A Complex Dynamic Systems Perspective on Teacher Professional Role Identity and Motivation

• In Event: 68.019 - Research on Teacher Identity and Motivation: Mapping Challenges and Innovations

Abstract

In this paper, we will present a conceptual and methodological approach to teacher identity that is based on assumptions of a complex dynamic systems approach to identity (Kunnen, 2012): The Dynamic Systems Model of Role Identity (DSMRI) (Author, 2015). Conceptual foundation: Reflecting understandings of teacher identity as rich, complex, dynamic and ever changing, contextualized, and integrating personal and contextual influences, the DSMRI portrays teacher role identity as comprising four inter-dependent reciprocally influencing components (see Figure 1): (1) the teacher’s ontological and epistemological beliefs (e.g., teacher-centered, student-centered beliefs about teaching and learning); (2) purpose and goals of teaching (e.g., facilitating meaningful learning, preparing for assessments); (3) the teacher’s self-perceptions and self-definitions (e.g., teaching efficacy, value of teaching); and (4) perceived action possibilities in teaching (e.g., traditional vs. constructivist instructional strategies). We will highlight the conceptual foundation of the model in the Personal Investment Theory (Maehr, 1984) and how the complex dynamic systems approach allows the model to integrate and manifest important insights from the psychosocial, social-cognitive, and social-cultural perspectives on identity and on motivation. We will elaborate on the assumptions regarding teachers’ identity that are captured by the model: (1) its dynamic and continuous self-emergence, which calls for simultaneous attention to content, structure, and process; (2) the interdependence of its elements, and hence the irreducibility of role identity to its components; (3) the non-linear and non-deterministic nature of its change; (4) its embeddedness in contextual-cultural as well as individual-dispositional characteristics; and (5) its unit-of-analysis within the person, and its dialogical relations with other identity systems within the person (i.e., other role identities) and outside of the person (i.e., role identities of other people such as students, colleagues, supervisors, and of organizations such as department, the school, and the education system). Research Questions: We will emphasize the diverse research questions about pre-service and in-service teacher identity formation that this model allows, both among individual teachers and teacher collectives, in professional development and school or higher education settings. Methodology: We will then present the methodological approach, data collection protocols and instruments, and analytical procedures and materials (e.g., codebooks) that guide our investigations of teachers’ identity and its change in different settings. As illustrations of our current research on teacher identity, we will conclude by describing descriptive and intervention projects that use the DSMRI as a framing perspective.

Authors

• Avi Kaplan, Temple University

• Joanna K. Garner, Old Dominion University