23 General introduction 1 Beliefs about teaching and learning in relation to awareness of educational identity and mission While studies addressing medical educators’ beliefs about teaching and learning are limited, even less is known about the relationship between beliefs and identity. Only a few studies have been reported that show a potential link between medical educators’ beliefs and their educational identities.66,67 However, these studies focus on other aspects of beliefs rather than on beliefs about teaching and learning, exploring for example educators’ normative beliefs. The notion of ‘educational mission’ has received even less attention in the medical education literature. Indeed, we know of only one study in the health professions exploring educators’ missions. Steinert and Macdonald68 focused on what teaching means for educators working in a clinical context. They described physicians’ educational mission as ‘being morally and socially motivated to teach, wanting to contribute to the next generation of physicians, which gave them a sense of personal fulfilment.’ The finding that physician-educators who are aware of their educational mission experience personal fulfilment in their role as educators, underlines the potential relevance of an educator’s educational mission. However, this study did not relate medical educators’ missions to their beliefs about teaching and learning. Thus, we aimed to relate medical educators’ beliefs about teaching and learning to their awareness of their educational identity and mission. Beliefs about teaching and learning were analysed through the beliefs framework that we adapted to the medical education context, using the framework of Samuelowicz & Bain16 as a starting point. Awareness of educational identity and mission were analysed according to the educator phenotypes that we developed, using the model of Korthagen as a starting point. Assuming a relationship between learning-centred beliefs and awareness of educational identity and mission, a next step is to gain insight into whether and how medical educators can develop their perspectives on being a teacher over time. Maturation of medical educators: the development of perspectives on being a teacher Further understanding of how medical educators develop their perspectives on being a teacher, i.e. their perspectives on the educational environment, their educational behaviours & competencies, identity, and mission, can be useful to help promote the maturation of educators towards more learning-centred beliefs and behaviours. We use the term ‘to mature’ to emphasise our viewpoint that the development of an educator is a holistic and ongoing process that takes place in the everyday work
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