The research-teaching nexus in nurse and teachereducation: contributions of an ecological approachto academic identities in professional fields

Amelia Lopes • Pete Boyd • Nicola Andrew • Fatima Pereira

� Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013

Abstract In developing graduates for the knowledge society lecturers in higher education

may seek to strengthen links between research and teaching. Much of the previous work on

the research-teaching nexus is within traditional universities and subject disciplines. In

aiming to deepen understanding of the research and teaching nexus this paper focuses on

the academic identities of higher education lecturers working in newer higher education

institutions and in the professional fields of nursing and of teacher education. A qualitative

study, informed by professional identity construction as an ecological concept, was con-

ducted. The findings align with previous studies concerning similarities between lecturers

in nurse and teacher education, but they contrast with previous studies concerning dif-

ferences between these two groups of lecturers. Similarities include the priority given by

professional educators to their responsibility for preparing new clinical practitioners; the

research-led model as the lecturers’ main approach to the research-teaching nexus; and

their difficulties in coping with current demands in academic work. Differences between

the two groups of lecturers include the way that ‘practitioner identity’ is positioned within

their current academic identities and the way that they position initial education within the

wider professional field. These differences indicate different kinds of connections between

teaching and research. The paper proposes an ecological approach to understanding the

research-teaching nexus.

A. Lopes (&) � F. PereiraFaculdade de Psicologia e de Ciencias da Educacao, Centro de Investigacao e Intervencao Educativas,Universidade do Porto, Rua Alfredo Allen, 4200-135 Porto, Portugale-mail: amelia@fpce.up.pt

F. Pereirae-mail: fpereira@fpce.up.pt

P. BoydUniversity of Cumbria, Carlisle, UKe-mail: Pete.Boyd@cumbria.ac.uk

N. AndrewCaledonian University of Glasgow, Glasgow, Scotland, UKe-mail: N.Andrew@gcu.ac.uk

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High EducDOI 10.1007/s10734-013-9700-2

Keywords Research-teaching nexus � Professional fields � Nurse education �Teacher education � Academic identity � Ecological approach

Introduction

A current challenge for higher education is the preparation of graduates for employment in

the knowledge economy. Higher education policies stress the need to change traditional

ways of teaching and learning to more strongly develop research and research related

skills, such as information analysis, problem solving, effective communication and critical

reflection on professional practice (Wood 2009). Research on the Research and Teaching

nexus (RT nexus) is one way to inform these challenges, addressing them as issues and

considering the influential contextual dimensions, such as lecturers’ academic identities.

Current perspectives on the RT nexus refer mainly to research-intensive universities and

are highlighted by the Humboldtian tradition, based on the distinction between universities

and vocational institutions. Indeed, as asserted by Simons and Elen ‘‘the concept of

‘education through research’ is often used both to define a central feature of academic

education at the university and to distinguish it from the higher education offered in more

vocationally oriented institutions’’ (2007, p. 617).

Nevertheless, recently a shift of vocational institutions towards academia has occurred

and they are dealing with challenges in some way similar to the older universities, although

within different conditions. This background calls for the explicit inclusion of professional

fields in research on the RT nexus, which until now has only had limited investigation

(Griffoen 2013; Findlow 2012; Greenawald 2010; Houston 2008). This article adds to the

knowledge base by focusing on the possibilities and specificities of the RT nexus in

professional fields, through the comparative analysis of the academic identities of Portu-

guese lecturers in nurse and teacher education.

The article begins by reviewing relevant current research on the RT nexus and on

teacher and nurse educators’ academic identities. The conceptual framework on profes-

sional identity construction is then presented and the methodology is set out. The data

analysis and discussion is followed by conclusions focused on the possibilities and spec-

ificities of the RT nexus in professional fields.

The RT nexus and teacher and nurse educators’ academic identities

Teaching and nursing, both seen as helping professions (Sommers-Flanagan and Sommers-

Flanagan 2007), have undergone an intense process of professionalization (Lopes 2013). In

the majority of countries, initial education of nurses and teachers now takes place in higher

education institutions (universities or polytechnic institutes). Even though they are new

academic disciplines, they need to respond to the exigencies of research and training that

challenge more traditional disciplines.

Discussions on academic identities within RT nexus research usually call for analysis of

the (ambiguous) impact of new higher education policies on de-professionalization of lec-

turers’ professional work and on their well-being (Robertson 2007). In the professional fields,

current higher education policies can threaten the professional nature of initial education

(Lopes and Pereira 2012). In general, the emphasis on research as published output risks

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contradicting what is being touted as the improvement of teaching. The ways that research

and teaching connect can be diverse and sometimes not easily visible (Visser-Wijnveen et al.

2010). However, the point that really matters is to know how lecturers’ research activities

empower or inhibit their teaching activity and student learning. This is an important topic of

discussion within RT nexus research because of the traditional view of teaching and research

as competing activities, and because of the current emphasis on research quality being

reduced to impact factors. Here, research on the RT nexus distinguishes between quantitative

studies seeing research as a set of outcomes and qualitative studies considering research as a

set of processes (Grant and Wakelin 2009) and emphasising communicative conceptions of

research (Wood 2009; Brew 2001). From this perspective, students are seen as participants in

the research, students and lecturers are extensively seen in the literature as members of the

same ‘‘community of learning’’ (see, Locke 2012; Wood 2009). This is also the perspective of

Healey and Jenkins in presenting their diagrammatic model (2006) which considers four

types of relationships between research and students. The four types of relationship are

labelled as ‘‘research-led’’, ‘‘research-oriented’’, and ‘‘research-based’’ categories from the

framework proposed by Griffiths (2004) plus ‘‘research-tutored’’. In the research-led cate-

gory teaching organizes around current subject content. In research-oriented the teaching is

informed by the processes of knowledge construction in the respective subject discipline. In

the research-based category students undertake inquiry based learning and in the research-

tutored category teaching centres on students writing and discussion of papers. According to

Healy and Jenkins (2006, p. 48), ‘‘often the most effective learning experiences involve a

combination of all four approaches, but […] the emphasis should be placed on the [last two]

student centred approaches’’.

If these conceptions of the RT nexus represent ‘‘good news’’ to lecturers in professional

higher education institutes, they also highlight that they will be dealing with some specific

difficulties and challenges, in enhancing their research practices and scholarship. In the

case of nursing, a recent academic discipline, Findlow (2012) draws attention to the

existence of great inequalities between old and new academic disciplines, claiming that the

meaning of ‘‘academic’’ needs to be redefined. Regarding this redefinition, Findlow, dis-

cussing the United Kingdom, states that, ‘‘For many such ‘new’ disciplines, only a con-

ceptual shift from ‘academic’ (with emphasis on research) to ‘learning’ as the core

business of higher education provides a comfortable fit in this supposed community’’

(2012, p. 118).

Research on the academic identity of nurse and teacher educators suggests a rejection of

traditional views on academic identities. Researching the academic identities of new nurse

educators, Smith and Boyd (2012) and Boyd and Lawley (2009) found that new lecturers

are highly motivated to teach and develop new clinical practitioners, but may tend to hold

on to their former identities as nurses and resist adopting an academic identity which is

seen as centred on research. Andrew and Robb (2011) and Andrew and Wilkie (2007),

similar to Findlow (2012), concluded that nurse lecturers persist in maintaining a double

attachment with nursing and academia.

Research findings on the academic identities of teacher educators (TE) have similar

findings, regarding newcomers (Boyd and Harris 2010), and experienced lecturers (Chetty

and Lubben 2010). According to Chetty and Lubben (2010), the majority of teacher

educators consider teaching and research as dichotomous elements, and research activities

are seen as a way to satisfy institutional requirements for the acquisition of financial

support and production of publications. Robinson and McMillan (2006) also found evi-

dence showing that very often, contrary to expression in favour of the constitution of

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researchers’ identities, teacher educators prefer to maintain their identity as school

teachers.

An ecological approach to academic identities in professional fields

A review of the literature concerning nurse/teacher educator identities raises key issues and

identifies concepts and theories that suggest heuristic solutions to them. Two questions

most often addressed relate to the conversion of an occupational identity (in practice) to an

educator/researcher identity and also the relationships established between lecturers and all

the other institutional components, which frame and inform the training space (e.g. Boyd

et al. 2011; Boyd 2010; Andrew and Robb 2011; Janhonena and Sarjab 2005; Conway and

Elwin 2007). This work suggests consideration, from the outset, of a biographical per-

spective (the first), and of a relational perspective (the second), with the lecturers’ identities

resulting from the combination of these two.

These are also the two axes framed by Claude Dubar (1997) in defining the construction

of professional identity as a ‘‘double transaction’’. This is the combination of two trans-

actions: a subjective or biographical one, centred on the individual, caught between what

s/he has been and will be or wants to be; and a relational or objective one between what

s/he is and wants to be and that which the context (defined in relational and semantic

terms) ‘‘offers’’ (or fails to offer) to the individual. Wenger (1998), the author most

frequently reported in studies on nurse/teacher identities, meets this perspective when he

states that the construction of a person’s identity is a process that reflects the importance of

experience gained as a member of different social communities.

For Wenger (1998), as for Claude Dubar (1997), identity is also concerned with the way

individuals themselves are defined in terms of similarity and difference, i.e. in terms of

identification and differentiation through relational transaction, or in relationships with others.

Identifications and differentiations are established at a basic level through concrete interactions

specific to a particular place, filled with practices, interpretations and relationships, in which

the individual stands situated, taking into account self- and hetero-attributions.

However, no such situation—in terms of practices, interpretations and challenges—is

independent of its broader contexts. Professional identity is therefore an ecological con-

struct (Lopes 2009), with the term ‘‘ecological’’ borrowed from Urie Bronfenbrenner’s

[1979] ecology of human development—which theorized both the constitution and the

dynamics (interaction, within and between subsystems) of the ecological system and the

role of scenarios and the individual. It also borrows Wilhelm Doise’s (1980, 2002) concept

of the social system—including intra and inter-individual processes, individual and group

positions in social relationships, and ideological and cultural processes. Based on work by

Doise (1980), Blin (1997) states that the complex system of relationships between indi-

viduals, groups and institutions ‘‘is determined not only by intra and interpersonal vari-

ables, but also by a social field giving it a specific form and leading to behaviours that are

socio-cultural in nature’’ (p. 56). The current study adopts this ecological perspective on

identity construction within its analytical framework.

The context of the study

Teaching and nursing, and teacher and nurse education in Portugal have been through an

important development process since the democratic revolution in 1974 (Pereira 2006;

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Lopes and Pereira 2012). As asserted by Benavente (1990), in just a few years Portugal has

done what other countries have taken decades to achieve. Public Education and Health

have strongly developed and professional bodies have played an important role in this

movement. Meanwhile, there are some differences between nurse and teacher education in

Portugal. While nursing and nurse education is largely controlled by nurses, that is not the

case with teaching and teacher education. Several kinds of professional bodies, related to

curriculum subject disciplines, influence teaching and teacher education and the state is

still the main source of professional decisions.

The Portuguese public higher education system is binary. Teacher and nurse education

takes place either in universities or in polytechnic institutes, although there are also three

large ‘‘non-integrated’’ schools of nursing but these follow the same curricular rules. Initial

education of middle and high school teachers always takes place in universities, but initial

education for preschool, primary and elementary school teachers can take place either in

universities or in polytechnic institutes. Polytechnic institutes and universities have a

different history related to research and courses for graduation. Since 2007, they offer

master’s courses but not doctoral programs. The master’s degree has traditionally been the

higher degree obtained by lecturers in polytechnics institutes. However, following higher

education rearrangements in 2006, lecturers at polytechnic institutes are under pressure to

undertake doctoral degrees, research projects, and publication of research. Nurse and

teacher educators participating in the current research study work in higher education

institutions that belong to polytechnic institutes, and so they are dealing with recent

challenges concerning their academic careers and research in higher education.

Methodology

Two methods were used in a complementary way. Initially a modified version of the

inventory of social identity by Marisa Zavalloni was utilised (Zavalloni and Louis-Guerin

1984; Marta and Lopes 2009). Rankings are given according to the social fields to which

the individuals belong. Some may be removed and others added according to their rele-

vance to the research. In the case of this study, principal occupation, age, sex, and being a

nurse/teacher educator were considered. To complete the inventory, participants were

asked to provide terms to characterise their social group, distinguishing between ‘‘we’’ and

‘‘they’’—for example, as can be seen in Fig. 1, ‘‘we, nurse educators, are… dedicated’’;

‘‘they, nurse educators, are …incompetent’’—and decide if the term applies to him/herself

and if it is positive or negative.

All answers were situated in the basic space of identity—a space defined by the

orthogonal intersection of the axis Self/Other with the axis of positive/negative affection. It

is from the initial findings that a second stage emerged. A semi-structured interview was

conducted to deepen the meanings, identifications, distinctions and oppositions, and their

roots in the contexts of life and personal history, emerging as biographical narratives. The

data discussed in this article is related to this second stage component of the methodology.

The biographical narratives of 28 Portuguese lecturers, 14 teacher educators and 14

nurse educators, working in Polytechnic Institutes were collected. Interviews were con-

ducted with lecturers teaching on a 4-year bachelor’s degree in nursing (certificating

nurses) and on a 2-year master’s degree in primary and elementary school teaching (cer-

tificating teachers). The lecturers volunteered their participation in the study and care has

been taken to maintain anonymity. The sample (Table 1) included 7 female and 7 male

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lecturers in the case of teacher education, and 8 female and 6 male in the case of nurse

education, with between 3 and 37 years of experience within higher education posts.

All the lecturers in nursing have professional experience as nurses and 7 of the lecturers

in teacher education have professional experience as school teachers. Nursing lecturers

teach only on the initial nurse education course and teaching lecturers teach in several

kinds of teacher initial education courses and in other initial education courses.

Reflecting on the aims of the analysis relating to the academic identities of lecturers in

professional fields, the first level of the coding system consisted of inductive categories and

deductive categories, such as: Perspectives on research as a nurse/teacher educator role;

Perspectives on the role of teacher/nurse educators in practical relevance of teacher/nurse

education; and Perspectives on management as a teacher/nurse educator role.

In order to codify the deductive categories at a second level in an inductive way, and to

inductively identify other categories at the first and second level, a qualitative data analysis

of biographical narratives was conducted, (Bardin 1994; Lopes 1993; L’ Ecuyer 1988). The

qualitative data analysis followed a sequence of steps including: preliminary readings and

agreeing a list of statements and themes; choosing and defining the classification units

(types, criteria and definition); coding and classifying; and qualitative description and

interpretation.

The coding systems for the two fields under investigation were then compared and

adjusted to achieve a common system that was acceptable. Two different coding systems

were achieved through this procedure, which share many aspects from the first and second

level categories. The common aspects included two main dimensions at the first level, one

which corresponds to perspectives on the contexts of nurse/teacher education at the macro,

meso and micro level (identified by context) and another corresponding to individual self

attributions and to nurse/teacher educators’ perspectives of their own professional path as

teacher/nurse educators (identified by individual).

The analysis that will be presented focused on three categories of the individual

dimension: being a nurse/teacher educator (identified by ‘‘being a nurse/teacher educa-

tor’’); perspectives on research as a role of a nurse/teacher educator (identified by

‘‘research’’); and perspectives on the role of teacher/nurse educators in the practical rel-

evance of teacher/nurse education (identified by ‘‘practice’’). The third level coding system

Fig. 1 The social field ‘‘nurse educator’’ of the inventory of social identity as completed by a nurseeducator

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of the category being a nurse/teacher educator contains the following subcategories: the

educator as a person (identified by ‘‘educator’’); the main goals for educating students

(identified by ‘‘students’’); the main concerns when teaching (identified by ‘‘teaching’’); the

relationship of initial education with its occupational field (identified by ‘‘occupation’’); the

roles defining the current profession of nurse and teacher educators (identified by ‘‘pro-

fession’’); ‘‘research’’; and ‘‘practice’’.

Analysing similarities and differences

Analysis allowed for the identification of similarities and differences between lecturers in

nurse and teacher education, and between current findings and the findings from previous

research. These similarities and differences can be organised into four themes: lecturers in

professional initial education and professional knowledge; lecturers’ perspectives on

practice; academic roles of lecturers and the future occupational field of students; and

lecturers’ perspectives on research.

Lecturers in professional initial education and professional knowledge

The three categories of educators, students, and teaching, considered as a whole, draw on

the educators’ perspectives on the specifics of initial education for the professionals they

are educating. This emphasises its professional and relational nature, and the challenge it

presents to educators as they become a special kind of academic. When referring to

individual characteristics of educators, lecturers in teacher education stress that there is a

multiplicity of ways to be a good educator, and the role of the educator as a model for

students.

[…] so there is a multiplicity of roles and visions that are connected to the different

roles teacher educators have in teacher education. (teacher educator 12)

We have to be conscious that we are in a classroom and what we do works as a…I

wouldn0t say a model because I think that’s too strong of a word, but as an example

to our students. (teacher educator 3)

Lecturers in nursing consider that they are a special kind of educator and that a good

nurse educator must also be a ‘‘good person’’. In some ways this is similar to the concept of

being a ‘model’ that was expressed by the teacher educators.

Being a nurse educator is, first of all, being an educator of people, and that is a

concern for me, because nobody can be a good nurse if s/he is not a good person.

(nurse educator 8)

We are different from other educators! Like it or not, we are different from other

educators! […] We have to educate on all levels. (nurse educator 2)

Regarding their main goals when educating students, nurse educators emphasize the

necessity to develop them across several integrated competences, stressing that the students

must be aware that they will be working (relating) with human beings and that they must ‘‘care’’.

[It is] this objectivity that the educator must have. Always. To show them that [the

person they are caring for] is a human being and if s/he [dies], s/he cannot come

back, because there is no such thing as a substitute [for life]. (nurse educator 6)

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Teacher educators are concerned with offering students a good learning environment,

including being available for them. At the same time, they stress the need to systematically

question students, challenging them and developing their life-long learning capacities.

Proximity is always seen as something positive. I think that when the climate is

pleasant, I think that it is very different. (teacher educator 1)

We also have to motivate them to be always willing to study […] I always tell them

that this is initial education and not final education. (teacher educator 11)

[…] and then their ability to ask questions, to criticize themselves (teacher educator

13)

Talking about what is teaching in their initial education courses, nurse educators stress

that their teaching must be scientifically updated and that the contents must be pedagog-

ically transposed, teacher educators stress that they avoid giving students didactic

‘‘recipes’’.

An educator cannot be too much or too little of a theorist; s/he has to be objective,

s/he has to contextualize the theory in practice. (nurse educator 6)

There are no easy solutions to apply. In one year, it works, and in another, it doesn’t

because classes are different from each other. (teacher educator 6)

Lecturers in both fields give a major importance to the way they behave as educators

and to the comprehensive education of students, revealing they are aware of the special

relational kind of professional they are educating. Lecturers in nursing emphasize nursing

caring skills and refer to an objective knowledge that must be acquired but contextualised,

whereas lecturers in teacher education stress lifelong learning skills development and aim

to avoid giving students simplistic knowledge solutions.

Lecturers’ perspectives on ‘‘practice’’

In talking about what they do to make initial education relevant to practice, nurse educators

give salience to their precedent identity as nurses, emphasizing their own practical experience

as an important source of their credibility as nurse educators. As former nurses they fear the

loss of dexterity and becoming outdated because of changes in clinical contexts due to the

evolution of technology and knowledge. So they feel the desire to return to practice from time

to time, and they even propose that they should have small periods of practicum.

For example, if I went into a surgery internship now I would be afraid. Perhaps, I’m not

sure, but I could put it in an expression—‘‘I have lost my hand’’. (nurse educator 2)

I think that a nurse educator should never lose contact with practice. I think that we

should have the opportunity to spend a few months practicing and then come back to

the higher school. (nurse educator 6)

As current higher education teachers, criticising the biomedical paradigm that they consider

to be hegemonic in nursing workplaces, they highlight the specificity of nursing as a work on

humankind. This principle is used to defend the importance of practice within nurse education

and they emphasise the necessity of critical reflection through application of theory.

[…] nursing is very specific […] the hospitals, for instance, are still very focused on

a bio medical paradigm, […] and in turn other dimensions, such as social and

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psychological ones, are despised […] it is important […] to show them [the students]

other ways of looking at the reality, that are not only the views from positivist

science; concretely in this area by bio medicine. (nurse educator 7)

The teacher educators claim to use two strategies to make teacher education relevant to

practice: direct and indirect. Regarding the first direct strategy teacher educators emphasize

their commitment to supervisory practices and partnerships with schools. They highlight

their contact with students during school-based training, including observation and debrief

of students teaching school classes.

Supervision with strong connections to the professional field and practice is [fun-

damental]. […] we [supervisors] are the core elements […] we make the transition

between theory and practice. We have a great respect for the teachers that receive

students in their classrooms and their teaching work. (teacher educator 2)

Regarding the second strategy (indirect), teacher educators consider that the relationship

with practice occurs when delivering their own higher education classes. They refer to (or

have in mind) what happens in school settings, when they use adequate methods of

teaching, and when they utilize their own experience in practice to inform their teaching of

students.

It is very important for the students that we talk about the practice and not only

theory […] we are able to tell them about the practice with experiences of teachers

that are really […] in the field. (teacher educator 1)

Teaching and nursing lecturers’ perspectives on practice show that both groups agree

with the importance of practice within initial education. However lecturers in each field are

differently attached to respective professional practice. Nurse educators fear the loss of

their clinical credibility and stress the specificity of the nursing profession when compared

with medicine. This is not the case with teacher educators, who appear to take for granted

(even those who have not been school teachers) their own knowledge about the profes-

sional life of school teachers, and they don’t feel like current occupational practitioners.

Academic roles of lecturers and the occupational field of students

When discussing their profession, nurse educators identify themselves both as educators

and as nurses, but consider education as their primary responsibility. Teacher educators, on

the other hand, identify themselves as educators and researchers, considering education

first, but stressing that teaching is just a part of their work.

But if I had to organize my preferences, my role as an educator would be first, as a

researcher would be second, and as a manager would be third […] it is exactly that.

(teacher educator 2)

We are both here. In some situations, the profession is as an educator and in others

the profession is as a nurse, because I think it is difficult to separate the two

dimensions. (nurse educator 5)

When initial education marries with the occupational field (occupation) of the profes-

sionals they are educating, teacher educators are more likely to discuss individual pro-

fessionalism. That is to say, they talk about professional qualities held by an individual; the

main concern for them.

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I think that above all […] it is the responsibility […] and the responsibility is to make

them aware that […] they have to make their path on their own […] sometimes very

solitarily, very personally. (teacher educator 2)

[…]I am going to reduce this to one issue that has always concerned me […] I am

concerned about the pupils, the future teachers’ pupils. Perhaps this is terrible to say,

but I was always more concerned with the children, their future pupils. (teacher

educator 6)

However, nurse educators seem to discuss the issue in terms of collective profession-

alism, that is to say, they define it through the importance they give to the relationship

between concerns of nurse education and nurses’ collective empowerment as a professional

body.

So, above all, being an educator is […] working with students, letting them partic-

ipate in the politics, in the debates that are important to the profession. Having the

notion of what was produced and what is being produced in the profession.

[…]

It implies, above all, being attentive about the situation [of nursing] at this moment,

not only in Portugal but [also] around the world. (nurse educator 3)

Compared with the lecturers in teaching, the lecturers in nursing still feel (or they want

to feel) like practitioners and they are committed to the professional empowerment of

nurses as a professional body. They don’t define themselves as researchers. That is not the

case with teacher educators, who clearly claim research as one of their roles as higher

education lecturers and don’t relate directly with the teaching profession and its challenges.

Lecturers’ perspectives on research

When teacher educators referred to research they talked mostly about the research they

needed to conduct to achieve a Masters degree or a PhD, as requirements of their academic

careers.

The [PhD] is fundamental, first of all, because it makes me study. We always, always

have to be studying. But it is […] fundamental because […] we need to get the PhD

to keep our job in the school. (teacher educator 11)

The main meaning of research, as expressed by the teacher educators, has some negative

connotation in relation to external career requirements, but mostly has positive nuances.

The majority were related to the improvement of teaching through tangible effects, when

they teach the subjects that they have researched, and intangible effects, because they feel

empowered.

[…] when we finish a PhD we don’t just get a diploma, but we grow as a result of

years of learning that are going to reflect in our professional profile […] not only in

the teaching activity but in the whole area of teaching. (teacher educator 10)

Other positive reflections were related to personal satisfaction and to the empowerment

of higher education identity—it allows for the creation of new research projects, new

graduation courses and advanced scholarship.

Nurse educators, to a lesser extent than the teacher educators, also mentioned a con-

nection between teaching and their research to achieve a Masters degree or a PhD

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(considered as crucial to academic development), in addition to reading books and articles

to prepare up to date classes in undergraduate and graduate courses.

I try to go deeper and I am always attentive, I search for scientific publications;

mainly about the theory that I teach… So I search for that information, I read articles

and see results of research that is published and everything that has to do with the

theory I teach. (nurse educator 10)

Nurse educators stressed that they really like to study and that this was one of the main

reasons (in addition to avoiding burnout or routine) for having chosen the academic route.

I felt the need to learn more, to know new things, to do new things, to escape from

the daily routine. That is what has moved me [to become a nurse educator]. (nurse

educator 2)

However, to nurse educators, a central meaning of research appears to fall within the

concept of ‘‘reflection’’. Reflection itself is seen as research or as a basis for research in

connection with nurses’ professional action.

Research is very important as a bridge to reflect on action. (nurse educator 4)

I think that the greatest weapon in higher education is really […] reflecting and

producing knowledge. Only then can we get something. (nurse educator 12)

Research as reflection is presented by the lecturers in nursing as a means to connect

theory and practice, avoiding an excessive attachment to practice only (which is seen as a

requirement for professionalism), and to produce new knowledge.

I’ve always had in mind that experience only is not the source of competence. I think

it is necessary to reflect on action. I think that reflection has to be a field of artic-

ulation with theory. (nurse educator 3)

Nurse educators and teacher educators rarely have students’ learning in mind when

talking about their research activities. They only referred on a very small scale to research

as a syllabus curricular unit or as a method of teaching and learning. Both nurse and

teacher educators reported institutional constraints in their development as researchers.

They are aware of the necessity to improve their research role, but at the same time they

explained that they have great difficulties in maintaining good teaching and other academic

roles as well as producing published research.

Being a researcher is a ‘‘role’’ that I like to play very much, but due to the excess of

my other ‘‘roles’’ the word that comes to my mind is ‘‘overloaded’’. (teacher educator

2)

It is a professional demand but it is difficult to comply. I speak for myself, I can’t

[…] I have a paper that I started writing months ago, but now I have to start it all

over again. (nurse educator 2)

Taking lecturers’ perspectives on research as a whole, it can be said that they are mostly

centred on what they must do to fulfil their academic careers and to improve their teaching

performance as higher education teachers, with their scholarship grounding above all on

this kind of nexus between research and teaching. The possibility of reversal, with teaching

inspiring and nurturing research, is not considered and research is rarely seen as a means to

students learning. Also both nurse and teacher educators seem to see current challenges on

publishing research as a defining issue that allows them to effectively take part in higher

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education, helping to fade the distinction between polytechnic institutes and universities.

Nevertheless, defining the required research mainly as ‘‘academic’’, they seem not to relate

it to their key task of educating future professionals.

Differences between lecturers in nurse and teacher education include the level to which

they identify with ‘‘academic’’ research. To nurse educators, higher education seems to be

an opportunity to empower the nursing profession, and research, broadly defined as

reflection, appears to have an important role to play there. For teacher educators, higher

education is differentiated from teaching at other levels precisely by the importance given

to research, and they embrace a more conventional definition of research.

Summarising similarities and differences

Lecturers in both fields feel they are a special kind of lecturers in higher education due to

the professional nature of initial education; they give great importance to practice within

professional education (as practice is part of their teaching activities) and they mainly

define themselves as educators. The major purpose of the research they develop is to give

up-to-date classes and to progress in their academic careers; they experience difficulties in

dealing with expectations around research partly due to workload intensification, but they

wish to improve their ability to publish.

As nurse educators, lecturers in nurse education consider professional knowledge to

include caring, specific instrumental procedures, content knowledge, and reflection. The

importance they give to practice in educating nurses comes not only from their knowledge

about work challenges for nurses, but also from their own credibility as nurses. In fact, they

still see themselves as nurses that are educating nurses, and they are committed to the

empowerment of nursing as a professional body through nurse education. They also share a

specific underdeveloped type of professional nurse research that leads to knowledge

construction, which is roughly defined as reflection.

As teacher educators, lecturers in teacher education present a vision of the professional

knowledge of teachers that, even if informed by several kinds of knowledge—content

knowledge; didactic knowledge, practical knowledge—is largely contestable, and requires

students to foster life long learning skills. To assure the practical relevance of teacher

education, they are concerned with their currency regarding real teaching contexts, but not

with their own credibility as teaching practitioners. They don’t see themselves as school

teachers or as participants (as educators) in developing professional empowerment. For

lecturers in teaching, research is one of their academic roles and they embrace academic

research.

Discussion and conclusions

The findings concerning similarities between teacher and nurse education generally con-

verge with previous conclusions. As identified in other national contexts (Boyd 2010;

Andrew and Robb 2011; Lamote and Engels 2010), the interviewed nurse and teacher

educators feel particularly responsible for the quality of the new professionals, and this

feeling of responsibility is a special issue in the academic identity of those in the pro-

fessional field (Andrew 2012). On the other hand, as reported by Griffioen (2013), lec-

turers’ knowledge is grounded in research, but mostly to empower (through tangible and

intangible effects) their teaching abilities. The RT nexus then fits into the research-led

model proposed by Healy and Jenkins (2006), which is teacher and content focused. Also

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converging with previous findings on lecturers in higher education, nurse and teacher

educators don’t refuse to comply with current academic exigencies on knowledge pro-

duction and published research, but they report difficulties to cope with them (Robertson

2007).

Lecturers in these professional fields are then living in a double bind—‘‘being an

educator of professionals’’ and ‘‘being an academic researcher’’—as they don’t link their

teaching activities to knowledge production and published research. This situation can be

explained by the recent nature of professional fields in higher education, notably con-

cerning the demands on lecturers’ academic qualifications and degree of study, but it also

calls attention to the specific nature of lecturers’ research in professional fields, especially

concerning the way research nurtures the construction of students’ professional knowledge

(Findlow 2012). Research on the RT nexus may then consider not only the specifics of

higher education in the professional field, but also the institutional differences and history

of higher education institutions.

Meanwhile, lecturers’ desires to foster research as knowledge production and published

research indicate the importance of developing academic induction (Boyd 2010), which is

completely absent in some higher education systems, where expectations are not balanced

with the provision of conditions to make them possible. Academic induction would support

lecturers in extending the possibilities of the RT nexus to encompass the other three models

proposed by Healy and Jenkins (2006)—research-oriented, research-based and research-

tutored—but also the research-informed model (Griffiths 2004), incorporated by Ozay

(2012, p. 460) as ‘‘somewhat necessary for implementing the other models’’ and important

to inquiry on learning and teaching processes.

Differences between lecturers in teacher and nurse education, and between the findings

of this article and those of previous research, show how relational and biographical

transactions interfere with lecturers’ academic identities. This interference makes it easy to

see components of the ecological and social system (Bronfenbrennner 1979; Doise 1980,

2002; Zavalloni and Louis-Guerin 1984) that mould lecturers’ perspectives: cultural,

historical and social backgrounds and respective professional knowledge and challenges.

Two major differences must be emphasized. One of them concerns the existence of a

clear dual identity for lecturers in nurse education, but not in teacher education. Dual

identity (Boyd 2010) refers to the way nurse and teacher educators’ precedent identities as

practitioners are still present in their current identities as lecturers in higher education.

Findings on Portuguese teacher educators are contradictory to this idea, calling attention to

the way specific biographical and relational transactions impact lecturers’ academic

identities. In fact, unlike in the United Kingdom, Portuguese teacher educators are not

mainly recruited from the professional field (half of the interviewed teacher educators were

not), usually they teach in several areas (related to different professional fields) and typ-

ically, teacher education is not controlled by former school teachers. As suggested by

Hamilton and Clandinin (2011), in relation to teacher education, research on teacher

educators is still fragile and faces a number of obstacles and challenges, among which

stands out the variety, from one country to another, of the conditions for access to the job

of teacher educator, often associated with different education and training systems.

Research on the RT nexus in professional fields may then be sensitive to differences

coming from respective educational and professional systems.

The other major difference previously mentioned arises as crucial to highlight the RT

nexus in professional fields by focusing on lecturers’ academic identities. It is related to the

identification of two kinds of connections between initial education and the respective

professional field, giving rise to different kinds of lecturers’ connections between research,

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teaching and the respective occupational field: a connection that is strong in the case of

nurse education and one that is weak in the case of teacher education. In the first case of

nurse educators, research, although roughly defined as reflection, is seen as linked to

teaching and to professional practice as a means of fostering nurses’ professional auton-

omy. In the second case, research, defined in a conventional way, is seen as linked to

teaching and to knowledge production as a means of fostering educators’ academic

development. Summarizing, if nurse educators feel that research is a means to empower the

nursing profession, for teacher educators, research is a means to empower their own

academic identities.

This difference either comes from the biographical dimension of the academic identities

of interviewed lecturers (the majority of nurse educators have been nurses) or from the

strength of the profession of Portuguese nurses, which has strongly developed since the

democratic revolution in Portugal, notably through investments and involvement in nurse

education (Pereira 2006).

In any case, independent of specific national contexts, it is apparent that a strong rela-

tionship between initial education and a significant respective professional project (Larson

1977) impacts in the ways research connects with teaching and the meaning given to research.

The difference regarding research lies in the kind of relationship that exists: a professional

research relationship and a non-professional research relationship. The RT nexus theoretical

framework may then expand to include the theory of professions and professionalism.

Finally, we must mention the ecological approach of academic identities in professional

fields. Results have shown the special ecological nature of academic identities in profes-

sional fields, calling attention to the way epistemological, historical, political, cultural and

organizational features encompassing each professional field impact meanings of research

and connections between research and teaching. Nurse and teacher education, and other

related fields such as social work education, are useful in revealing specific aspects of the

RT nexus, as they are a part of human and social professional fields particularly structured

by power relations and historical features.

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