scholarly journals Sustainability as a Goal in Teaching Workforce Retention: Exploring the Role of Teacher Identity Construction in Preservice Teachers’ Job Motivation

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (5) ◽  
pp. 2698
Author(s):  
Di Wang ◽  
Lawrence Jun Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Preservice Teachers ◽  
Professional Identity ◽  
Student Teachers ◽  
Identity Construction ◽  
Teacher Identity ◽  
Chinese Language ◽  
Language Education ◽  
Extrinsic Factors ◽  
Job Motivation

With the rapid increase in the number of students learning Chinese as a second or foreign language (CSL/CFL), there is a great demand for Chinese language teachers. Although many teacher preparation programmes have been established, only a few graduates from these programmes enter the profession of Chinese language teaching. This has caused instability of the teaching team and has threatened the sustainability of Chinese language education. To explore the reasons why graduates leave this area and the role of professional identity construction in preservice Chinese teachers’ job motivation, this longitudinal qualitative study investigates the job motivation of three student-teachers as a goal of sustainability in teaching force retention. This study was conducted during the participating teachers’ teaching practicum as part of a master’s degree programme in China. By interviewing the three participants and analysing their self-reflective journals, we found that their job motivations changed considerably during the course of their training. Indeed, their professional identity construction did not determine their career choice. Extrinsic factors, such as income and permanent residence, seemed to significantly affect their motivation of entering the profession. Such findings are important, as they help us gain a better understanding of why preservice CSL/CFL teachers choose other careers upon completing teacher education. These results are especially pertinent to those working in Chinese contexts.

Preservice Music Teacher Identity Construction Through Metaphor

2020 ◽  
pp. 105708372098227
Author(s):  
Cynthia L. Wagoner
Keyword(s):  
Preservice Teachers ◽  
Identity Construction ◽  
Teacher Identity ◽  
Instrumental Music ◽  
Methods Course ◽  
Learning Context ◽  
Context Learning ◽  
Instrumental Methods ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Authentic Context

I investigated how preservice instrumental music teachers understand and describe their teacher identity through the use of metaphor in a one-semester instrumental methods course emphasizing authentic context learning. Twenty-five third-year instrumental methods course music education students created a personal metaphor to explore their professional identity construction. Preservice teacher metaphors were revisited throughout the semester, while students participated in an authentic context learning experience in an urban instrumental music classroom. Data sources included student artifacts, informal interviews, and observation/field notes. The impact of teaching within an authentic learning context appears to enrich the ways in which preservice teachers are able to articulate details of their metaphor descriptions. Through their reflections across the semester, preservice teachers demonstrated how personal metaphors were used to restructure their understandings of teacher identity and capture some of the complexities of becoming teachers.

scholarly journals Professional identity and experience of undergraduate students: an analysis of semantic networks

2021 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Luara Carvalho ◽  
Elisa Maria Barbosa de Amorim-Ribeiro ◽  
Marcelo do Vale Cunha ◽  
Luciana Mourão
Keyword(s):  
Professional Identity ◽  
Identity Construction ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Semantic Networks ◽  
Work Experiences ◽  
Undergraduate Studies ◽  
Course Work

AbstractWork experiences during undergraduate studies can be remarkable in the journey of undergraduate students. The objective of this study was to assess, by analyzing semantic networks, the role of work experiences in the meanings those individuals attribute to professional identity. The sample consisted of 2291 students (60% women) divided into three groups: do not work, work in a field related to their course, work in a field not related to their course. The semantic networks of these groups were composed of words uttered from the professional identity prime. We chose to work with the critical network, obtained from the analysis of the incidence-fidelity indexes of the word pairs. The results evidence that work experiences are related to how undergraduate students attribute meaning to professional identity, in such a way that three different networks were formed for these groups. The network of those who work outside their field was the only one that integrated words with negative content, while the semantic networks of those who do not work and those who work in their field, despite containing words that do not always coincide, present a similar macrostructure. We conclude that work experiences play an important role in the meanings that undergraduate students attribute to professional identity. The study innovates by revealing elements of professional-identity construction, besides allowing for reflections on the effects of work experiences during the college period.

scholarly journals Assessing pre-service teachers’ professional identity construction in a three-phase teacher education program in Iran

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Fariba Haghighi Irani ◽  
Azizeh Chalak ◽  
Hossein Heidari Tabrizi
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Education ◽  
Professional Identity ◽  
Identity Construction ◽  
Education Program ◽  
Teacher Identity ◽  
Teacher Educators ◽  
Teacher Education Program ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Assessment Tools ◽  
Problem Solving Skills

Abstract The critical role of teachers suggests that assessing teacher identity construction helps teacher educators understand the changes in teachers and design materials in harmony with their needs in teacher education programs. However, only a few studies have focused on assessing pre-service teachers’ identity in the long term in Iran. To address this gap, the contribution of a pre-service teacher education program consisting of three phases, namely engage, study, and activate to the professional identity construction of eight pre-service teachers in an institute in Tehran was assessed. Pre-course and post-course interviews, two reflective essays, ten observation notes, and two teaching performances were gathered over a year and analyzed as guided by grounded theory and discourse analysis. Findings revealed two significant changes in the participants’ identities when they transitioned from engage to study and from study to activate phases that yielded study phase as the peak of the changes. Overall, three major shifts were identified in the participants’ identities: from a commitment to evaluation towards a commitment to modality, from one-dimensional to multi-dimensional perceptions, and from problem analysis to problem-solving skills. Current findings may facilitate teacher identity construction by designing local programs matching the needs of pre-service teachers. It may also assist teacher educators by assessing the quality of teachers’ performance and developing teacher assessment tools.

scholarly journals ELT Student Teacher Identity Construction: Exploring Teacher Roles and Domains of Expertise

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 113
Author(s):  
Nafiye Cigdem Aktekin ◽  
Hatice Celebi
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Education ◽  
Student Teachers ◽  
Identity Construction ◽  
Subject Matter ◽  
Teacher Identity ◽  
English Language ◽  
Teacher Educators ◽  
Teacher Education Program ◽  
English Language Teaching ◽  
Teacher Roles

In this study, we direct our focus to identity construction in an English language teaching (ELT) teacher education program. We explore the teacher roles in which student teachers are struggling to position themselves comfortably and the teacher expertise domains (subject matter, didactics, and pedagogy) that they are dedicating themselves to improving. To address our research focus, we have collected reflections and survey responses from 18 student teachers in an ELT education department. Our findings indicate that ELT student teachers find it difficult to position themselves as experts in and about the English language and that they feel a need to be equipped with expertise first and foremost in the subject matter, and then in didactics, followed by pedagogy. These results imply that in ELT teacher education, certain language ideologies are still prevalent and need to be dealt with by teacher educators for transformative outcomes in education.

scholarly journals Beginning Student Teachers’ Professional Identity

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 151-164
Author(s):  
Gregor STEINBEIß
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Education ◽  
Professional Identity ◽  
Student Teachers ◽  
Teacher Identity ◽  
Working Environment ◽  
First Year ◽  
First Year Students ◽  
Ideal Teacher ◽  
Knowledge Based ◽  
Teacher Students

Abstract: This article investigates teachers’ professional identity of beginning first-year students through their beliefs about being a teacher. The presented study focuses on Austrian teacher students’ (N=18) conceptions of becoming a professional; what convictions student teachers reflect on, which professional identity emerges and what synthesis of a professional teacher identity position can be portrayed at the beginning of teacher education. Through inductively driven content analysis all statements (N=401) have been combined, and a unified synthesis of a beginning student teachers’ professional identity was formed. Three main categories were found: the “ideal” teacher, “good” teaching, and the “optimal” working environment. The results showed a highly idealistic view of being a teacher. The majority of statements referred to teaching from a pupil-centered perspective by strongly emphasising personality traits, student-teacher relationships, and teachers’ professional knowledge. Based on the results, the role of professional identity in Austrian’s teacher education is discussed, and further implementations in research are recommended.

Exploring identity construction of student teachers practicing ELF pedagogy in a microteaching course

2016 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 321-339 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nugrahenny T. Zacharias
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Training ◽  
Qualitative Study ◽  
Training Program ◽  
Student Teachers ◽  
Identity Construction ◽  
Teacher Identity ◽  
Positive Relationship ◽  
Local Community ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Standard English

This paper reports on the results of a qualitative study that explored the experiences of a group of student-teachers (STs) in Indonesia as they undertook a microteaching course as part of their undergraduate teacher training program. Grounded in the notions of ‘teacher identity as the process of becoming’ (Britzman, 2003) and ‘identity in practice’ (Varghese et al., 2005), the present paper examines how participation in a microteaching course that oriented STs to ELF pedagogy affected the formation of teacher identities amongst one group of STs in Indonesia. Data were gathered from three post-mini lesson interviews with individual STs and STs’ mini lessons. The findings show a positive relationship between ELF pedagogy, STs’ perception of their teacher role and their identity construction. Many STs’ identity construction appears to be informed by their concerns of the hegemonic presence of English in the local community and their role primarily as a revival of Indonesian cultures. Although the majority of STs showed a general agreement towards the need to construct a teacher identity independent of native-speaker norms, a few STs continued to believe the importance of teachers to speak Standard English due to its marketability potential.

scholarly journals The Relationship between Student Teachers’ Professional Identity and Anxiety: The Moderating Role of Campus Pressure

2017 ◽  
Vol 05 (06) ◽  
pp. 214-223
Author(s):  
Shanyu Lin ◽  
Xinqiang Wang ◽  
Liwen Chen ◽  
Juncheng Zhu ◽  
Yibing Wang
Keyword(s):  
Professional Identity ◽  
Student Teachers ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Moderating Role

Teacher Identity (Re)Construction within Professional Learning Communities

2021 ◽  
pp. 104-115
Author(s):  
Pinar Kocabas Gedik ◽  
Deniz Ortactepe
Keyword(s):  
Professional Identity ◽  
Identity Formation ◽  
Learning Communities ◽  
Identity Construction ◽  
Professional Learning ◽  
Teacher Identity ◽  
Teacher Narratives ◽  
Spoken Discourse ◽  
Teacher Professional Identity ◽  
Teacher Professional

The research on teacher professional identity mostly focused on the process of teacher professional identity formation, the characteristics of teacher professional identity according to the teachers themselves as well as the researchers, and the representation of professional identity through teacher narratives in written and spoken discourse (Beijaard et al., 2004). However, there is much to explore in teachers' tensions and emotions regarding the issues between teacher cognition, and personal and professional sides of teacher identity (Day & Leitch, 2001). In this chapter, we have reviewed the literature on teacher professional identity in relation to communities of practice, imagined identity, and imagined communities. Various definitions of emotions and tensions as well as their roles in teacher professional identity construction have been presented and relevant studies on teacher identity construction, emotions and tensions have been discussed.

Reflective visual journals as a means for promoting generalist preservice teachers’ professional identity in art education

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 253-270
Author(s):  
Victoria Pavlou
Keyword(s):  
Preservice Teachers ◽  
Art Education ◽  
Primary Education ◽  
Teacher Identity ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Art Integration ◽  
Education Students ◽  
Art Making ◽  
Visual Journaling

In many countries, the subject of art in primary education is entrusted to generalist teachers rather than art specialists. This article explores ways of promoting in-depth learning in art education courses while simultaneously gaining an understanding of how preservice generalists develop their professional identities. This study focuses on the journey of five senior B.Ed. in primary education students from Frederick University in Cyprus, who were invited to engage with reflective practices through visual journaling on art, education and on art integration with social issues. The findings suggest that reflective visual journals can be used to promote generalist preservice teachers’ autonomy and self-reliance in their art making and art responding as well as in the design of art units for their future pupils. The implications of the study open up possibilities for teacher education as it recognizes the role of visual journaling in enhancing different forms of knowledge, acknowledging feelings of both tension and pleasure, promoting perceptions of self-efficacy and supporting inquiry. Overall, such efforts allow preservice teachers to transition from student to teacher identity.

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