Reconstruction of Iranian Medical ESP Instructors' Professional Identity: A Grounded Theory Approach (Research Paper)

This study aimed to explore Iranian medical ESP instructors' professional identity formation. It also aimed to design a conceptual model of Iranian medical ESP instructors' professional identity. To this end, a purposive sample of ESP instructors teaching at Iranian medical universities were theoretically sampled based on the principles and procedures of grounded theory. The participants who took part in this study were twenty medical ESP instructors (fourteen females and six males). The sample included ESP instructors from Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Hormozgan University of Medical Sciences, Bushehr University of Medical Sciences, Iran Medical University, Mashad Medical University, and Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews. The data were transcribed and transferred to MAXQDA 2020 and analyzed using grounded theory procedures in which open, axial, and selective coding were employed to extract the themes (Corbin & Strauss, 2015). The results revealed that the contextual factors of professional identity formation include: individual characteristics, professional expectations, person's point of view towards the ESP profession, and external factors. Professional identity formation processes involve learning to teach, membership in the ESP community, and job tensions. The strategies to encounter the job tensions entail: consultation with others and patterning, finding a solution by the person himself, job development and facing the stressful situation. The consequences of the contextual factors, processes and strategies in forming professional identity are categorized as playing the role of a medical ESP instructor and emotions resulting from tensions. Membership in the ESP community was identified as the core category of medical ESP instructors' professional identity. The findings of this study could be a preliminary stage of designing preparation programs for pre-service EFL teachers who have decided to work as ESP instructors at medical sciences universities in order to have a successful transmission. The findings of this study also allow Iranian medical ESP instructors to understand their professional identity better and be more successful in rebuilding and strengthening it in a positive direction.