107 Educational beliefs, identity and mission 4 To summarise, educators’ beliefs about teaching and learning seem to be influenced not only by the educational context in which they work, their behaviours and their competencies, but also by their awareness of their identity and mission. A better understanding of these influencing factors will help to effectively support educators in implementing learning-centred education which is beneficial for student learning. Although Korthagen’s model, developed in a teacher education context, theoretically describes the interrelationships between beliefs, identity, and mission, we need to address the empirical gap: if and how medical educators’ beliefs about teaching and learning relate to the awareness of their educational identity and mission. Therefore, this study aims to answer the following question: How are medical educators’ beliefs about teaching and learning related to the awareness of their educational identity and mission? METHODS To answer our research question, we conducted a qualitative study using indepth semi-structured interviews with medical educators from two medical schools. We performed a deductive thematic analysis,23 in which we used existing theories as our point of departure. These theories relate to beliefs about teaching and learning4 as well as to aspects of being an educator,12 including the identity and mission of educators. We first identified participants’ awareness of their educational identity and mission as well as their beliefs about teaching and learning. Then, we explored the relationship between these two areas of inquiry. Participants and setting To obtain a wide variety of participants, we recruited faculty members from two medical schools in the Netherlands and the USA, inviting physicians with a variety of educational roles. We purposefully selected physicians for several reasons. One reason is that the majority of educators at both medical schools have a medical background, even those who teach basic science topics. The other reason is that beliefs about teaching and learning can be influenced by an educator’s medical or non-medical background, in particular beliefs related to students’ professional development.4 We wanted to exclude potential differences due to medical or non-medical backgrounds as an influencing factor. We recruited participants from Stanford University School of Medicine, USA, and Leiden University Medical Centre, the Netherlands, both research intensive medical
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