To be a teacher, to be many other things and always to do the best. The identity and narratives of engineering professors

Our investigation focused on the perceptions and views of engineering professors regarding their understanding of the meaning of being a teacher, including their life stories and relationships with others and themselves. By doing so, the idea was to identify the characteristics, elements or factors of their identities. This study considered a narrative inquiry approach to explore the stories and experiences of engineering professors who teach in higher education through unstructured interviews and field records. Our study revealed two key themes that intimately reflect the identities and perceptions of these engineering professors as teachers: (a) To be a teacher and always to do the best, and (b) To be a teacher and to be many other things. From the results, we can observe that the identity of engineering professors is being constructed/modelled as the meanings of what they understand about what it means to be a teacher are negotiated in their work environments and contexts, thus directing their actions.