Related Experiment Video
Updated: Oct 23, 2025
11:13
The Social Dimension of Stress: Experimental Manipulations of Social Support and Social Identity in the Trier Social Stress Test
Published on: November 19, 2015
14.0K
I am an Educator: Investigating Professional Identity Formation using Social Cognitive Career Theory
Jessica N Byram1, Kyle A Robertson1, Christen K Dilly2
1Department of Anatomy, Cell Biology, and Physiology, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, Indiana, USA.
Teaching and Learning in Medicine
|August 17, 2021
Summary
Developing a strong professional identity as a clinician-educator (CE) is crucial for career satisfaction. This study explored how residents and fellows form their CE identity, finding that building self-efficacy through deliberate teaching actions and engaging with a community of peers facilitates this process.
Area of Science:
- Medical Education
- Professional Identity Formation
- Academic Medicine
Background:
- Clinician-educators (CEs) play a vital role in academic medicine, balancing patient care with training future physicians.
- Developing a strong professional identity as an educator enhances career satisfaction and retention in academic medicine.
- The process of identity formation for CEs during training, amidst competing clinical and research demands, is not well understood.
Purpose of the Study:
- To explore the professional identity formation of residents and fellows aspiring to become clinician-educators.
- To identify barriers and facilitators influencing identity development within a structured training pathway.
Main Methods:
- A longitudinal, qualitative approach was employed with residents and fellows in a Clinician-Educator Training Pathway.
- The study utilized the Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT) Career Choice Model to analyze contextual influences, self-efficacy, outcome expectations, and goals.
- Data collection likely involved interviews or observations over time to capture developmental processes.
Main Results:
- Participants aimed to enhance their self-efficacy as educators through active engagement in teaching, feedback, curriculum development, and educational research.
- Initial uncertainty regarding CE roles and career trajectories was clarified through interaction with a community of experienced CEs, providing role models.
- Personal factors, career opportunities, and advancement potential influenced participants' goals and actions toward becoming CEs.
Conclusions:
- The SCCT Career Choice Model effectively explains professional identity formation in future educators.
- Participants actively built self-efficacy, set goals, and took concrete steps towards their CE identity, influenced by role models and contextual factors.
- Reflection on career goals, expectations, and self-efficacy is essential for CE identity formation and for designing supportive training programs.
Related Concept Videos
01:30Social Cognitive Perspective on Personality
727
Social cognitive perspectives on personality emphasize the importance of conscious awareness, beliefs, expectations, and goals in shaping behavior. These perspectives incorporate behaviorist principles, such as learning through reinforcement and conditioning, but extend beyond them by highlighting human reasoning and planning. Unlike traditional behaviorist views, social cognitive theory focuses on how individuals reflect on their past experiences and plan for future outcomes by considering...
727
01:21Role-Based Identity
36
Role-based identities are central to understanding how individuals navigate social environments by adopting distinct self-conceptions aligned with various societal roles. These identities are not fixed traits but are constructed through personal actions and the social feedback individuals receive in context-specific interactions. Each social role, such as student, teacher, or friend, carries a set of expectations and norms that influence how people think, feel, and behave within that...
36
01:29Social Identity
55
Social identity constitutes a significant aspect of an individual’s self-concept, shaped by membership in various social groups, including gender, nationality, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and political affiliation. Individuals associate specific traits with particular social groups, leading to internalization of these traits. For example, musicians are often perceived as creative, while women are frequently associated with nurturing tendencies. Once individuals identify with a...
55
01:26Marcia's Theory of Identity Status
621
James Marcia's identity status model provides a framework for understanding how adolescents navigate identity formation through varying degrees of exploration and commitment. Marcia's model builds on Erik Erikson's theories of psychosocial development, focusing specifically on how adolescents reconcile individual aspirations with societal expectations. His model describes identity formation as a dynamic process where adolescents move between different states depending on their level...
621
01:17Erikson's Theory on Socioemotional Development during Adolescence
529
Erik Erikson's fifth stage of psychosocial development, "identity versus role confusion," is crucial during adolescence (ages 12 to 18). In this stage, adolescents face the developmental task of forging a distinct personal identity, a process influenced by social, psychological, and biological changes typical of this period. Adolescents naturally explore different roles, behaviors, and ideologies as they navigate complex questions of self-concept, asking, "Who am I?" and "What is my place in...
529
02:57The Sense of Self: Reflected Self-Appraisal and Social Comparison
53.2K
According to Charles Cooley, we base our image on what we think other people see (Cooley 1902). We imagine how we must appear to others, then react to this speculation. We don certain clothes, prepare our hair in a particular manner, wear makeup, use cologne, and the like—all with the notion that our presentation of ourselves is going to affect how others perceive us. We expect a certain reaction, and, if lucky, we get the one we desire and feel good about it. But more than that, Cooley...
53.2K