'I don't agree with myself!' doctoral researcher identity disrupted and developed, interrupted and transformed

Addressing the conference theme of ‘becoming’, in this presentation, I share how my researcher identity has developed during the process of undertaking a part-time EdD.
I am a primary teacher and over a decade ago, I encountered practitioner enquiry, early in my Masters studies.  Since then, I have adopted an enquiring approach to my practice that has demonstrably informed and influenced some of the decision-making, improvement plans and successful outcomes in the places I have worked. 
There is a ‘distinctiveness’ and ‘uniqueness’ of professional doctorates (Burnard et al., 2018), that comes from doctoral researchers operating right at the nexus of their established professional practice, their new researcherly practice while developing new practice for their own professional context through the research process.  For me, as an enquiring practitioner, when the time came, it made sense to enrol for a professional doctorate.
In the taught phase of my EdD studies, I completed three specialist modules of a specialist ‘Supporting Teacher Learning’ pathway.  Now in my fifth part-time PGR year, I am researching how teacher leadership is understood and experienced in Scotland. 
Identifying as a teacher leader myself, one of my research questions asks : In what ways is my professional identity (re)formed through the experience of researching teacher leadership? Critically reflecting on this, I have found Foot et al.’s (2014) ‘disrupted self-efficacy’ and ‘interrupted self-inefficacy’ to be helpful concepts.
For doctoral researchers on professional doctorate programmes, Foot et al. (2014) identified four major disruptions to self-efficacy.  As they typically come to doctoral study with an established professional track record, the identity disruptions derive mainly from internal sources e.g. comparison to others; fear of the future; not knowing where they fit and a fear of failure.
Common triggers for such disruptions among all PGRs, include the need to make choices in unknown territory; encountering an unfamiliar, open-ended learning process; experiencing feelings of self-doubt about ability, and having preconceived notions of the complexity of research (Albertyn and Bennett, 2022)
Such feelings of self-inefficacy can be interrupted by doctorate researchers themselves suggest Foot et al. (2014), through actions such as self-reflection; connecting with colleagues and peers in groups and networks; and, sharing or presenting work thereby achieving a level of recognition at seminars and conferences.
In this presentation, I draw on reflexive material from my research journal, my study blog, as well as my self-survey and self-interview data, in order to show some of the ways in which my identity has been disrupted, interrupted and ultimately transformed through the experience of becoming a doctoral researcher.