Abstract:

Teacher´s professional role and then professional activities as a part of his competences required are still discussed and examined for primary and secondary degree teachers. But this aspect of professionalization of a university teacher is not yet fully researched. So what possible professional roles can we find? Contemporary literature existing for this issue notes basic double role of academic staff – the role of a university teacher and the role of a university researcher. Their position between double roles is often perceived difficult especially for the beginning academic workers. They have to balance requirements of the both professional roles and to face the problems related to learning how to be a good teacher and how to improve their researcher skills. How is this duality reflected in every day working life of academic staff? Which role is perceived as personally more important? Is it even possible for them to determine if and for what reason they feel themselves to be more a teacher or a researcher? What´s the influence of the role of a teacher on the other one? Do they perceive the need to study the university pedagogy or they prefer to be experts on their field of research at first? What other professional roles they find out? Does the perception of the role change during their professional development and how?
We try to answer these questions through qualitative study based on the interviews with academic staff who are in the position of a teacher and a researcher as well. The task is to understand the perception of a professional role from university teachers´ point of view and to try to define the role through their propositions. This empirical part of the study follows the theoretical basis on the professional competences and activities of university teachers the way they are reflected actually in literature.

Keywords:

University teacher, researcher, professional role, professional competences, professional activities, role duality, teacher.