Development of identity for learning and teaching in online masters courses

Abstract

The movement for masters’ students and staff new to fully online learning and teaching to embrace both is generally presented as a question of the development of skills. My work is an analysis of these transitions, and the perceptions around them. My publications and doctoral statement problematize identity in addition to considering skills required. I argue a holistic approach to identity development should occur at the boundary between previous experience and the new roles as online learners and teachers. My publications add to the body of knowledge investigating student and staff development for online learning and teaching by considering how the expectations of the academic community impacts these transitions. I investigate perceptions of the students and staff new to the online mode for masters education. I suggest multiple ways in which identity development can be supported during the boundary experiences for these new roles, along with the skills required. I underpin the findings in this statement with Hermans’ dialogic self theory (2001) and relate this to the theories used in the publications I show that new online students and staff need to expand their skills knowledge and connections to, and within, the established online academic community. For both students and staff, online development courses and contact with the established online academic community (either tutors or mentors) is essential, benefiting their boundary experiences. I describe how my own identity has altered from positivist to interpretivist through the course of my doctorate with my internal dialogue grasping this threshold concept, altering my dominant identity as a scientist to include a new identity as a social science researcher. I take a pragmatic realist perspective and draw on a number of different theoretical frameworks in addition to dialogic self theory. The publications include communities of practice, activity theory, social cognitive theory and the Foucauldian turn.