Negotiating academic teacher identity shifts during higher education contextual change

ABSTRACT

Higher education teachers’ roles and identities are constantly shifting in response to contextual change. Pedagogy, values, and professional and personal narratives of self are all affected, particularly by technological change. This paper explores the role and identity shifts of academics during the introduction of large-class videoconferencing. Their experiences of personal and pedagogical ‘doing’ and ‘being’ demonstrate how ambiguity of role, non-alignment of values with practice realities and unanticipated disruption of self-representation are variably resolved by individuals. The findings suggest that successfully negotiating identity shifts may be essential for coherent personal and professional narratives, while lack of a collective response to contextual change may explain why academic teacher identity challenges are overlooked at the institutional level. We recommend identification, discussion, and alignment of institutional, professional, and personal pedagogical goals prior to contextual change.

KEYWORDS:

• Academic identity
• institutional change
• roles
• teachers
• technology

Acknowledgements

The original research was conducted in collaboration with Dr Nicola Westberry and Dr Helen Gaeta whose essential contributions to the data are warmly acknowledged.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by funding from the Centre for Learning and Teaching (CfLAT), AUT University, Auckland, New Zealand.