Studies suggest university teachers are left to develop their professional identity on their own
University teachers tend to regard reflections on their teaching as a private matter. Yet collegial dialogue and the opportunity to compare experiences with peers are essential for developing a professional teaching identity. This is the conclusion of studies conducted by the Centre for Educational Development (CED).
Previous research has shown that university teachers' professional identity and their understanding of who they are and how they should approach their work, is a key prerequisite for high-quality teaching. However, relatively little is known about how early career academics can be supported in reflecting on and developing their professional identity.
In the study Exploring early career academic teacher identities: using the audio diary method for reflection and research, researchers from the CED investigated whether audio diaries can be used as a tool for developing teacher identity.
As part of the study, a group of early career academics at Aarhus University recorded a weekly audio diary over a two-month period, reflecting on their role as university teachers.
The findings suggest that participants largely felt they were left to deal with questions about their development as teachers and the values underpinning their teaching practice on their own.
Several participants reported that they rarely had opportunities to discuss teaching-related challenges with colleagues. As a result, the audio diary provided a space for articulating thoughts that otherwise had little room in everyday working life. The diaries also appeared to reduce feelings of isolation and frustration associated with the teaching role.
"Several participants emphasised that they see reflections on their teaching as something private rather than something to share with others," says Mette Krogh Christensen, associate professor at CED and lead author of the study.
When participants discussed teaching with colleagues, conversations typically focused on specific teaching activities or disciplinary content. At the same time, they described an academic environment characterised by internal competition, making it difficult to show vulnerability or share uncertainties about teaching.
Teaching is assigned lower status
According to Mette Krogh Christensen, the tendency to treat teaching as a private concern reflects the lower status teaching continues to hold compared with research.
"In interviews with early career academics, they say: 'There are so many discourses about research, but so few about teaching,'" she explains.
The audio diaries from the researchers’ second study 'Teaching is important, but it's not important' also reveal that many early career academics experience tension between their research and teaching responsibilities. All participants pointed out that, in practice, Aarhus University places greater emphasis on research than on teaching.
They described this as a structural condition of their working environment. According to Mette Krogh Christensen, working in a context where one role is perceived as more prestigious than the other has a profound impact on professional identity.
"From a social constructivist perspective, identity is not viewed as a fixed or innate characteristic. Rather, it is fluid and continually shaped and negotiated through language and practice. The contexts we work in matter greatly because we adapt to prevailing ways of understanding and talking about our work. If, as a university, we tell our postdoctoral researchers that they should not spend much time teaching because research is what will advance their careers, that sends a very powerful signal that influences how teaching is perceived," she says.
To address this imbalance, Mette Krogh Christensen highlights two areas for action.
The first is to create more structured opportunities for collegial dialogue.
"Perhaps our educational development activities should create space for teachers to observe and reflect on one another's teaching. That is not how teaching is typically organised today, where one teacher is responsible for one group of students. Yet it is through structured conversations with colleagues that learning takes place."
The second concerns the wider academic culture and the structures underpinning career progression, where research achievements often carry greater weight than teaching in practice.
"As an institution, universities need to be much more deliberate in recognising, valuing and supporting teaching. Teaching needs to play a meaningful role when academic merit is assessed. I know that, according to Aarhus University's strategy documents, research and teaching are valued equally. But that is not how staff experience it," says Mette Krogh Christensen.
Everyday routines reveal what matters when they are disrupted
The importance of developing professional identity through interaction with others becomes particularly visible when opportunities for such interaction disappear. This is one of the conclusions of a literature review carried out by CED in collaboration with Aalborg University. In the review, Mette Krogh Christensen and associate professor Maria Hvid Stenalt analysed 27 empirical studies examining the transition to emergency remote teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic.
"The pandemic provided a unique opportunity to study what happens when an established practice is suddenly disrupted. We need to understand which strategies help people navigate major transitions such as COVID-19, when teaching practices had to change almost overnight," says Mette Krogh Christensen.
The review shows that many teachers found their existing competencies were no longer sufficient during the shift to online teaching. They had to learn new technologies, develop new teaching approaches and rethink their understanding of effective teaching.
Although many initiatives focused on developing technical and digital skills, these alone were not enough to sustain teachers' professional identity or their sense of agency.
Alongside functional competencies such as disciplinary knowledge and pedagogical expertise, teachers also needed opportunities to develop their social relationships and maintain their emotional engagement.
"One of the greatest losses teachers described during this period was the lack of opportunities to share experiences and talk with colleagues. Being alone in a difficult situation can be even more challenging than the difficult situation itself," explains Mette Krogh Christensen.
Identity and agency develop through the interaction of multiple dimensions
The informal encounters with colleagues that normally occur in everyday working life disappeared during the pandemic. Many teachers established their own support networks because institutional support structures proved insufficient.
"In many places, it is still left to individual teachers to become good educators, seek feedback and create their own professional development. Perhaps we should consider integrating collegial dialogue more systematically into everyday academic life," says Mette Krogh Christensen.
The review concludes that three dimensions – content (knowledge, skills and understanding), incentive (emotions, motivation and commitment), and interaction (action, communication and collaboration) – cannot be separated in practice. Together, they are crucial in shaping both professional identity and agency.
For example, if a teacher lacks digital competencies (content), this may create uncertainty and frustration (incentive). If that teacher also lacks collegial support (interaction), it becomes more difficult to acquire new competencies and rebuild confidence.
Conversely, strong collegial communities (interaction) can make it easier to develop new skills (content) while sustaining motivation and job satisfaction (incentive).
According to the review, these three dimensions interact when university teachers navigate uncertain and changing educational contexts such as the transition from onsite to online teaching.
Such transitions need not be global crises like the COVID-19 pandemic. They may also take the form of curriculum reform or technological breakthroughs such as generative AI, which disrupts already established practices and identities.
"When an external event disrupts what we normally take for granted, it becomes much easier to see what really matters. Those experiences can help us prepare for the next major transition," says Mette Krogh Christensen.
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This English text was machine-translated using ChatGPT. The author subsequently reviewed and edited the translation manually to ensure that the meaning, tone, and subject-specific terminology are rendered accurately and naturally in the target language.