Abstract:
This study explores how new university teachers develop a teaching identity.
Despite the significance ofteaching, which usually comprises 40% of a Canadian
academic's workload, few new professors have any formal preparation for that aspect of
their role. Discipline-specific education for postsecondary professors is a well-defined
path; graduates applying for faculty positions will have the terminal degree to attest to
their knowledge and skill conducting research in the discipline. While teaching is usually
given the same workload balance as research, it is not clear how professors create
themselves as teaching professionals.
Drawing on Kelly's (1955) personal construct theory and Kegan's (1982, 1994)
model ofdevelopmental constructivism through differentiation and integration, this study
used a phenomenographic framework~(Marton, 1986, 1994; Trigwell & Prosser, 1996) to
investigate the question of how new faculty members construe their identity as university
teachers. Further, my own role development as researcher was used as an additional lens
through which to view the study results.
The study focused particularly on the challenges and supports to teaching role
development and outlines recommendations the participants made for supporting other
newcomers. In addition, the variations and similarities in the results suggest a
developmental model to conceptions ofteaching roles, one in which teaching, research,
and service roles are viewed as more integrated over time. Developing a teacher identity
was seen as a progression on a hierarchical model similar to Maslow's (1968) hierarchy
of needs.
