Estudios Cualitativos. Coord. Martha Lengeling. Ed. Universidad de Guanajuato. Autorizado.

EFL Teachers’ Conceptions of Research

Ruth Roux, Alberto Mora, Paulina Trejo

Universidad Autónoma de Tamaulipas

Abstract

Recent studies have found that research in the field of foreign language education in

Mexico is scarce and lacking in rigor. Very little is known, however, of how teachers think

of or understand research. Understanding teachers’ conceptions of research is central for

the development of informed strategies to promote teacher research engagement and meet

the demands of higher education policy. This study examined the conceptions of research

held by two Mexican teachers of English with graduate degrees. Conceptions are different

ways of understanding. E-mail survey data were analyzed using phenomenographic

methodology. Four conceptions of research were identified: (A) research as a process of

discovery; (B) research as a procedure to confirm preconceived ideas or theories; (C)

research related to publishing; and (D) research related to people. By demonstrating

variation in how research is conceived, the data obtained provide a basis for understanding

participants’ different orientation to research output and achievements. The findings

reported in this paper reveal aspects of research that, although not evident, influence

research practice.

Introduction

Efforts to engage all Mexican university teachers more fully in research have been a

feature of educational policy in recent years. In the case of EFL teachers, policy has not

positively impacted research practice. In a systematic review of thesis, journal articles and

conference papers in the field of language teaching and learning conducted by 37 scholars

of 11 Mexican universities, it was found that the majority of the studies were made by

language teachers as degree program requirements, rather than by self-initiative. Very few

teachers continue to do research once they finish their degree programs (Ramírez, 2007).

As a result, research in the field is scarce. What do teachers think research is about? What

do they think the point of doing research is? In what ways do they understand the concept

of research? Information on language teachers’ conceptions of research is essential to

deepen our understanding of teachers’ engagement in research.

The benefits of doing research for English language teachers have been widely

acknowledged by second language teacher educators in English speaking countries (Bell,

1997; Brindley, 1991; Brown, 1999; Burns, 1999: Day, 1991; Day and Conklin, 1992;

Gebhard, Gaitan & Oprandy, 2000; McDonough & McDonough, 1997; Nunan, 1992;

Richards, 2000; Richards and Lockman, 1996; Schieppegtell, 1997; Wallace, 1991). It is

Estudios Cualitativos. Coord. Martha Lengeling. Ed. Universidad de Guanajuato. Autorizado.

asserted that teachers can use research to evaluate the applicability of findings (Brown,

1999), to become more effective trying out and testing received knowledge (Day,1991); to

make decisions about what and how to teach (Gebhard, Gaitan & Oprandy, 2000); to

become producers rather than consumers of knowledge (Nunan, 2004); to develop a critical

perspective on practice (Burns, 1999); to improve and develop for life as teachers (Wallace,

1991); to increase their opportunities for research-based funding (Brindley, 1991); and to

contribute to the continuous professionalization of the field (Richards, 2000). Research is

thought to be particularly useful for those teachers with considerable experience, language

competence, and academic orientation (Crookes and Chandler, 2001).

In Mexico, most language teaching programs include research methods courses.

There seems to be, however, some issues around the ways in which the courses are

designed and implemented that lead teachers to particular conceptions of research. One

problem is that most of the publications that student teachers read for those courses,

generally produced by “center” countries (Kumaravadivelu, 2012; Pennycook, 1994;

Phillipson, 1992), limit the substance of teachers’ work to technical questions of teaching

techniques and internal classroom organization. Teaching is assumed to be primarily a

knowledge implementing activity rather than a knowledge producing activity. This view

reduces language teachers to the status of high-level technicians who carry out

recommendations and objectives decided by experts, far away from their everyday realities.

The judgment and experience that teachers can use in research for educational change, is

largely ignored.

An alternative position is the one defended by Giroux (2002, p. 46), who contends

that teachers must be acknowledged as tranformatory intellectuals who “…combine

scholarly reflection and practice in the service of educating students to be thoughtful, active

citizens”. Teachers’ work, from this alternative perspective, is a form of intellectual labor

that involves active responsibility in questioning what is being taught, how it is being

taught, and the larger goals of foreign language education. Teaching, thus, is more than

technique (Schön 1983; Cochran-Smith & Lytle 1999); it is a process that involves

continual inquiry and renewal. A teacher is, primarily, a questioner (Hansen 1997).

The two different views of what teaching involves, seem to infuse into teachers’

conceptions of research through what they read and discuss in their formal teaching

preparation, and also through their everyday practice. Their conceptions of research play an

important role in what they do in the classroom and how they view the relationship between

teaching and research. The study of EFL conceptions of research can therefore be helpful in

the design and implementation of new strategies for professional development, the creation

of teacher education materials, and the setup of collaborative research projects.

Very few studies focus on teachers’ conceptions of research. Brew (2001), for

example, used a phenomenographic approach to identify the understandings of 57

university researchers in Australia. She found four categories that she labeled “domino”

(research viewed as a series of distinct activities susceptible of being linked); “trading”

(research understood as a social phenomenon having in the foreground the products of

research which are exchanged for money, prestige or recognition); “layer” (research as

explanations and truths that are brought to light or discovered); and “journey” (research as a

process that informs life issues helping the researcher to grow or transform his or herself).

In another study Borg (2009) used questionnaires and interviews to investigate the

conceptions of research of 505 English language teachers from 13 countries. Results,

Estudios Cualitativos. Coord. Martha Lengeling. Ed. Universidad de Guanajuato. Autorizado.

however, show the participants’ opinions of preconceived scenarios related to research and

their levels of reading and doing research, rather than their conceptions of research.

This qualitative study examined the conceptions of research of two Mexican EFL

teachers with postgraduate studies in England. The aim was to extend our understanding of

the teachers’ perspectives in order to make informed recommendations on how to attract

teachers to doing research activities that help them develop professionally. The research

questions of the study were: 1. What are the EFL teachers’ conceptions of research?

2. How are conceptions revealed when participants describe their research?

Answers to these questions can be useful to policy makers who need to base their

decisions on the actual understandings of teachers in relation to research. Results can also

be helpful to EFL teacher educators who teach research courses. Finally, this study can be

of interest to EFL teachers who want to start carrying out research projects.

Method

Participants

Participants of the study were originally 10 Mexican EFL university teachers. This

article focuses on the conceptions of two of the participants, both with studies in the same

universities. They concluded the BA in English Language at a Mexican public university

and finished Master’s degrees in Applied Linguistics and TESOL at a British university.

Pseudonyms were used to protect their identity. One of them, Monica was 56 years old.

When she got married, thirty-five years ago, she spent several years living in Canada while

her husband was studying a Master’s degree in veterinary medicine. At her return to

Mexico, she became an EFL teacher and taught courses in different schools at elementary,

secondary, high school and university level. After more than twenty-five years of EFL

teaching experience, she completed a BA degree in English language in Mexico. Then, she

was given a scholarship to study a one-year full-time graduate degree in Applied

Linguistics in Birmingham. When she returned to Mexico, she taught a few courses in an

Applied Linguistics undergraduate program and then became a foreign language

coordinator in a technological university. Her research experience included a small scale

survey study developed to write up her Master’s degree thesis, and a university-wide survey

study carried out to present a paper at an international conference. At the time when data

were collected for this study, she had not engaged any research project in a period of five

years.

The second teacher, Elaine, was 32 years old. She was born in Canada while his

father was doing postdoctoral studies in animal health and production. She returned to

Mexico when she was six years old. She studied a BA in English Language in the same

university as Monica and started teaching English in a private k-12 school, where she later

became the EFL coordinator. She had 14 years of EFL teaching experience when she

completed a distance education Master´s degree in TEFL/TESL in the same British

university as Monica. At the time when this study took place, her research experience

included three conference presentations and the publication of two refereed research

articles. She was also in the process of writing a book chapter. Her expectations were to

teach in an undergraduate Applied Linguistics program and to continue publishing.

Data collection and analysis

Data for this study were collected through an email survey. Teachers were first asked

if they would voluntarily participate in a qualitative study on EFL teachers’ conceptions of

research. When they accepted, an email message was sent to them with the following

Estudios Cualitativos. Coord. Martha Lengeling. Ed. Universidad de Guanajuato. Autorizado.

message: Think about the last time you made a research study and respond to the following

questions. What do you think research is all about? What do you actually do when you

research? Why do you do those things? What's the point of the research you do?

This study used a phenomenographic approach. Phenomenographic research

methodology aims to investigate the ways in which people understand a particular aspect of

the world around them (Marton & Pong, 2005, p. 335). Different ways of understanding,

conceptions, are represented in the form of categories of description. Phenomenography

assumes that a conception can be analytically divided into referential and structural

characteristics. The referential characteristic is the general meaning assigned to the aspect,

in this case, research. The structural characteristic is the approach or way in which the

participants go about research, how they carry it out, and what they think they achieve

when they go about research in a particular way (Marton & Pong, 2005, p. 336). The

structural characteristics within a conception present different dimensions or variations.

The participants’ written responses to the questions were printed and analyzed in a

two-stage process. The first stage focused on identifying, interpreting, and describing the

conceptions in terms of their overall meanings. This was done by marking and segmenting

the transcripts according to the themes addressed. A unit was formed whenever there was

sufficient evidence that a particular overall meaning had been expressed.

The second stage of analysis focused on identifying the structural aspect of each

conception expressed. The units denoted by the different overall meanings were studied in

detail to identify, within each unit, the elements of research that were focused upon, and to

make a description of each conception’s structural aspect. I focused on the explicit

variations that the participants brought in when they discussed an element.

Findings and discussion

Table 1 presents the referential and structural dimensions of conceptions of research

found in the written responses of the participants. Four categories of research could be

distinguished: (A) research as a process of discovery; (B) research as a procedure to

confirm preconceived ideas or theories; (C) research related to publishing; and (D) research

related to others.

Table 1. Conceptions of Research

Conception Referential Aspect

(meaning)

Structural Aspect

(features focused upon and

how they are linked)

A Research as a process of

discovery

Focused on purposes linked to finding out

solutions, the truth, reasons, etc.

B Research as a procedure to

confirm

Focused on purposes linked to proving what is

known beforehand.

C Research is related to

publishing

Focused on publications linked to personal

recognition.

D Research is related to others Focused on purposes linked to helping others.

The conception of research as a process of discovery (A) seemed to hold the belief

that research is an activity in which information is disclosed. Disclosure involves an

analytical process leading to uncover something that was hidden before. Expressions of this

category included words as “finding out” and “figuring out”. This conception of research,

Estudios Cualitativos. Coord. Martha Lengeling. Ed. Universidad de Guanajuato. Autorizado.

as reflected on the teachers’ responses, was focused on finding solutions, finding the truth,

or finding reasons. In this view, the researcher seems to be separated from research because

what the researcher is looking for, even when not knowing what it is, it is already “out

there”.

The conception of research as a procedure to confirm preconceived ideas or theories

(B) is similar to conception A because in both cases the researcher is absent from the focus

of awareness; the researcher’s understanding, growth or transformation is not though about.

Conception B, however, seems to see research as a set of procedures to test or demonstrate

something that is already well known by the teacher researcher. The participant who helped

define this conception expressed that research is about “proving what is right” or “proving

what you think”.

The conception of research as related to publishing (C) regards research as a form of

sharing something they own to show such ownership and the authority that comes with it.

The published article, the primary means whereby research is communicated, seems to be

seen as the aim of research because of the status it grants to researchers. Expressions that

helped describe this category revealed that when research is made visible in a journal article

it allows others to replicate and extend the work, making evident the intellectual effort of

the researcher.

The conception of research as related to people (D) emphasizes the helpfulness or

supportive role of the researcher. This conception holds the view that introducing students

to the research process provides the teacher researcher with experiences that have the

potential to enrich students’ learning. Also, society as a whole is thought to benefit from

integrating research activities with teaching responsibilities.

Let us now consider one conception at a time, as reflected in the participants’ written

responses. A) Research as a process of discovery

This conception is described by the belief that the purpose of research is finding out or discovering something in the world, external to the researcher. The following is an example.

In my brief experience as a researcher, what I´ve done has been figure out what I would like to find out; however, although one may think he or she is going to find out something, it could turn out in a different way.

There is also the idea that there is an objective reality that can be known to the

researcher if he or she uses the correct methods and applies those methods in a correct

manner. I believe that the steps I described previously are a process that allow me to do my research in a more standardized way. In other words, I believe they are the steps that will allow me to obtain reliable results. (Elaine)

In this conception, knowledge is understood as isolated facts in the external world

that exist regardless of the researcher. Knowledge is formed out of several pieces and it

needs to be found. Research is like putting pieces of a puzzle together. You need to select the puzzle from many that exist. Once selected, you have to open the box and obtain information about the topic; of course if you have experience in this kind of puzzles it will be most helpful. You will need to examine all the pieces, their shapes, colors, lines, and all details to find the correct place of the piece. (Monica)

Estudios Cualitativos. Coord. Martha Lengeling. Ed. Universidad de Guanajuato. Autorizado.

The use of the puzzle as a metaphor for research seemed to be contradictory. When

solving a puzzle, the individual starts with a pile of disordered pieces, knowing what the

answer will look like because there is a picture on the box. In solving puzzles, work goes

backwards from solutions. This goes counter to expectations of moving logically, step by

step, from problems to solutions, although the teacher, who expressed that doing research is

similar to solving a puzzle, also held the view that research is giving solutions to problems,

as the following comment illustrates.

It has a purpose, hopefully a positive, trying to find solutions to problems. In

order to do it you need to follow a process…Research may give solutions to

problems we think do not have a solution. (Monica) Finally, the conception of research as discovery seems to focus on finding out something, ignoring the potential of research to question or transform an existing situation.

B) Research as a procedure to confirm

This conception defines research essentially in terms of systematically hunting for the

truth about something.

Research is a big word, it means trying to find out the truth about something,

trying to prove what you think is, what's right, what's correct, what is instead of

what I think is. (Monica)

The following comment also exemplifies notion that research is a procedure to

confirm knowledge acquired beforehand, to support preconceived ideas, or to back a

particular argument.

I believe it is reaffirming knowledge we know or have an idea of. (Elaine)

C) Research is related to publishing In stressing outputs of research, this conception seems to value products as much as

processes. After finishing the collection phase, I try to come to conclusions and explanations that can describe why the results obtained turned out the way they were. I finally try to find a way to publish it. I feel that the publishing process, although slow, is the culmination of every study. (Elaine)

The conception that publishing is the final, highest or decisive point in research seems to underscore the fact that this stage of research may confer status or prestige to the researcher. This status can be translated into credibility and reputation, and it may even lead to promotion. The following example shows how research is conceived as a means to demonstrate professional superiority.

The publishing step, I believe is what makes all the hard work worthwhile. Seeing my name in a publication and seeing that my research is available for others to consult is what makes me feel I have overcome difficulties and become a better professional. (Elaine)

D) Research is related to others. The conception that research has to do with others has

different dimensions. One of such dimensions supports the view that doing research is

beneficial to students because it is related to better teaching, and better teaching leads to

greater learning. The following is an example. I believe that the main purpose of the studies I have developed is to find ways of helping student writers improve their written texts with the help of the instructor and with the help of a revision process. I have tried to find ways that can help students to become better independent writers. (Elaine)

Another dimension reflects the idea that research serves to help people. The following is the expression that contributed to the description:

Estudios Cualitativos. Coord. Martha Lengeling. Ed. Universidad de Guanajuato. Autorizado.

When you do research, and share it with others, you are helping them too. (Monica)

Research is a social phenomenon because researchers guide other researchers, either through teaching or through publications. The following comment exemplifies this dimension of the conception.

I think that through the years, I have learned how to do it like that. I have been guided by teachers and other researchers to do what I do, and I have read about it too. (Monica)

The following is another example of the conception of research as related to people,

in this case, researchers who introduce new methods or ideas and serve as examples to

follow. Once you have an idea, you need to gather as much information about it as possible, read it and get a better picture of the topic. Read to find out what other researchers have done and how they have done it. (Monica)

Conclusion

This paper addressed the following research questions: What are the EFL teachers’

conceptions of research? How are those conceptions revealed when participants describe

their research? Four conceptions of research were identified: (A) research as a process of

discovery; (B) research as a procedure to confirm preconceived ideas or theories; (C)

research related to publishing; and (D) research related to people. Further work is needed to

establish if these variations are shared by EFL teachers with different characteristics, for

example, teachers with different backgrounds, males and females, teacher researchers of

different institutions or those with different levels of support.

As outlined at the beginning of this paper, the work of Brew (2001) provided a model

of conceptions of research of experienced, successful researchers. The “research is related

to publishing” conception described above is similar to Brew’s “trading” conception, where

research was mainly seen as a product or publication. The category “research as a process

of discovery” relates closely to Brew’s “layer” conception, which she describes as “the

researcher is bringing to light the ideas, explanations and truths lying in the background bay

illuminating or uncovering the underlying layer” (p. 278).

By demonstrating variation in how research is conceived, the data obtained provide a

basis for understanding participants’ different orientation to research output and

achievements. For example, the “research related to publishing” variation with its product

orientation may be more likely to lead to publication than the “research as a procedure to

confirm”, with its support to preconceived ideas orientation. Thus, it may be possible on the

basis of knowledge of the variations to discuss research output. Variations in conceptions of

research may also provide a way to understand difficulties with, or non-completion of

research degrees, or the difficulties between students and supervisors due to incompatibility

of conceptions.

Conceptions of research influence the types of projects researchers select, the

methodologies they adopt, the questions and issues they pursue and the ways in which they

do the work. The findings reported in this paper are a first step to reveal aspects of research

that, although not evidently, influence research practice.

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