded in the holding of semi-structured interviews of seven HR-representatives from various organisations. This data is then transcribed and assessed through the use of codification and thematic ascription. The various themes through which data is assessed are social interaction, shared responsibility, introduction to work-specifications, and the influence of corporate culture on an organisation. This study concludes that the organisations in question actively work to promote an environment in which the establishing of professional identities by new employees is practicable when mentorship holds a central role in this socialising process.

This thesis uses the findings from a study of pharmacists and non-pharmacists to explore the concept of professional identity in pharmacy. Pharmacists are well-established as providers of healthcare in hospitals and community pharmacies and their position as dispensers of prescribed medicines, and advisors on medicines in general seem relatively secure, as does their clinical role in hospital and their extended role in community pharmacy. However, previous studies have suggested that there is still ambiguity over the identity of pharmacists. Government policy in particular can be oblique and there seemed to be a need to clarify who pharmacists are. Consequently, a study was designed to address this topic. The concept of professional identity in pharmacy is made up of three dimensions: how pharmacists see themselves, how pharmacists believe others see them and how others do see pharmacists. This study investigated all three dimensions of professional identity in pharmacy.The research adopted a grounded theory approach and a qualitative study was undertaken in two stages. The first stage involved 21 pharmacists taking part in group interviews. The second stage involved 85 pharmacists, pharmacy support staff, nurses, doctors and lay pharmacy users participating in individual interviews. The data were analysed using the framework method.Analysis of the data generated for this study revealed nine identities for pharmacists: the medicines maker; the supplier; the scientist; the medicines advisor; the clinical practitioner; the minor medical practitioner; the unremarkable character; the business person and the manager. The pharmacists' identity as medicines advisor is considered the core identity which exists for pharmacists today and this manifests itself in different ways, depending on the setting or organisation worked in.

Therapists are continuously entering the private counselling sector, and as a result extending their occupational roles, becoming business owners and evolving in their professional identity. The purpose of this study is to understand the process of establishing a private practice while examining the development of the professional identity of private practice therapists. Specifically, the decision to enter private practice, the process of opening a business, and ethical and supervisory concerns within this field. Using systematic grounded theory, 10 female counsellors in private practice in Manitoba were interviewed. This inquiry led to the development of Professional Development in Private Practice: A Phase Model, providing an overview of therapists’ professional development in their roles as private practitioners. The five phases are seeking autonomy, logistics, transition and attitude, embracing the business and authenticity. The implications of this study are multi-faceted, influencing institutions, professional groups and therapists. / May 2016

Integrative behaviours in professional medical practice are those actions taken by a physician to better coordinate practice with other physicians to ensure that the most appropriate care is offered to patients. It has long been argued that the nature of differentiation measured between collaborating physicians affects such integrative activities and integrative success. This research employs professional identity as a basis for describing the nature of differentiation between members of two medical specialists – general surgeons and anesthesiologists – and then examines the impact of such differentiation on integrative behaviours in medical practice. A qualitative approach, employing an embedded case design, was used to observe the practice of anesthesiologists, general surgeons, and their respective residents over a period of eight months. A model of identity-in-use comprising three co-mingled and overlapping identities (professional, role, personal) is developed, and then used to describe the implications for Integrative practice. The demands of medical practice experienced by the general surgeons and anesthesiologists are powerful, almost factory-like in the value placed on speed of action and efficiency of patient throughput. These demands shaped and increased the strength of the contribution role identity made to each participants’ identity-in-use. Personal identity appears to play an important role in blunting the harshness of role demands in at least some of the participants. Personal identity also appears to draw out elements of the professional identity in some individuals, fed by curiousity, empathy, and the ability to be self-reflective. Despite observing little successful integrative behaviour, there are indications that differences in identity are associated with participants’ willingness to collaborate and possession of the skills necessary to collaborate. Potential implications for both the training and development of medical practitioners and the design of hospital work are outlined. / Thesis (Ph.D, Management) -- Queen's University, 2007-09-30 22:47:33.394

No description available.

This study explores the ways that native speakers are represented in different discourses. It combines the personal with the empirical by starting with narratives of professional development, followed by a corpus analysis of how native speakers are defined, and ending with a critical discourse analysis of the roles allocated to native speakers in academic discourse. First, the use of narrative inquiry speaks to the lived experience of three native English speaking language teachers as they develop their professional identity and seek professional development. Their narratives uncover the tensions between their personal goals and external perceptions. In order to situate these narratives in the field, a corpus analysis identifies the difference between how native speakers are defined in general discourse and within academic literature. These different definitions demonstrate distinct patterns of usage that differentiate the concept of the native speaker, the native speaker of English, and the native speaker of English as a language teacher. Finally, a critical discourse analysis illuminates the dominant representations of native speakers in academic literature. An interpretation of six academic articles, drawing on van Leeuwens network of role allocation, highlights: 1) how native speakers are differentiated from non-native speakers; 2) how native speaking language teachers are objectified or excluded from the discourse. The analysis reveals how representations of native speakers influence the participation of native English speaking language teachers in the field of TESOL. The implications indicate that the current representations of native speakers detract from professional development by perpetuating static identities rather than encouraging professional development.

Few would question the important role of teachers in influencing the quality of education in schools; who teachers are, how they teach and what they teach are all essential components in determining the quality of the education they are instrumental in delivering. It is a logical extension to assume that the same factors matter with regard to teacher education. This thesis explores the professional identity of those involved in the preparation of new teachers – the teacher educators. Within this group, English language teacher educators, represent a small but significant subset, and one whose role in contexts such as the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is expanding beyond the confines of English language teaching alone and into the wider education arena. It is hoped that this study may provide a useful contribution to ongoing discussions about teacher education at a number of levels. Firstly, it will add to research findings about teacher educators in general, and English language teacher educators in particular, and it is hoped that the study may offer some insights into the professional lives of those engaged in teacher preparation, especially in the United Arab Emirates. Secondly, it aims to give voice to a relatively under-researched body of professionals with the aim of discovering why they do the job they do and what they value in that job, in so doing it is hoped that it may be able to uncover what, if anything, constitutes the professional identity of teacher educators as a distinctive professional group.