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Identity in relation to teaching is not only a matter of who you are as a professional. It is a matter of who you are when you teach. For decades, the concept of identity has been explored from multiple perspectives, including personal, developmental, social, and contextual, within various domains such as gender identity, national identity, and professional identity. Today, identity research has branched out into a myriad of approaches across the social sciences and humanities, one of which is the study of professional identity development in health sciences education. This topic is intriguing because it concerns the intersection of various and sometimes competing identities, such as being a health professional, a teacher, a researcher, a mother, and a PhD student.

Teaching is a relational, social, and public act; therefore, the study of teacher identity development should embrace methods and methodologies that focus on understanding the meanings and processes of human interaction. This includes methods such as qualitative interviews, focused ethnography, and audio diaries. Additionally, methodologies focusing on understanding human interaction most often involve theoretical underpinning and/or interpretation. Such methods and methodologies may be less unfamiliar to health professionals. So, what are the challenges of researching professional identity development in health sciences education?

Drawing on current literature and my own experiences from conducting qualitative research, which is currently based on qualitative interviews and audio diaries about embodied teacher identities and early-career academics in the health sciences education, I will exemplify and share with you the theoretical and methodological challenges of researching professional identity.

About the speaker: Mette Krogh Christensen is an associate professor at the Centre for Educational Development (CED) at Aarhus University, Denmark. Throughout her career, she has been immersed herself in research, education, and faculty development within the health science and health professions contexts, including medical and higher education, and elite sport. This professional background provides her with an ideal foundation for interdisciplinary research, teaching, supervision, and collaboration. She is passionate about and has scientific expertise in the following areas:

1. faculty development and educator identities among health professionals;
2. the sociological and psychological aspects of agency-structure interaction in teaching and learning; and
3. qualitative research methods.

She has solid experience as the research manager of three large research projects, and is currently the senior advisor to a group of five junior researchers within in the field of medical education. Her research portfolio comprises around 170 publications, including 70 peer-reviewed papers in international and national journals, five books, and 19 book chapters.