74 Chapter 3 The literature provides two practical reasons why studies on teaching beliefs are important. A first reason is that it is important to investigate whether the teaching beliefs of medical academics are in alignment with the student-centred educational approach of their medical schools, because clearly, any curricular innovation that is inconsistent with the beliefs of those responsible for its execution is ‘doomed to fail.’32 A second reason to explore teaching beliefs is that these should be an important point of engagement in faculty development. The teaching beliefs that academics hold influence how they approach professional development, and how they benefit from it.33 Insight into the beliefs of academics about teacher qualities can thus enhance the insight into the teaching beliefs of academics. However, in contrast to studies on beliefs about teaching, few studies on beliefs about teacher qualities are available within the context of higher education,11,12,34 let alone within the medical context.11 While these studies drew attention to the person of the teacher when exploring academics’ teaching beliefs, they did not deliver a useful framework for our study. Because of our interest in obtaining a full image of all aspects relevant to beliefs about teacher qualities and their interrelatedness, we decided to opt for a different, more extensive model for the analysis of our data. Within the field of teacher education Korthagen35 developed a theoretical model to enable reflection on teacher qualities (Figure 3.1), which integrates and relates different perspectives on teacher qualities in a holistic way. The model has been empirically evaluated in various international studies, in both medical and teacher education contexts.36-41 This concentric onion model hypothesises that all levels of teacher qualities influence each other. These levels are: (1) Environment, (2) Behaviours, (3) Competencies, (4) Convictions, (5) Identity, and (6) Mission. The environment, the most peripheral level, can be defined as the context: persons, groups, and non-personal external factors that influence teacher qualities. The behavioural level refers to all concrete, observable behaviours or actions of the teacher. The level of competencies can be described as the integrated body of knowledge, skills and attitudes of the teacher. It represents a potential for behaviour and is not directly observable. The level of convictions refers to conceptions or perspectives teachers hold about learning, teaching, or teachers. Korthagen refers to this level as the ‘beliefs’ level. Because of the way we defined the content and demarcation rules of this level, and to prevent confusion with our concept of beliefs about teacher qualities in the present study, we decided to
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