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Developing professional identities as both researchers and teachers is core to doctoral students’ growth. Given the primacy of research for the university career, this study aimed at answering the following questions: how much do doctoral students identify with the teacher compared to the researcher role? Can the teacher role identity be purposely activated?

In an experimental study with 167 psychology PhD students, trait role identification was measured using a questionnaire. Afterward, participants were randomly assigned to one of three conditions differing in the picture material (research vs teaching pictures vs a mixture of both) provided for creating a collage reflecting their roles. Subsequently, answers to open questions were coded and quantified as indicators of state role identity.

As a trait, doctoral students identified more strongly with their researcher role than with their teacher role. Teacher role identity as a state was successfully activated when doctoral students engaged with teaching pictures compared to the other conditions.

As the researcher role seems to be the default setting for PhD students, activation of the teacher role has the potential to benefit work satisfaction of PhD students and the quality of their teaching.

Taking both long- and short-term identification processes in PhD students into account is a promising new approach. Besides, quantitative data are added to the field of qualitative insights on PhD students’ professional roles.

Although implementation fidelity is an important component in the evaluation of school health promotion programs, it assumes that teaching is the most relevant teacher role. To understand the social context of program implementation, a qualitative study was undertaken with the aim of identifying the schoolteacher's role in implementing the objectives of the Kahnawake Schools Diabetes Prevention Project (KSDPP), a locally governed Kanienke:háka (Mohawk) community‐based diabetes prevention program.

Prospective semi‐structured interviews were conducted cross‐sectionally with 30 teachers, two administrators and one physical education teacher across four intervention years. Interviews were analysed retrospectively using qualitative thematic analysis.

In implementing KSDPP objectives teachers adopted, to varying degrees, the roles of teaching the health education curriculum, enforcing the school nutrition policy, role modelling healthy lifestyles, and encouraging healthy lifestyles. Taken together, these roles point to a high‐order role of teachers taking responsibility for enabling healthy lifestyles in their children, which is congruent with a wholistic approach to health. Study findings suggest that children in different classrooms were exposed to a different intervention dose based on the extent to which teachers applied each role.

The findings suggest that the current conceptualisation of implementation fidelity should be expanded to account for the influence of the social context (i.e. teachers' roles) on the implementation of health promotion program objectives.

Consistent with an ecological approach to intervention, teachers would benefit from interventions that predispose, enable, and reinforce their capacity to adopt and apply health promotion roles.

This qualitative research study focused upon collaboration between regular and special education teachers in middle school inclusive social studies classrooms. Data sources included interviews, observations and a review of Individualized Education Plans (IEPs). Two pairs of regular and special education teachers (high and low collaborators) were selected from three schools in different counties. Major findings included a description of the ways teachers formed and maintained their relationships, the role of administrators, and obstacles that needed to be overcome. Lack of time was identified as the greatest obstacle. IEPs were not found to be useful. Teacher use of accommodations and strategies tended to be global, rather than individualized. Perceptions of role were examined by teacher type.

The purpose of this research was to explore common conceptions about the underlying nature of teachers’ organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs). Two studies were conducted to examine the dynamic and subjective nature of the boundary between teachers’ in-role and extra-role behavior. Study 1, based on a sample of 205 teachers from 30 elementary schools in Israel, examined this boundary between teachers’ in-role and extra-role behaviors through teachers’ career stages. Study 2, based on a survey of 29 principals, 245 teachers, and 345 parents from 30 elementary schools in Israel, investigated how different stakeholders in schools (principals, teachers, parents) conceptualized teachers’ in-role–extra-role boundary. Results from these two studies attest to its dynamic and subjective nature. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

The purpose of this nonexperimental research was to examine the perceptions of state-certified teachers regarding Library Media Specialists (LMS). Through collaboration and the use of social constructivist learning theories, teachers at three high schools in Georgia were interviewed regarding the roles and responsibilities of LMS. The primary research question asked how the perceptions of teachers on the practices of the role of the school LMS differ from the way the teachers perceive these roles to be important at their high schools. The secondary research questions addressed the correlations between high school teachers' demographic information and both the importance of and the practice of the roles of the high school LMS. Quantitative data were collected through a survey developed by McCracken (2000). A paired sample t-test was used to compare the theoretical and practical scales in each category of the LMS roles, and a Spearman rank-ordered correlations test was used to compare the 13 descriptive variables to theoretical and practical scales. Teacher participants reported each of the roles of the LMS to be more important than what is actually being practiced in their school settings and that similar views existed on both the practice scale and the importance scale. Implications include community and educator awareness of the role of the school LMS, an increased educator awareness of the roles of a state-certified school LMS to compliment the high school curriculum, and an increased awareness for the need of a LMS in public schools.

One of the main obstacles facing project-based learning (PBL) adoption relates to a lack of understanding by teachers and students in the roles they are required to play in the learning process. This study aims to address this obstacle, so as to better promote regular adoption of PBL pedagogy in educational institutions.

The strategy was to undertake an in-depth case study of PBL courses taught in UNI-X’s undergraduate curriculum. The case study approach is particularly appropriate for this exploratory study because it allows to capture the organizational dynamics of the phenomenon better and also its ability to explain the phenomenon based on interpretation of data.

This paper presents an empirical study on the role perspective of PBL in a collaborative project environment. By drawing upon a case study of UNI-X, the authors argue that a teacher plays the roles of a designer, champion, facilitator and manager in a PBL course. To ensure that learning is effective, students should play the roles of a self-directed learner and a warrior when completing their projects. It is clear that role ambiguity and role conflict could occur in PBL courses and might even impact the effectiveness of student learning.

For researchers, this paper contributes to the PBL literature by introducing a role perspective of PBL. This study identifies a list of roles a teacher and a student could potentially play in a PBL setting. Such understanding could serve as a reminder for a teacher and a student for the roles they need to play in achieving learning outcomes of a PBL course.

This study is an empirical investigation into the effect of skill flexibility on work attitudes and performance and into managerial attitudes toward skill flexibility. Secondary schools in Israel were used as a case in point, and skill flexibility of teachers was operationalized, distinguishing between role flexibility (the combination of teaching and other school roles) and functional flexibility (the combination of several teaching areas). It was found that both role and functional flexibility were associated with improved teachers’ work performance. Role flexibility was also linked to high organizational commitment and low powerlessness. The findings of the study are supported by interviews with principals, who were generally appreciative of skill‐flexible teachers, but raised practical difficulties related to organizational support of skill flexibility.

Educational researchers have long been concerned with role stress among teachers. In education, research on the consequences of such role stress for teachers has largely concerned outcomes valued by individuals such as job satisfaction and reduced stress. Less research has focused on examining the effects of role stress on outcomes valued by the organization, such as employee commitment and employee retention. In examining the role stress‐outcome relationship, research suggests the importance of taking into consideration the work orientations of individuals as possible moderators of the role stress‐outcome relationship. Using a sample of elementary and secondary teachers, this study empirically examined, first whether three role stresses – role ambiguity, role conflict, and role overload – are related to two individually and two organizationally valued states and second, whether teachers’ higher‐order need strength moderates these role stress‐outcome relationships. The study found that role stresses relate to individually‐ and organizationally‐valued outcomes among both elementary and secondary teachers.

This chapter examines the teacher's role as supervisor of support staff (Teaching Assistants (TAs) in the UK, school paraprofessionals in the US) – a role for which there is typically little administrative or infrastructural support. Working from a UK perspective, the chapter draws on research from the UK and the US to address questions pertinent to the education systems of all countries which employ paraprofessionals: What types of behaviours do conscientious teachers engage in to provide effective supervision to paraprofessionals? How do paraprofessionals view the supervisory behaviours of their supervising teachers? Given the important role of paraprofessionals, the high levels of expertise required by their assigned roles, and the uneven provision for their professional development, the chapter also makes recommendations for building the teacher's supervisory role into the infrastructure of schools, rather than relying on its emergence as a discretionary behaviour.

The purpose of this paper is to exploratory small-scale study is to examine the intertwined leadership and followership aspects of the roles performed by school-based mentors in the Republic of Ireland.

In order to investigate mentor teachers’ perceptions of their role with reference to leadership and followership in their school contexts, a questionnaire was distributed to the full cohort of 56 mentor teachers who participated in the National Programme for Teacher Induction. Semi-structured interviews were also conducted with four mentor teacher facilitators from different regions across Ireland who were also mentors in their respective schools.

The findings from this exploratory small-scale study suggest that the hierarchical nature of the school context influenced mentor teachers’ perceptions of their leadership and followership roles. They regarded themselves as leaders in a general sense and considered that all members of staff had something to contribute to the leadership process in the school. However, the school context moderated their own perceptions about their individual approaches to leadership. Participants in this study were unclear about the term followership and were reluctant to use it. They considered themselves to be performing a supportive role in the hierarchical structure of the school context.

As this is an exploratory qualitative study with a small sample size in a country where the role of a mentor teacher in schools is a relatively new concept, the findings should be interpreted with caution. Future research would benefit from multi-method approaches to data collections that examine variations in followership perceptions from individuals prior to becoming mentors in order for comparisons to be made.

The practical implications of this study from a management perspective suggest that followership needs to be considered very carefully in school contexts as a way of contributing to the co-construction of leadership which engages all members of staff. It is clear that there is a need to move away from hierarchical interpretations of middle management posts of responsibility. More emphasis should be placed on the ways in which teachers construct their roles within schools as this impacts upon leadership processes and organizational effectiveness. Equally important is an open acknowledgement of the tensions involved in developing such roles and responsibilities.

Followership is not researched widely in schools, particularly with reference to the role of mentor teachers. This is an interesting group as the very nature of their work involves maintaining boundaries and managing multiple relationships. They are generally collaborative in their approach and are well placed to co-construct leadership with their colleagues and their principals with appropriate supports in the school context.