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Teaching and Teacher Education 23 (2007) 731–747

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Research engagement in English language teaching

Simon Borg

School of Education, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK

Received 3 November 2005; received in revised form 21 March 2006; accepted 23 March 2006

Abstract

Despite the substantial amount of work which has been conducted into teachers’ research engagement in mainstream

education, this topic has been awarded scant attention in the field of English language teaching. This paper presents the

results of a survey representing the first stage of multi-method investigation of research engagement in ELT. Moderate

levels of reading and doing research were reported by the sample studied here, and this level of research engagement is

analysed in relation to two key factors also examined in the survey: teacher’s conceptions of research and their perceptions

of the institutional research culture.

r 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Research engagement; English language teaching; Evidence-based practice.

1. Introduction

1.1. Evidence-based practice

In the light of highly publicised arguments aboutthe quality of educational research (e.g. Hargreaves,1996; Tooley & Darby, 1998), educational policy inthe UK, in common with that in the USA andAustralia (Department of Education Training andYouth Affairs, 2000; Shavelson & Towne, 2002) hasin recent years been characterised by a drive toengage classroom teachers more fully both with andin educational research and thus to make teachingan evidence-based profession. The thinking behindevidence-based practice (EBP) has been extensivelydescribed and debated in the literature (e.g. Davies,1999; Elliot, 2002; Thomas & Pring, 2004); onefundamental argument is that when teachers engage

ee front matter r 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

te.2006.03.012

ess: s.borg@education.leeds.ac.uk.

with and in research and make pedagogical deci-sions informed by sound research evidence, this willhave a beneficial effect on both teaching andlearning (Hargreaves, 2001). While the validity ofthe EBP metaphor to education is by no meansunquestionably accepted (e.g. Hammersley, 2004),and debates continue about what counts as appro-priate evidence in EBP (e.g. Maxwell, 2004;Morrison, 2001) and how the relationship betweenresearch evidence and professional practice can bebest conceived (Thomas, 2004), it is generallyaccepted that more informed use of and involve-ment in research by teachers can enhance the qualityof education.

1.1.1. Teachers’ views of research

Within the framework of EBP outlined above,one strand of inquiry has focused on examiningwhat teachers actually think about research (Ever-ton, Galton, & Pell, 2000, 2002; McNamara, 2002;

.

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Ratcliffe et al., 2004; Shkedi, 1998). The rationalefor such inquiry has been that initiatives to promoteEBP are more likely to have an impact if they arebased on an understanding of teachers’ conceptionsof research and of the role research plays in theirwork. I will now comment briefly on key findingsfrom some of this work.

Everton et al. (2002) surveyed 572 teachers whowere asked, amongst other issues, whether researchhad influenced their teaching and whether they wereinterested in engaging in research themselves. InMcNamara (2002), 100 teachers were surveyed onissues such as what image educational research heldfor them and whether they felt research might havean impact on their work. Both these studiessuggested that teachers acknowledged the potentialpositive impact of research on various aspects ofprofessional practice. In both cases too, though,respondents highlighted the need for publishededucational research to be both more accessible aswell as more applicable to teachers’ work. The studyby Ratcliffe et al. (2004), based on interviews withover 60 science educators, found that respondents,unless already experienced in research, had limitedunderstandings of the nature of and the processesinvolved in social science research. This study alsoexplored the influence of research on what teachersdo; a key finding here was that any such influencewas more indirect (e.g. through curricula andinstructional materials) than direct (e.g. throughreading research reports).

1.1.2. Research engaged teachers

A related strand of inquiry has focused on thenotion of research engaged teachers and schools. Inrecent years there have been a number of fundedinitiatives in the UK aimed at increasing teachers’engagement in research (e.g. see the DfES website athttp://www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/research/re-sources/#1101481 for a number of these); addition-ally the Networked Learning Communities projectrun by the National College for School Leadership,and earlier work by the Teacher Training Agencyand General Teaching Council for England (see,e.g., Cordingley, Bell, Evans, & Holdich, 2005). Inreviewing one such initiative (the Cambridge-basedSchools University Partnership for EducationalResearch), Worrall (2004) surveyed 28 teachers inthe UK in order to examine why they engaged inresearch. By far the most common reason cited (23times) was ‘to generate a greater understanding ofspecific issues in teaching and learning’. This study

also highlighted three reasons why teachers did notsustain their engagement in research: (a) the lack ofexternal pressure to do so; (b) lack of time; and (c)personal dispositions (e.g. beliefs that research is anactivity done by outside experts). In order tounderstand the processes of research engagementin schools and colleges, Barker (2005) conductedinterviews with 21 educational providers in the UKwho were known be involved in and supportive ofpractitioner research. In this case, the main reasonteachers participated in research was found to be adesire to improve the quality of teaching andlearning. This study, though, also examined re-search engagement at the institutional level. A keyfinding was that ‘‘organisational commitment toparticipate in research, with recognition of the timeand resources required to do this’’ (p. 5) isimportant if teachers are to be involved in research.The central influence of the institution on teachers’engagement with research has been similarly high-lighted in a number of other sources (e.g. Ebbutt,2001; Handscomb & Macbeath, 2003; Hemsley-Brown & Sharp, 2003; Sharp, Eames, Sanders, &Tomlinson, 2005). One of these, for example,concluded that ‘‘the main barriers to knowledgeuse y are not at the level of individual resistance,but originated in an institutionalised culture thatdoes not foster learning’’ (Hemsley-Brown & Sharp,2003, p. 46). Overall, then, in education generallythere has been growing interest in recent years notonly in the nature of teachers’ engagement inresearch but also in the role institutions play inshaping this engagement.

1.2. Research engagement in english language

teaching

In comparison to the volume of empirical workwhich has been conducted into teachers’ researchengagement in education generally, little researchinto this area has been conducted in the field ofEnglish language teaching (ELT). In the workwhich does exist, McDonough and McDonough(1990) conducted a brief survey of the views ofresearch of 34 teachers of English as a foreignlanguage, while Brown (1992) surveyed 334 mem-bers of an international association for ELTteachers. These studies, echoing those outsideELT, reported notions of research closely tied toquantitative and statistical methods and a generalambivalence about the role of educational researchin teachers’ professional lives. Crookes and Arakaki

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(1999) refer to some factors which hinder teachers’research engagement (e.g. lack of time) whileMcDonough and McDonough (1990) cite concep-tual inaccessibility as another barrier. Papers basedon the languages inservice programme for teachers(LIPT) in Australia (a context which is perhapsunique in the opportunities it has provided forlanguage teachers to be research engaged) havediscussed in more detail how the conditions ofteachers’ work may militate against research en-gagement and the strategies through which teacherresearch engagement might be achieved (Burton,1997, 1998; Burton & Mickan, 1993). Generally,though, teachers’ conceptions of research and thenature of teachers’ research engagement do notseem to have been studied in any systematic way inELT. There has, in contrast, been more extensivetheoretical discussion of relationships betweenteachers and research in ELT, and this has includedcommentaries on the factors, such as the attitudes,knowledge and skills teachers have, which maysupport or discourage them from engaging with andin research (Borg, 2003a, 2003b, 2003c; Ellis, 1997;Freeman, 1996; Markee, 1997). Empirical researchinto these issues, though, is required if we are todevelop an evidence-base which can inform policyand initiatives aimed at promoting research engage-ment by teachers in ELT.

This review of the literature suggests that while ineducation more generally the development of policyin promoting EBP has been informed by studies ofteachers’ conceptions of research and of the factors,including the institution, which influence the extentto which teachers can be research engaged, in ELTthere has to date been little empirical study of theseissues. This gap in our understanding means we areunable to make informed decisions about thedevelopment of policy and initiatives whose aim isto enable teachers to engage more fully both withand in research. I am developing a programme ofresearch which aims to address these issues and hereI report on the survey which forms the first stage inthis programme.

2. Method

2.1. The survey

In the form of a questionnaire, the cross-sectionalsurvey allows large amounts of data to be collectedefficiently, economically, and in a standardisedmanner (Aldridge & Levine, 2001; Dornyei, 2002).

The larger research programme referred to abovereflects what Creswell (2003) calls a sequentialexplanatory multi-method strategy. This is a designwhich ‘‘is characterised by the collection andanalysis of quantitative data followed by thecollection and analysis of qualitative data’’ (p.215). This survey is the first part of this strategy,allowing for the initial, more extensive analysis ofdata but also being the means through which asmaller sample of participants will be identified forthe subsequent interview phase of the study (seeFindings, Section 3.6). Overall, the aim of theprogramme of research is to understand the con-ceptions of research held by ELT teachers workingin different contexts, the role which both readingand doing research plays in these teachers’ profes-sional lives, and the factors which influence theirresearch engagement.

2.1.1. Research questions

A self-report questionnaire was developed toaddress the aims outlined above. Specifically, itaimed to collect data relevant to the followingquestions:

1.

What are the characteristics of ‘research’ accord-ing to ELT teachers?

2.

To what extent do teachers say they readpublished research?a. What impact do they believe this reading has

on their practices?b. Where teachers do not read research, what

reasons do they cite?

3. To what extent do teachers say they do

research?a. What are their reasons for engaging in

research?b. Where teachers do not do research, what

reasons do they cite?

4. What are teachers’ perceptions of their institu-

tional culture in relation to research?

5. How do these perceptions relate to teachers’

research engagement?

6. Do teachers’ experience and qualifications

relate to the degree of research engagement theyreport?

2.1.2. Design

The survey had six sections, focusing in turn onrespondents’ background information, their con-ceptions of what counts as research, their viewsabout the characteristics of good-quality research,

ARTICLE IN PRESSS. Borg / Teaching and Teacher Education 23 (2007) 731–747734

their perceptions of their institutional culture inrelation to research, their engagement in readingresearch, and their engagement in doing research.This range of themes was chosen on the basis ofissues raised in the literature reviewed earlier, bothin education generally and in ELT.

Section 1 collected background data about theteachers. Information was requested which was feltto be relevant to understanding teachers’ researchengagement (e.g. qualifications and experience).Information on gender, for example, was notrequested as there was no reason to hypothesisethat this might be a relevant factor. In Section 2, theuse of research scenarios was suggested by the workof Ratcliffe et al. (2004), who used a similar strategyin interviews as part of a study of science educationteachers’ views of research. Collectively, the scenar-ios devised for this study aimed to portray a rangeof activities with different characteristics (e.g.methods, data, outputs) and which might, depend-ing on one’s definition, be called research. An earlierdraft of the questionnaire contained additionalscenarios (e.g. one depicting a single case qualitativestudy) and also asked teachers to give reasons fortheir choices; to keep the instrument to a reasonablelength, though, and to minimise the amount ofwriting required of respondents, I decided to limitthe number of scenarios to ten and to leave theexploration of reasons to the follow-up interviews.Section 3 drew on discussions of different ap-proaches to research (see, for example, Cohen,Manion, & Morrison, 2000) in order to investigatethe characteristics respondents felt were importantin determining the quality of a piece of research.The characteristics listed (full details are describedin the findings below) referred to issues of researchdesign, data collection, analysis, and application.Section 4, on institutional attitudes to research, wassuggested by empirical work mentioned earlierwhich indicates that the institution influencesteachers’ research engagement. The lists of factorspresented in Sections 5 and 6 in relation to whyteachers do and do not read and do research wereinformed by the discussion of these issues both inthe ELT literature and outside. Collectively, theitems covered in the survey addressed the range ofresearch questions listed above.

The design of the questionnaire—question types,wording, layout, length—was informed by therelevant methodological literature (e.g. Aldridge &Levine, 2001; Dornyei, 2002; Fowler, 2002; Oppen-heim, 1992).

2.1.3. Administration

The questionnaire was administered to teacherson a Freshman English programme at a universityin Turkey in June 2005. All 62 teachers teaching onthe programme were invited to complete thequestionnaire, which was distributed and collectedby a member of the management team for thisprogramme.

3. Results

3.1. Background information

Questionnaires were returned by 50 teachers,representing a response rate of 80.6%. The datawere analysed using SPSS 12. Section 1 asked about(1) the country where teachers work; (2) years ofexperience as an English language teacher; (3)highest relevant qualification to ELT; (4) type ofinstitution (private or state); (5) whether theinstitution was attached to a university; and (6)the age of the learners respondents taught mostoften. As part of the larger research programme thequestionnaire will be administered to ELT teachersin a range of contexts around the world and thisinformation will facilitate comparisons amongthese. For this administration, though, the respon-dents were homogenous in several respects and thiswas reflected in their replies to items 1, 4, 5 and 6:they all worked in Turkey, at a private institutionwhich was part of a university, teaching students intheir late teens or early 20s. The results to items 2and 3 in Section 1 are summarised in Tables 1 and 2below. In terms of experience, the largest group ofteachers belonged to the 10–14 group, while in termsof qualifications the figure that stands out is thatalmost 68% of the teachers said they had a Master’sdegree relevant to ELT. This reflects the university-based EFL context in which this study took place.

3.2. Conceptions of research

Sections 2 and 3 of the questionnaire examinedrespondents’ views of what research is and of thecharacteristics of good-quality research.

3.2.1. Evaluating research scenarios

In Section 2, the teachers were asked to indicateto what extent they felt the activities described in tenscenarios were or were not research. The scenariosare listed in Table 3. The findings for this questionare summarised in Table 4, which gives the

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Table 2

Respondents by highest ELT qualification

Qualification N %

Certificate 1 2.0

Diploma 4 8.2

Bachelor’s 6 12.2

Master’s 33 67.3

Doctorate 5 10.2

Total 49 100

Table 1

Respondents by years of ELT experience

Years N %

0–4 1 2.0

5–9 12 25.0

10–14 16 33.3

15–19 9 18.8

20–24 5 10.4

25+ 6 12.5

Total 49 100.0

Throughout the paper, where totals in tables do not add up to 50

or 100%, this is due to missing data.

S. Borg / Teaching and Teacher Education 23 (2007) 731–747 735

percentage of teachers selecting each of the fourpossible ratings for each scenario.

Fig. 1 collapses these results into two categoriesfor each scenario—‘Not research’ made up ofdefinitely not research and probably not research)and ‘Research’ (probably research and definitelyresearch). This allows the overall direction of theteachers’ responses to emerge more clearly.

While defining research is in itself not a straight-forward issue, it is possible to extract from theresearch methodology literature (e.g. Brown &Rodgers, 2002; Cohen, Manion, & Morrison,2000; Nunan, 1992; Wiersma, 1991) a number ofcommonly cited minimal elements—a problem orquestion, data, analysis, interpretation. Character-istics of the process, such as systematicity andrigour, are often commonly cited (though these areof course open to multiple interpretations). Addi-tionally, it has been argued that to qualify asresearch, inquiry needs to be made public (e.g.Freeman, 1996; Stenhouse, 1975). These factors willbe borne in mind as the results to this question areanalysed.

It is clear from Table 4 and Fig. 1 that thescenario which was rated as research by most

teachers (98%) was number 4, in which a universitylecturer conducts a large-scale survey and analysesthe data statistically. This was the only scenario outof the 10 where no respondent felt that it wasdefinitely not research. This is perhaps not surpris-ing as it does explicitly mention a number ofelements (e.g. questionnaires, statistics) which tea-chers often associate with research (see, for exam-ple, Shkedi, 1998 and similar studies cited earlier).Scenario 6 was also highly rated, with 87.5%judging it to be in the ‘research’ category. This tooreflects characteristics (e.g. pre- and post-tests)typically associated with research, though in thiscase no explicit research terminology was used.

Scenario 8 was that least recognised as research(73.5% placed it in the ‘not research’ category).Asking learners for feedback is a routine pedagogi-cal or administrative activity which is not normallyrecognised as research. The low number of feedbacksheets returned and the use to which the informa-tion was put may have also contributed to the lowratings this scenario received. Scenario 1 alsoreceived a low rating, with 68% of teachers ratingit as ‘not research’. Nonetheless, 28% of respon-dents still felt it was probably research and 4% thatit was definitely so. The spread of responses waseven more pronounced on scenarios 7, 9 and 10. Forexample, on scenario 9, while 20% said it wasdefinitely research, 18% said it was definitely not.There are clearly elements here which for someteachers were characteristic of research (e.g. perhapsthe analysis of data and the writing of an article);others were clear in their views though that this wasnot research (e.g. perhaps because there was no apriori research question to guide data collection orbecause the writing of the article was not originallyintended). This item is particularly indicative of thediversity which exists among the teachers in terms oftheir understandings of what counts as research.Exploring these understandings in more detail (e.g.the reasons underlying their assessments of thescenarios) will be one goal of the follow-up inter-views.

The ratings of these scenarios were studied (usingSpearman’s rank correlation) for associations withteachers’ qualifications (banded into two cate-gories—up to BA and over BA) and experience(0–9, 10–19, 20+). No significant relationships werefound between teachers’ ratings and their qualifica-tions; experience did relate though to scenario5 (N ¼ 48, r ¼ 0.375, po0.01) and 9 (N ¼ 49,r ¼ 0.311, po0.05). Though statistically significant,

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Table 4

Teachers’ assessment of ten scenarios

Definitely

not

research

(%)

Probably

not

research

(%)

Probably

research

(%)

Definitely

research

(%)

Scenario 1 44.0 24.0 28.0 4.0

Scenario 2 4.1 12.2 36.7 46.9

Scenario 3 10.2 20.4 40.8 28.6

Scenario 4 0 2.0 28.6 69.4

Scenario 5 6.1 18.4 38.8 36.7

Scenario 6 4.2 8.3 33.3 54.2

Scenario 7 14.3 32.7 30.6 22.4

Scenario 8 28.6 44.9 16.3 10.2

Scenario 9 18.0 38.0 24.0 20.0

Scenario 10 12.0 34.0 36.0 18.0

Table 3

Scenarios rated by teachers

1. A teacher noticed that an activity she used in class did not work well. She thought about this after the lesson and made some notes in

her diary. She tried something different in her next lesson. This time the activity was more successful.

2. A teacher read about a new approach to teaching writing and decided to try it out in his class over a period of 2 weeks. He video

recorded some of his lessons and collected samples of learners’ written work. He analysed this information then presented the results to

his colleagues at a staff meeting.

3. A teacher was doing an MA course. She read several books and articles about grammar teaching then wrote an essay of 6000 words in

which she discussed the main points in those readings.

4. A university lecturer gave a questionnaire about the use of computers in language teaching to 500 teachers. Statistics were used to

analyse the questionnaires. The lecturer wrote an article about the work in an academic journal.

5. Two teachers were both interested in discipline. They observed each other’s lessons once a week for 3 months and made notes about

how they controlled their classes. They discussed their notes and wrote a short article about what they learned for the newsletter of the

national language teachers’ association.

6. To find out which of two methods for teaching vocabulary was more effective, a teacher first tested two classes. Then for 4 weeks she

taught vocabulary to each class using a different method. After that she tested both groups again and compared the results to the first

test. She decided to use the method which worked best in her own teaching.

7. A headmaster met every teacher individually and asked them about their working conditions. The head made notes about the teachers’

answers. He used his notes to write a report which he submitted to the Ministry of Education.

8. Mid-way through a course, a teacher gave a class of 30 students a feedback form. The next day, five students handed in their completed

forms. The teacher read these and used the information to decide what to do in the second part of the course.

9. A teacher trainer asked his trainees to write an essay about ways of motivating teenage learners of English. After reading the

assignments the trainer decided to write an article on the trainees’ ideas about motivation. He submitted his article to a professional

journal.

10. The Head of the English department wanted to know what teachers thought of the new course book. She gave all teachers a

questionnaire to complete, studied their responses, then presented the results at a staff meeting.

Not ResearchResearch

0% 25% 50% 75% 100%

Percentage of teachers

Scenario 1

Scenario 2

Scenario 3

Scenario 4

Scenario 5

Scenario 6

Scenario 7

Scenario 8

Scenario 9

Scenario 10

Fig. 1. Teachers’ assessment of ten research scenarios.

S. Borg / Teaching and Teacher Education 23 (2007) 731–747736

the strength of these relationships was weak(Salkind, 2004, p. 88) suggests that a correlationof less than 0.4 is weak and that 0.4–0.6 ismoderate). Overall, then, there are no grounds herefor concluding that experience is associated withthese teachers’ ratings of the scenarios.

It is also interesting to note that teachers’ ratingsof the ten scenarios yielded a Cronbach’s a of 0.82.This figure indicates that the scenarios scale welland can be considered to address a common

underlying concept (teachers’ conceptions of re-search).

3.2.2. Characteristics of good quality research

Section 3 of the questionnaire focused further onteachers’ conceptions of research by asking them torate the importance to good-quality research of alist of characteristics. Table 5 summarises the

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responses to this question. For the purposes of thistable, ‘Less important’ includes ‘unimportant’ and‘moderately important’ ratings for each character-istic, while ‘More important’ constitutes ‘important’and ‘very important’ responses. The responses arelisted in descending order according to the percen-tage of teachers who indicated that a characteristicwas ‘more important’.

The characteristic which was seen overall to bemost important was ‘the researcher is objective’—97.9% of ratings for this item were in the ‘moreimportant’ group. ‘Hypotheses are tested’ was thesecond most rated as important, while the thirdhighest rated characteristic was ‘variables arecontrolled’. Taken together, teachers’ views herereflect a conception of research where objectivity,hypothesis testing, and the manipulation of vari-ables are fundamental concerns. I will commentfurther on these findings later in the paper, but theydo reflect those emerging from similar studiesoutside ELT. Having said that, it is interesting thatother notions commonly associated with ‘scientific’research, such as the use of experiments and

Table 5

Teachers’ views on the importance of sixteen research character-

istics

Characteristics Less

important

(%)

More

important

(%)

The researcher is objective 2.1 97.9

Hypotheses are tested 12.5 87.5

Variables are controlled 16.7 79.2

A large number of people are

studied

26.5 73.5

The results give teachers ideas they

can use

25.0 70.8

The topic studied is of interest to

teachers

27.1 66.7

Information is analysed statistically 37.5 62.5

A large volume of information is

collected

39.6 60.4

The results are made public 37.5 56.3

Observations are used 40.4 55.3

Practical teaching problems are

studied

45.8 52.1

Information is collected in real

classrooms

46.8 51.1

Questionnaires are used 45.7 50.0

Experiments are used 45.8 47.9

The results apply to many ELT

contexts

56.3 39.6

Interviews are used 56.3 37.5

generalisability, were not rated very highly, whilethe practical utility of results to teachers receivedthe fifth highest rating here (‘the results giveteachers ideas they can use’).

The characteristics teachers were asked to com-ment on included a number of data collectionstrategies (e.g. experiments, interviews). The reasonfor their inclusion is that research can sometimes bedirectly equated with the use of a specific method(Gorard, 2001, p. 80, for example, comments thatresearch is often strongly associated with surveys oralternatively with interviews). The results here donot suggest that data collection methods in them-selves were seen as a determinant of research quality(in fact, three of the four lowest rated characteristicswere related to methods).

The teachers were asked to suggest furtherfeatures of good-quality research and 11 respon-dents made suggestions. Four referred to the needfor research to draw on existing sources, suggestingthat these should be current, reliable and varied.One respondent also mentioned the manner inwhich research is communicated as being important:

It’s important that research is conveyed toteachers in ways they can understand. Statisticsfor example are not always helpful for languageteachers unless they are analyzed verbally.

Contemporary discussions of quality in research(e.g. Boaz & Ashby, 2003) do in fact recognise thequality of communication as an important criterion.Other characteristics mentioned were the need forclear conclusions to be drawn from the analysis ofthe data, the need for a clear statement of theproblem being investigated, the choice of topics thatare ‘interesting’, and the integrity of the tools usedto collect data.

Teachers’ ratings of the 16 characteristics werealso analysed in terms of qualifications and experi-ence. The results appear in Table 6. Teachers’ ratingof one characteristic—‘The results apply to manyELT contexts’ was in a significant positive relation-ship to both qualifications and experience, thoughin both cases the strength of the association wasweak. Nonetheless this suggests that generalisabilitywas an issue valued more by teachers with higherqualifications and more experience. Qualificationswere in a negative relationship with the valueattached to statistical analysis. This indicates thatteachers’ ratings of the value of this characteristicdecreased as their qualifications increased. Andexperience was significantly but weakly associated

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Table 6

Relationship of ratings of research characteristics to qualifications and experience

Characteristic N Qualification r Experience r

A large number of people are studied 49 �0.011 �0.097

A large volume of information is collected 48 0.009 �0.105

Experiments are used 48 0.124 0.111

Hypotheses are tested 48 �0.106 0.022

Information is analysed statistically 48 �0.274� 0.098

Information is collected in real classrooms 47 �0.153 0.003

Interviews are used 48 �0.189 0.244�

Observations are used 47 0.222 0.144

Practical teaching problems are studied 48 0.222 0.075

Questionnaires are used 46 0.034 0.184

The researcher is objective 47 �0.074 0.070

The results apply to many ELT contexts 48 0.331� 0.300�

The results are made public 48 �0.133 0.201

The results give teachers ideas they can use 48 0.023 �0.008

The topic studied is of interest to teachers 48 0.080 0.280�

Variables are controlled 48 �0.027 0.104

�po0.05 (1-tailed).

S. Borg / Teaching and Teacher Education 23 (2007) 731–747738

with teachers’ views about the importance in good-quality research of topics which are of interest toteachers.

Correlations tell us about associations but theydo not indicate whether teachers with differentlevels of qualification and experience were signifi-cantly different in the way in they rated theimportance of the different research characteristics.Although the practice of generating mean scoresfrom ordinal data is an area of debate in theliterature on statistics (see, for example, Bryman &Cramer, 2005; Gorard, 2001), it is common inpublished educational research. In this case, calcu-lating the mean ratings for each characteristicallows us to compare whether there were differencesin the ratings of teachers with differing qualifica-tions and experience. When qualifications aregrouped into two categories—up to BA, and aboveBA—Mann–Whitney’s test shows that the onlysignificant difference between the two groups wasin their rating of the item ‘the results apply to manyELT contexts’ (up to BA mean rating ¼ 1.55, aboveBA mean rating ¼ 2.45, U ¼ 117.5, p ¼ 0.023).When experience is banded into three groups—0–9, 10–19, and 20+—and the mean ratings oneach characteristic compared (using the Kruskal–Wallis test), no significant differences were foundfor any of the characteristics. Overall, then,teachers’ ratings of the importance of researchcharacteristics did not differ significantly accordingto their experience and qualifications.

3.3. Research culture

As noted earlier, there is evidence in the literaturethat institutional culture will influence the extent towhich teachers are research engaged. The questionsin Section 4 of the questionnaire aimed to elicitteachers’ views of the extent to which they workedin an environment which encouraged learning aboutand doing research. Table 7 summarises these views(the original five point scale, with ‘disagree strongly’and ‘agree strongly’ at the extremes, has beencollapsed into three categories and responsesexpressed as percentages).

As Table 7 indicates, the majority of teachersagreed with five of the statements. On one item(‘Teachers talk about research’), the responses werespread over the three categories, while on theremaining two items teachers’ views were lesspositive; 40% disagreed that ‘teachers feel thatdoing research is an important part of their job’,while 77.6% disagreed that ‘time for doing researchis built into teachers’ workloads’. Overall, though,the responses to this question suggest that theinstitution was seen to constitute a positive contextfor research engagement: access to research pub-lications was seen to be good, teachers felt they hadopportunities to learn about current research, andteachers were believed by colleagues to engage inresearch themselves.

The eight items in this question were devised onthe assumption that they addressed a common

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Table 7

Institutional research culture according to teachers

Statement Disagree (%) Don’t know (%) Agree (%)

Teachers do research themselves 16.0 24.0 60.0

The management encourages teachers to do research 36.0 12.0 52.0

Teachers feel that doing research is an important part of their job 40.0 26.0 34.0

Teachers have access to research books and journals 6.1 8.2 85.7

Teachers have opportunities to learn about current research 22.4 8.2 69.4

Teachers talk about research 32.0 30.0 38.0

Teachers are given support to attend ELT conferences 26.0 14.0 60.0

Time for doing research is built into teachers’ workloads 77.6 4.1 18.4

S. Borg / Teaching and Teacher Education 23 (2007) 731–747 739

underlying concept, which we may refer to asinstitutional research culture. A measure of theextent to which this assumption is justified isprovided by Cronbach’s a. According to Brymanand Cramer (2005, p. 78), 0.8 is the a level whichindicates a good level of conceptual relatednessamong items. The a level of 0.783 in this casesuggests that the items in this question did address acommon underlying concept. Each teacher’s re-sponse on these eight items can therefore besummated to provide an overall measure of theirviews about the institutional research culture.Below, these summated views are examined inrelation to teachers’ reported frequencies of readingand doing research.

3.4. Reading research

Section 5 of the questionnaire asked respondentsabout the extent to which they read research, if so,about its impact on their work, and if not, abouttheir reasons for not doing so.

3.4.1. Frequency of reading

Forty-nine teachers answered this question;30.6% said they read research rarely, 55.1% some-times and 14.3% often. None chose ‘never’.

Table 8 breaks these responses down by qualifica-tion. Roughly a third of the teachers in eachcategory said they read research rarely. None ofthe teachers qualified up to BA level said they readresearch often, compared to almost 20% of thosewith higher qualifications.

Table 9 presents these responses in terms ofexperience. The percentages of teachers in eachgroup who said they read research sometimes isquite similar; the responses under the ‘often’ head-ing were in contrast quite diverse, with the figure of4% for the 10–19 group standing out.

Teachers’ summated scores on the institutionalculture items in Table 7 were correlated with theirreported frequencies of reading research. A fairlystrong and significant positive relationship wasfound (N ¼ 49, r ¼ 0.497, po0.01, 1-tailed). Posi-tive perceptions of the institution’s research culture,then, are associated with higher reported levels ofreading published research.

3.4.2. Influence of reading on practice

Teachers who said they read research often orsometimes were asked to indicate what influence theyfelt this reading had on their teaching. Of the 34teachers responding to this question, 29.4% reporteda slight influence, 50% a moderate influence, and20.6% a fairly strong influence. The extreme optionsfor this item—no influence or a strong influence—were not selected by any teachers. There was asignificant and moderate to strong relationshipbetween the frequency of reading research reportedby teachers and the influence they said this had ontheir teaching (N ¼ 34, r ¼ 0.570, po0.01). Thesefigures give us a general sense of how teachers ratedthe impact of their reading on their work in theclassroom. They are, however, limited in what theycan tell us about the relationship between researchand classroom practice, a relationship which, as thework of Ratcliffe et al. (2004) in science educationhas shown, is very complex. This is thus a clearexample of why this survey will be followed up withinterviews. These will enable a deeper exploration ofthe ways in which teachers feel their readinginfluences their work. Interviews will also provideinsights into the kinds of published research whichteachers feel do and do not influence them (this is atheme which has attracted much recent attention inthe context of EBP in the UK—see, for example, thework of CUREE, the Centre for the Use of ResearchEvidence in Education at www.curee.co.uk).

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Table 10

Reported reasons for not reading research

Reasons Frequency

I do not have time 11

Published research does not give me

practical advice for the classroom

9

I am not interested in research 7

I find published research hard to

understand

1

Table 8

Reported frequency of reading research by qualification

Qualification Rarely % Sometimes % Often % Total

Up to BA 3 27.3 8 72.7 0 0 11

Above BA 11 29.7 19 51.4 7 18.9 37

Total 14 29.2 27 56.2 7 14.6 48

Table 9

Reported frequency of reading research by experience

Experience Rarely % Sometimes % Often % Total

0–9 4 30.8 7 53.8 2 15.4 13

10–19 10 40.0 14 56.0 1 4.0 25

20+ 1 10 5 50.0 4 40.0 10

Total 15 31.3 26 54.1 7 14.6 48

S. Borg / Teaching and Teacher Education 23 (2007) 731–747740

3.4.3. Reasons for not reading research

Teachers who reported reading research rarely ornever were asked to comment on the reasons fortheir low engagement with research. The reasonscited by the 15 teachers answering this question arelisted in Table 10.

We can make connections between these com-ments and the views about the institutional researchculture discussed earlier. No teachers explainedtheir low engagement with published research interms of lack of accessibility to books and materials;this supports the views expressed earlier, where85.7% of teachers agreed that such materials wereavailable. Over 77% of teachers, though, alsoagreed earlier that time for research was not builtinto their workloads and a lack of time was a factorcited by over 73% of the teachers who said theyread research rarely or sometimes. While thecomment by over half the teachers answering thisquestion that they felt research lacked practicalrelevance resonates with findings from existingresearch on teachers’ views of research, the admis-sion by seven teachers that they were not interestedin research was not wholly expected and indicatesthat for these individuals the barriers to researchengagement are primarily attitudinal.

3.5. Doing research

The last major section of the survey focused onteachers’ engagement in research. Teachers wereasked how often they did research, if so, why, and ifnot, what the reasons for this were.

3.5.1. Frequency of doing research

Forty-nine teachers answered this question,38.8% said they did research sometimes, 36.7%rarely and 26.3% often. Only one individualreported never doing research. Overall, a significantbut weak relationship was found between teachers’reported frequencies of reading and doing research(N ¼ 49, r ¼ 0:285, p ¼ 0.048, 2-tailed). Althoughthe percentage of teachers who said they engage inresearch may appear high, caution is required ininterpreting this finding as teachers’ responses willhave reflected their conceptions of what counts asresearch (see Section 2 above). This is thus anotheritem which requires deeper exploration through thefollow-up interviews—for example, when a teachersays they engage in research often, what kinds ofactivities do they engage in and how frequently?

Table 11 and 12 summarise teachers’ reportedfrequency of doing research in terms of qualifica-tions and experience. A noticeably greater propor-tion of teachers in the more highly qualified group

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Table 11

Reported frequency of doing research by qualification

Never % Rarely % Sometimes % Often % Total

Up to BA 0 0 6 54.5 4 36.4 1 9.1 11

Above BA 1 2.6 12 31.6 15 39.5 10 26.3 38

Total 1 2.0 18 36.7 19 38.8 11 22.4 49

Table 12

Reported frequency of doing research by experience

Never % Rarely % Sometimes % Often % Total

0–9 0 0 6 46.2 3 23.1 4 30.8 13

10–19 1 4.0 8 32.0 12 48.0 4 16.0 25

20+ 0 0 3 30.0 4 40.0 3 30.0 10

Total 1 2.1 17 35.4 19 39.6 11 22.9 48

0 10 20 30

Frequency

As part of a course I am studying on.Because I enjoy it.

Because it is good for my professional development.Because it will help me get a promotion.

Because my employer expects me to.Because other teachers can learn from the findings of my work.

To contribute to the improvement of the school generally.To find better ways of teaching.

To solve problems in my teaching.

Fig. 2. Reasons for doing research.

S. Borg / Teaching and Teacher Education 23 (2007) 731–747 741

said they did research often, though the difference inthis distribution was not significant. In terms ofexperience, the 0–9 group had the largest proportionof teachers who said they did research rarely(46.2%) while the proportion of teachers in the10–19 group who said they did research often (16%)was almost half that in each of the other twogroups, though again this difference was notsignificant.

Teachers’ summated scores on the institutionalculture items in Table 7 were correlated with theirreported frequencies of doing research. A weak butsignificant positive relationship was found (N ¼ 49,r ¼ 0.305, p ¼ 0.017, 1-tailed). Teachers reportingmore favourable perceptions of the institutionalresearch culture, then, said they did research moreoften. This suggests that, once again, understanding

the institutional research culture is an importantelement in understanding the extent to whichteachers are research engaged.

3.5.2. Reasons for doing research

The 30 teachers who reported doing researchoften or sometimes were asked to indicate theirreasons for doing so by selecting items from a listprovided and suggesting others if required. Thefindings are summarised in Fig. 2.

No one reason dominated here; the most com-monly cited reasons were ‘because it is good for myprofessional development’ (24 times) and ‘to findbetter ways of teaching’ (23). Nineteen teachers alsosaid they do research because they enjoy it. Careeradvancement did not emerge here as a major factormotivating teachers to do research. Additionally,

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Table 13

Characteristics of teachers willing to participate further

Qualification Up to BA MA or more

3 8

Experiencea 0–9 10–19 20+

2 6 2

Read Research Often Sometimes Rarely

2 8 1

Do Research Often Sometimes Rarely

2 7 2

a

S. Borg / Teaching and Teacher Education 23 (2007) 731–747742

none of the teachers said that their employer’sexpectations influenced their involvement in re-search either. Twelve teachers said they were doingresearch as part of a course; this may provide thekind of external pressure which teachers in the studyby Worrall (2004) said enabled them to sustain theirengagement in research.

3.5.3. Reasons for not doing research

The 19 teachers who reported doing researchrarely or never were similarly asked to indicatereasons for this. Their responses are summarised inFig. 3.

A lack of time was the factor most often cited (16times). This factor was mentioned more than twiceas often as the next most frequent reason, which wasthe view that the work of teachers was to teach, notto do research. This is an example of the kind ofdeep-rooted belief which Worrall (2004) highlightedas one reason why teachers did not engage inresearch. Joint third in terms of frequency were‘most of my colleagues do not do research’ and ‘Iam not interested in doing research’, both of whichwere selected five times. A number of these reasons(e.g. time, colleagues) connect once again with issuesrelated to the broader research culture in theinstitution; as noted earlier, the overall perceptionof this by teachers was positive, and the beliefexpressed here that most teachers do not doresearch came from only 10% of the respondentsin this study. Nonetheless, these responses do addfurther weight to the view that the institutionalresearch culture is an important element to examinein our attempts to understand teachers’ researchengagement in ELT.

I do not know enough about research methods.

My job is to teach not to do research.

I do not have time to do research.

My employer discourages it.

I am not interested in doing research.

I need someone to advise me but no one is available.

Most of my colleagues do not do research.

Fig. 3. Reasons for no

3.6. Further participation

The final item on the questionnaire askedrespondents to indicate whether they would bewilling to participate in continuing explorationsof the issues covered here. As I mentioned atthe outset of the paper, the survey is the first stagein a larger research strategy which will also involvein-depth interviews. Eleven teachers (22% of thetotal) responded positively and supplied their nameand e-mail address. Table 13 summarises thecharacteristics of these individuals in terms of quali-fication, experience, reported frequency of readingresearch and reported frequency of doing re-search. It is positive that a range of characteristicsare represented here, including teachers who re-ported low levels of research engagement. Five ofthese teachers actually participated in a follow-upinterview and these data are currently beinganalysed.

0 5 10 15 20

Frequency

t doing research.

One teacher did not provide this information.

ARTICLE IN PRESSS. Borg / Teaching and Teacher Education 23 (2007) 731–747 743

4. Discussion

The focal concern of this study was researchengagement—the extent to which teachers read anddo research—and factors related to it. Almost 70%said they read research at least sometimes andalmost a third rarely; just over 61% said they didresearch at least sometimes while over 38% saidthey did so rarely or (in one case) never. Given theabsence of comparative data, I cannot comment onhow these figures relate to research engagement inour field more generally. This survey also does notshed light on what kinds of research activityteachers engage in; this is one of several issueshighlighted here which will be explored in moredepth in the subsequent interviews.

I will discuss the level of research engagementfound here by considering two factors: teachers’conceptions of research and the institutional re-search culture. Experience and qualifications wereexamined in this study in relation to teachers’research engagement but did not emerge here as asignificant factor. This is perhaps surprising, parti-cular in relation to qualifications, and suggestsperhaps that it is not so much the qualificationwhich matters here as much as the nature of the‘research education’ (Borg, 2003a) which teachershave experienced (e.g. the kinds of courses onresearch they have done). It may be worthwhile tocollect information about this issue when thequestionnaire is next administered.

4.1. Conceptions of research

In this study, teachers’ conceptions of researchwere predominantly associated with what has beencalled a ‘standard’ view of scientific research (Robson,2002, p. 19). The scenario rated most highly as beingresearch was a large-scale survey conducted by anacademic, analysed statistically, and published in anacademic journal. The four characteristics of researchseen to be most important in enhancing its qualityrelated to objectivity, hypothesis testing, the controlof variables, and the involvement of a large-scalesample. The tendency of teachers to associate researchwith more conventional forms of inquiry is reflectedin existing studies of this issue and which I reviewedearlier in this paper (e.g. Brown, 1992; Shkedi, 1998).The ‘standard’ view of research, on the basis of theavailable evidence, thus seems to remain the pre-dominant model in the minds of teachers bothgenerally and specifically in ELT.

Understanding the conceptions of research heldby teachers is important in attempts to engage themwith and in research. If, for example, large samplesand statistics are considered by teachers to be keycharacteristics of research, then this may become aless viable activity for many teachers who either donot have access to large samples or do not have theknowledge of statistics they feel is required. Alter-natively, the impact of such conceptions on teachersmay be that they only consider a limited range ofapproaches when they do decide to do researchthemselves (e.g. discounting forms of inquiry whichare more qualitative in nature but which mayactually be more amenable to the kind of researchteachers are well-placed to conduct—see, forexample, Hopkins, 2002).

Evidence of teachers’ conceptions of research alsoemerged here from their comments on their lack ofresearch engagement. The responses suggest thatseveral teachers feel that doing research is person-ally and professionally beneficial and of value inenabling them to explore issues related to their ownteaching. This reflects the main reason cited byteachers for doing research in both Worrall (2004)and Barker (2005). Amongst the reasons teachersgave for not being research engaged, two reflectviews of the role and value of research in teachers’lives; one (‘my job is to teach not to do research’)suggests that teaching and research are perceived asdistinct activities and only the former is part of ateacher’s work; the second (‘I am not interested indoing research’), which was mentioned in thecontext of both not reading and not doing research,may imply a lack of awareness of the professionaland pedagogical benefits which research engage-ment might lead to. Such views were only reportedby a small proportion of the teachers, but they areindicative of the kinds of underlying assumptionsabout research which may work against attempts toenhance teachers’ research engagement. As notedearlier, Worrall (2004) also found evidence of suchpersonal dispositions in teachers who were notresearch engaged.

Further insight into teachers’ conceptions ofresearch comes from two further questions in thesurvey; 9 teachers said they did not read researchbecause it does not give them practical advicefor the classroom; 34 teachers also said that acharacteristic of good-quality research is that itgives teachers ideas they can use. These, again,are conceptions which recur in studies of tea-chers’ research engagement (e.g. McDonough &

ARTICLE IN PRESSS. Borg / Teaching and Teacher Education 23 (2007) 731–747744

McDonough, 1990; McNamara, 2002; Shkedi,1998). Teachers are commonly found to report thatthey are unable to see what published researchmeans for their classroom practice; more recentevidence indicates that unless such relevance isperceived by teachers they will not be willing tobecome research engaged:

Throughout this study, practitioners have statedthat whilst research is important to their work, itmust be founded upon the intention to improvethe quality of their teaching and the learning oftheir students. Where this link is not recognised,then the findings of research may be ignored bythem (Barker, 2005. p. 33).

Of course, the instrumental value to teachers ofeducational research should not be presented as anecessary criterion for judging its value (Goldstein,1998). However, it is clear that if our goal is toencourage teachers to engage with published re-search, and that teachers consistently report thatone reason they do not is because they are unable tosee its relevance to their work, then this is clearly anissue that merits attention. It has, though, not beenthe focus of any empirical work in our field, onceagain, in contrast to work in education generally(see, for example, Cordingley et al., 2005). Wethus lack insights into teachers’ perceptions ofpublished research in our field, whether this workis seen by teachers to address their concerns,and how it impacts on what happens in class-rooms (in science education, Ratcliffe et al., 2004suggest this impact may be more indirect thandirect). These issues could very easily provide thebasis of a focused empirical study of their own, butin any case these are clearly matters to explore inmore depth in the follow-up interviews with theteachers.

Overall, what emerges here in relation to teachers’conceptions of research suggests that initiatives tofurther research engagement in this institution couldbenefit from giving teachers on-going opportunitiesto discuss and clarify their understandings of whatresearch is and how its worth can be judged, of therange of forms it may legitimately take, and of theways that research and classroom practice mayinteract in the lives of teachers. Teachers’ under-standings of these issues, I would argue, are centralto the extent to which they can be productivelyresearch engaged.

4.2. Institutional research culture

The literature discussed earlier highlighted therole which the institutional research culture mayhave on teachers’ research engagement. In thisstudy, teachers’ responses to a set of questionsabout their institution indicated that in manyrespects it was seen to provide an environmentconducive to research engagement. Also, the morepositively the institution was rated by teachers inthis respect, the more frequently teachers reportedboth reading and doing research, and in both casesthese associations were significant.

In terms of specific items related to the institu-tional culture, although only just over half of theteachers agreed that the management encouragedteachers to do research and only 34% agreed thatteachers feel that doing research is an importantpart of their work, the key finding was that almost80% disagreed that time for research is built intotheir workload. This view was also reflected in thecomments of teachers who did not read and doresearch; in both cases, a lack of time was the mostcommonly cited reason. Although it is easy todismiss this as an excuse which teachers make toexplain their non-engagement in an activity they feelthey should do, there is growing evidence ineducation generally that sustained and productiveresearch engagement is not feasible unless the time itrequires is acknowledged and built into institutionalsystems (see, for example, Barker, 2005). In ELT, Ireferred earlier to the study by Crookes andArakaki (1999) which found that work pressureswere a key reason why the teachers in theirinstitution did not read research. And in a personalcommunication to me on this subject, a teacher inNorth America wrote that:

As a teacher–researcher I’ve found it extremelydifficult to carry out research projects andpublish. I just don’t have the time. I teach 32.5hours/week and need to prepare for those classesin addition to work with the teachers’ union andour technology committee. It’s a shame. Untilpolicy changes to permit teachers to do researchin their classrooms and publish results therewon’t be much connection between research andpractice except within the individual classroom.In my own context almost nobody reads TESOLpublications—they don’t have time. There isa huge gap between research and practice inthe US.

ARTICLE IN PRESSS. Borg / Teaching and Teacher Education 23 (2007) 731–747 745

Research engagement demands time and theevidence is that teachers generally do not feel thistime is available within their current allocations; theconsequence is that for many teachers researchengagement becomes an activity they must do intheir own time. The results here suggest that evenwhere the institution is generally seen to besupportive of teachers’ research engagement, timemay be a factor which carries more weight thanothers in influencing the extent to which suchengagement actually takes place. This suggests thatdifferent conditions for research engagement carrydifferent weights and that time may be one of thosethat is particularly influential. The institutionalconditions which facilitate research and the relativeweightings of these is thus another specific issuewhich emerges here as meriting further specificstudy. The work of Ebbutt (2001) is relevant to thisissue. He analysed the conditions which characteriseinstitutions in which a research culture was presentto different degrees (which he calls emergent,established, and established-embedded). ‘Invest-ment in time’ was one of the 19 criteria he considersand the presence of such investment was one of theways in which schools where a research culture wasmore established differed from those where it wasless so. This would seem to be an issue which theinstitution where the teachers in this study workedwould benefit from considering if it wanted toenhance the levels of research engagement amongits staff.

5. Conclusion

In concluding this paper there are two points tohighlight and which need to be considered ininterpreting its findings. Firstly, the ELT contextstudied here is not being presented as typical of ELTgenerally; it is my goal to study a range of contextsas part of a larger programme of research, but thisinitial study allowed me to assess the feasibility ofthe issues chosen for study and the instrument usedto study them as well as to generate issues whichcould be explored in more detail through follow-upinterviews. In these respects this work has I feel beenworthwhile. At the same time, the substantivefindings of this study are indicative of the potentialthat work of this kind has for exploring the natureof research engagement in ELT. Second, question-naire responses about conceptions and practicesmust always be examined in the knowledge that theyare respondents’ reported perceptions of the issues

under study and that, for a range of reasons, theremay be a gap between actual and reported beliefsand practices. Well-designed instruments can mini-mise to some extent such problems (see, forexample, the advice in Oppenheim, 1992), butsupplementing questionnaire data with in-depthinterviews, as I plan to do, will allow the findingsemerging here to be explored in more detail with asub-set of the original sample of teachers. Withoutimplying that interviews are free of the dangersassociated with respondent bias which affect ques-tionnaires, the combination of questionnaire andinterview data can provide a more complete andconvincing account of research engagement in ELTthan reliance on questionnaire data alone would.

The findings of this study highlight a number ofareas for continuing inquiry into the topic ofteachers’ research engagement in ELT. I willcontinue to study these through my on-goingprogramme of research, but if as a field ELT valuesand wants to promote and support researchengagement by teachers more widely it is necessaryfor it to begin to generate the empirical evidencewhich is required to inform initiatives of this kind.The notion of teacher research is certainly not a newone in this field; what is new, however, is thesystematic study of the extent to which teachersin ELT read and do research (particularly out-side the context of formal programmes of study)and of the factors, personal to teachers as well asinstitutional, which influence the extent to whichsuch research engagement occurs. Funders ofeducational research in the UK in the last decadehave invested significantly in programmes of re-search which investigate these issues, and this hadled to the development of a significant body ofevidence which can inform policy on matterspertaining to teachers’ research engagement; whilewe need to acknowledge and draw on this work, therecognition by funders of ELT research of theimportance of a better understanding of researchengagement by teachers would seem to be funda-mental to the development of a comparableevidence base in our field.

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