It’s Complicated: A Mixed Methods Study of the Professional Identity of Massage Therapists in Ontario
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Background Professional identity is a way in which individuals assign meaning to themselves and their contributions to society. The body of literature from across healthcare professions suggests that the sense of belonging that comes with a strong professional identity influences practitioners to act professionally and adhere to regulatory standards. Although all members of the College of Massage Therapists of Ontario (CMTO) call themselves (registered) massage therapists, there is disagreement about what they value and believe. Research that describes the professional identity of massage therapists in their own words may illuminate commonalities and form a shared model of identity. Methods An exploratory sequential mixed methods design was chosen to investigate the professional identity of massage therapists in Ontario. Qualitative description and quantitative survey methodologies were used, followed by a mixed analysis of both data sets. Results In the resulting description of professional identity, massage therapists believe they are healthcare providers. They value competence and currency with profession-specific knowledge and skill. They believe in the importance of communication to establish trust, create comfort, and empower patients. They are passionate about providing safe, effective, and individualized care. This study also confirmed that variation in professional identity exists within the profession that impacts values and beliefs. Conclusions This description is the first of its kind and will inform future research. Massage Therapy stakeholders can use this description to engage in discussions regarding whether these features adequately represent massage therapists’ beliefs and values. Variation in professional identity occurred due to differences in gender, practice setting, length in practice, and additional education, roles within the profession, and designation as healthcare professional. These variations present opportunities for future research to further the understanding of professional identity. Much remains to be discovered in this field of study, due to the complexity of professional identity.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.009 | 0.013 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.015 | 0.004 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.004 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.004 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".