Exploring ways to support university teachers’ identity and agency in uncertain times: a literature review adopting Illeris’ workplace learning framework

Higher education teachers increasingly face the challenge of transitioning to new, unfamiliar teaching contexts, often constrained by digital technologies. Recent studies have shown that a meaningful transition to new teaching contexts is not simply predicated on supporting teachers’ learning to use digital technologies and adopting effective teaching strategies for online teaching. Instead, supporting teachers’ professional identity and agency is critical. This realist-inspired, state-of-the-art review explores how transitioning to radically different teaching practices impacts university teachers’ professional identity and agency. The review included 27 studies. The analysis of these studies, based on Knud Illeris’ adult workplace learning framework, showed that higher education teachers experience constraints on their identity and agency in relation to their functionality (knowledge and skills), sensitivity (incentives and emotions), and sociality (interactions with other people and environments). The constraints are coined into 11 descriptive statements to guide academic development and educational leadership in times of uncertainty and change. Finally, practical implications and questions are formulated.