Presentation slides prepared for the talk at the 12th annual International Conference of Education, Research and Innovation (ICERI2019), Seville (Spain), 11th-13th of November 2019.

1. Inquirer Teacher Identity
During an Educational
Innovation
Angelos Konstantinidis
Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Barcelona
email: angelntini@uoc.edu
Twitter: @angelntini
Blog: http://angelos.ict4all.gr/
Antoni Badia
Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Barcelona
email: tbadia@uoc.edu
Twitter: @tbadia_edu
With the support
of a doctoral grant
from the UOC
12th annual International Conference of Education, Research and Innovation (ICERI2019)
Seville (Spain), 11th-13th of November 2019

2. Why focus on the inquirer teacher identity?
Due to globalization and rapid technological advancements, the
teaching profession is becoming increasingly challenging
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What is teacher’s role?
Teacher identity development is equally
important with the acquisition of predefined
competencies, skills, and knowledge
Engaging teachers with research and innovation
is seen as a way to address these challenges
How to support people in
becoming good teachers?

3. identify the most critical aspects and
create a model of the teacher identity as
an inquirer for teachers who are engaged
with an educational innovation in their
own teaching context
3
Study
Aim

4. Construction of the Inquirer Teacher Identity model:
Teacher identity
Early notions of identity
tended to view the construct
as singular, unified, and
stable
4
Recent conceptualizations
view identity as fluid,
dynamic, multifaceted, and
constructed in social contexts
a more or less consistent and
coherent identity is maintained
becoming a teacherbeing static
ongoing process of creating
and recreating sub-identities

5. Construction of the Inquirer Teacher Identity model:
Identifying the elements
5
Teacher
Identity
Teachers need to enter into an inquiry process in order to develop an
educational innovation

6. Construction of the Inquirer Teacher Identity model:
Identifying the elements
6
Our conceptualisation of the
elements that comprise the
inquirer teacher identity is inspired
by processes that teachers follow
while conducting action research
Action research could be defined as a systematic approach undertaken by teachers to improve their
teaching practices or solve a specific learning problem within the classroom settings and it is
implemented through an iterative process of several steps

7. Inquirer Teacher Identity model
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Scan and
Focus
Scan for problems in students’ learning before starting an educational innovation
Decide on which problem the efforts will be focused on and what will be the topic of the
educational innovation
Understand
and Explore
Build an understanding of the topic (i.e. through reading resources)
Explore what other teachers have done in the area of study
Plan and
Implement
Plan the educational innovation
Implement the activities of the educational innovation with the class
Evaluate
and Reflect
Evaluate students’ learning and the outcomes of the educational innovation
Reflect on the experience and the evaluation of the innovation to learn from the experience of
conducting the educational innovation
Write and
Present
Write a text to disseminate the experience from conducting the educational innovation
Deliver a presentation to disseminate the experience from conducting the educational
innovation

8. Construction of a questionnaire for measuring
teachers’ inquiry functions
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First stage
Creation of
the question
items
Second stage
Review of
the question
items
Third stage
Questionnaire
development
Fourth stage
Questionnaire
translation
Fifth stage
Review of the
questionnaire
from experienced
teachers
• The final questionnaire is comprised of ten sub-scales (each sub-scale corresponds
to a sub-identity of the inquirer teacher identity), with 43 Likert-type items in total
• The response Likert scale ranged from 1 to 5 (not at all, to a small extent, to some
extent, to a moderate extent, to a great extent)

9. Sample
• The questionnaire was shared on teachers’ groups on social media
and on special interest online groups.
• 111 Greek in-service teachers (91 female; 20 male) from all sectors
(13 pre-school; 50 primary education; 39 secondary education; 9
other) completed the questionnaire.
• Respondents had at least 3 years of teaching experience, and the
average teaching experience was nearly 18 years.
9

10. Results
Inquiry
function
Example of question item Mean
(SD)
Scan and
Focus
Checking whether students are able to reflect on their learning 3.62 (0.88)
Identifying challenges in addressing a particular problem in students' learning 3.71 (0.93)
Understand
and Explore
Searching for literature related to a particular problem in students' learning 3.27 (1.23)
Discussing with other teachers at school about a particular problem in students' learning 2.97 (1.26)
Plan and
Implement
Designing the data collection methods for evaluation of the lesson plans 3.29 (1.08)
Monitoring students’ understanding and learning 3.65 (0.98)
Evaluate and
Reflect
Evaluating the implementation of the lesson plans 3.33 (1.06)
Reflecting on the outcomes of the intervention to learn from the experience 3.63 (1.07)
Write and
Present
I wrote an article about the process of addressing the particular problem in students'
learning for publishing in an academic journal
1.44 (0.81)
I presented the process of addressing the particular problem in students' learning in an
interactive workshop
1.77 (1.00)
10Response scale: 1-5 (not at all, to a small extent, to some extent, to a moderate extent, to a great extent)

11. Conclusions:
The design of the inquirer teacher identity model
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The model is founded on sound
theories and it can assist in the
conceptualisation of the inquirer
teacher identity
The results of the questionnaire
corroborate to a considerable extent
the validity of our model

12. Conclusions:
The design of the questionnaire
12
the questionnaire largely ignores the
inquiry context and teachers’ personal
characteristics
the question items are highly relevant
to the inquiry functions that the
questionnaire intends to measure

13. Conclusions:
Teachers’ inquiry functions while conducting an
educational innovation
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when teachers conduct an educational
innovation, they are getting engaged with inquiry
functions to some or moderate extent
Searching
Focusing
Implementing
Reflecting
Understanding
Exploring
Planning
Evaluating
the majority write a text
and more than three out
of four present their
experience to an audience
whether or why teachers are engaged more
with some inquiry functions than others?
how this might affect their
inquirer teacher identity?

14. Bibliography
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teacher education. Cambridge Journal of Education, 39(2), 175–189.
Beijaard, D., Meijer, P. C., & Verloop, N. (2004). Reconsidering research on teachers’ professional identity. Teaching and Teacher
Education, 20(2), 107–128.
Day, C., Kington, A., Stobart, G., & Sammons, P. (2006). The personal and professional selves of teachers: stable and unstable
identities. British Educational Research Journal, 32(4), 601–616.
Hendricks, C. (2017). Improving schools through action research: a reflective practice approach (Fourth edition). Boston: Pearson.
Izadinia, M. (2012). A review of research on student teachers’ professional identity. British Educational Research Journal, 1–20.
Kemmis, S., McTaggart, R., & Nixon, R. (2014). The action research planner: doing critical participatory action research. Singapore
Heidelberg New York Dordrecht London: Springer.
Korthagen, F. A. J. (2004). In search of the essence of a good teacher: towards a more holistic approach in teacher education. Teaching
and Teacher Education, 20(1), 77–97.
Mertler, C. A. (2017). Action research: improving schools and empowering educators.
Nichols, S. L., Schutz, P. A., Rodgers, K., & Bilica, K. (2016). Early career teachers’ emotion and emerging teacher identities. Teachers
and Teaching, 1–16.
Taylor, L. A. (2017). How teachers become teacher researchers: Narrative as a tool for teacher identity construction. Teaching and
Teacher Education, 61, 16–25.
Timperley, H., Kaser, L., & Halbert, J. (2014). A Framework for transforming learning in schools: innovation and the spiral of inquiry.
Melbourne: Centre for Strategic Education.
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