22 Chapter 1 observable. The level of beliefs refers to ideas or convictions teachers hold about teaching, learning, and knowledge. Identity, the next level, can be defined as how teachers perceive themselves and their professional roles. Even though the focus is on the ‘self,’ the perspective is relational, and largely determined by how relationships with significant others are viewed. Finally, the core level of the model, the level of mission, is defined as the source of inspiration, or even as what teachers see as their ‘personal calling in the world,’ which reflects a teacher’s deepest purpose and motives. A mission gives meaning to one’s professional existence by contributing to others (such as students or colleagues) within a larger context and therefore has a transpersonal characteristic. The question of ‘who I am as a teacher’ is related to a teacher’s identity, whereas the question of ‘why I teach’ is related to a teacher’s mission. According to Korthagen,28 a teacher’s identity takes the form of a ‘Gestalt,’ an ‘unconscious body of needs, images, feelings, values, role models, previous experiences and behavioural tendencies which together create a sense of identity.’ Thus, an educator may not always be aware of their educational identity. One of the goals of faculty development should be to help educators become aware of their educational identity, leading to a better self-understanding and enabling educators to make more conscious and thus better informed choices in their teaching behaviours. In our studies, we aimed to explore educators’ awareness of their identity, as articulated during the interviews, because it is the awareness of their educational identity which can ultimately lead to a change in teaching behaviours that are more consistent with the learning-centred educational context. Similarly, we aimed to explore educators’ awareness of their personal educational mission. Having explored educators’ different perspectives on being a teacher using Korthagen’s model, we intended to develop educator phenotypes, categories of educators with similar perspectives, to better understand why medical educators vary in their perspectives on being a teacher. Since Korthagen argues that in the development as a teacher, problems at a specific level can best be approached by paying attention to more central levels, we assumed that the levels of identity and mission, which are central to the beliefs level, are particularly relevant to our understanding of factors influencing educators’ beliefs about teaching and learning. For that reason, we explored the relationship between educators’ beliefs about teaching and learning, and their awareness of their educational identity and mission.
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