English-Medium Instruction at a Finnish University

Lecturers’ Professional Identity and Occupational Stress

Abstract

English-medium instruction (EMI) is a global phenomenon with accelerated growth in higher education, and with implications for EMI lecturers’ professional tasks and self-understanding. This study examines the professional identity of university lecturers with EMI duties in a non-Anglosphere country, and how their experiences of stress at work may influence their professional identity. Interviews were conducted with eight Finnish and eight international lecturers teaching in international master’s degree programs at a popular Finnish university. The interview transcripts were thematically analyzed using an a priori codebook informed by the main aspects of teachers’ professional identity, that is, self-image, self-efficacy beliefs, motivation, future perspectives, commitment, task perception, and job satisfaction. The analysis additionally included participants’ self-reported experiences and manifestations of stress at work in a preliminary survey. The findings indicate that participants’ professional identity negotiation involves all aspects generally acknowledged to constitute professional identity. Moreover, the findings suggest that participants’ perceived sources of stress dynamically affected their professional identity negotiation, and that these sources were more strongly connected to self-efficacy beliefs, task perception, and job satisfaction.