165 General discussion 6 From our studies, three other important findings in relation to mission awareness emerged. First, educators who are aware of their educational mission (in the Inspirer phenotype) have the most comprehensive perspective on being a teacher, as demonstrated by the hierarchical ordering of the educator phenotypes (see Figure 6.2). This means that all educators who are aware of their deepest motivations as teachers are also aware of the importance of the relevant competencies (i.e. knowledge, skills and attitude) as a teacher, and of their identity as a teacher. This finding contributes to the discourse on the development of identity as a teacher, in which the relevance of explicating one’s personal educational mission often remains implicit. Significantly, awareness of one’s mission as a teacher can reinforce and nurture one’s identity as a teacher. Thus we suggest that, next to paying attention to who one wants to be as a teacher, focusing on the teacher themselves, the question of why one wants to be an educator, what one aims to contribute, is at least as important in faculty development. Second, a mission awareness is related to an educator’s beliefs about teaching and learning. Here the relationship between the two lines of research becomes clear. In our study, educators who are aware of their mission all have a learningcentred belief orientation. This means that they have the most comprehensive beliefs about the process of teaching and learning in which both cognitive and affective dimensions are incorporated. We assume that awareness of their mission as teachers gave them a high level of motivation to become educators who encourage student learning, to actively seek opportunities as to how this can be achieved, and to take action. Thus, supporting educators to become aware of their mission as teachers appears to be a key to promoting learningcentred beliefs. Third, a mission awareness appears to be helpful to maintain and reinforce a learning-centred belief orientation: educators who are aware of their mission as a teacher seem to be more resilient to a non-supportive culture in which education is given little priority. This is significant since recent medical education studies emphasise the major impact which the environment can have when medical educators experience a lack of support in the workplace.12,15,18,27,29-31 When mission awareness is not well developed, the choices which an educator makes seem to be primarily based on what the environment expects or on rewards, which is in line with the conclusions of a study on life mission and adult learning.32 Another recent meta-analysis33 confirms our findings and concludes that when people experience their work as deeply meaningful, in particular when it is focused on
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