ARTICLE IN PRESS

Teaching and Teacher Education 23 (2007) 731–747

www.elsevier.com/locate/tate

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 with and in research and make pedagogical deci-

1.1. Evidence-based practice
In the light of highly publicised arguments about
the quality of educational research (e.g. Hargreaves,
1996; Tooley & Darby, 1998), educational policy in
the UK, in common with that in the USA and
Australia (Department of Education Training and
Youth Affairs, 2000; Shavelson & Towne, 2002) has
in recent years been characterised by a drive to
engage classroom teachers more fully both with and
in educational research and thus to make teaching
an evidence-based profession. The thinking behind
evidence-based practice (EBP) has been extensively
described and debated in the literature (e.g. Davies,
1999; Elliot, 2002; Thomas & Pring, 2004); one
fundamental argument is that when teachers engage
E-mail address: s.borg@education.leeds.ac.uk.
sions informed by sound research evidence, this will
have a beneficial effect on both teaching and
learning (Hargreaves, 2001). While the validity of
the EBP metaphor to education is by no means
unquestionably 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 between
research evidence and professional practice can be
best conceived (Thomas, 2004), it is generally
accepted that more informed use of and involve-
ment in research by teachers can enhance the quality
of education.
1.1.1. Teachers’ views of research
Within the framework of EBP outlined above,
one strand of inquiry has focused on examining
what teachers actually think about research (Ever-
ton, Galton, & Pell, 2000, 2002; McNamara, 2002;

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doi:10.1016/j.tate.2006.03.012
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
732 S. Borg / Teaching and Teacher Education 23 (2007) 731–747
Ratcliffe et al., 2004; Shkedi, 1998). The rationale
for such inquiry has been that initiatives to promote
EBP are more likely to have an impact if they are
based on an understanding of teachers’ conceptions
of research and of the role research plays in their
work. I will now comment briefly on key findings
from some of this work.
Everton et al. (2002) surveyed 572 teachers who
were asked, amongst other issues, whether research
had influenced their teaching and whether they were
interested in engaging in research themselves. In
McNamara (2002), 100 teachers were surveyed on
issues such as what image educational research held
for them and whether they felt research might have
an impact on their work. Both these studies
suggested that teachers acknowledged the potential
positive impact of research on various aspects of
professional practice. In both cases too, though,
respondents highlighted the need for published
educational research to be both more accessible as
well as more applicable to teachers’ work. The study
by Ratcliffe et al. (2004), based on interviews with
over 60 science educators, found that respondents,
unless already experienced in research, had limited
understandings of the nature of and the processes
involved in social science research. This study also
explored the influence of research on what teachers
do; a key finding here was that any such influence
was more indirect (e.g. through curricula and
instructional materials) than direct (e.g. through
reading research reports).
1.1.2. Research engaged teachers
A related strand of inquiry has focused on the
notion of research engaged teachers and schools. In
recent years there have been a number of funded
initiatives in the UK aimed at increasing teachers’
engagement in research (e.g. see the DfES website at
http://www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/research/re-
sources/#1101481 for a number of these); addition-
ally the Networked Learning Communities project
run by the National College for School Leadership,
and earlier work by the Teacher Training Agency
and General Teaching Council for England (see,
e.g., Cordingley, Bell, Evans, & Holdich, 2005). In
reviewing one such initiative (the Cambridge-based
Schools University Partnership for Educational
Research), Worrall (2004) surveyed 28 teachers in
the UK in order to examine why they engaged in
research. By far the most common reason cited (23
times) was ‘to generate a greater understanding of
specific issues in teaching and learning’. This study
also highlighted three reasons why teachers did not
sustain their engagement in research: (a) the lack of
external pressure to do so; (b) lack of time; and (c)
personal dispositions (e.g. beliefs that research is an
activity done by outside experts). In order to
understand the processes of research engagement
in schools and colleges, Barker (2005) conducted
interviews with 21 educational providers in the UK
who were known be involved in and supportive of
practitioner research. In this case, the main reason
teachers participated in research was found to be a
desire to improve the quality of teaching and
learning. This study, though, also examined re-
search engagement at the institutional level. A key
finding was that ‘‘organisational commitment to
participate in research, with recognition of the time
and resources required to do this’’ (p. 5) is
important 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 knowledge
use y are not at the level of individual resistance,
but originated in an institutionalised culture that
does not foster learning’’ (Hemsley-Brown & Sharp,
2003, p. 46). Overall, then, in education generally
there has been growing interest in recent years not
only in the nature of teachers’ engagement in
research but also in the role institutions play in
shaping this engagement.
1.2. Research engagement in english language
teaching
In comparison to the volume of empirical work
which has been conducted into teachers’ research
engagement in education generally, little research
into this area has been conducted in the field of
English language teaching (ELT). In the work
which does exist, McDonough and McDonough
(1990) conducted a brief survey of the views of
research of 34 teachers of English as a foreign
language, while Brown (1992) surveyed 334 mem-
bers of an international association for ELT
teachers. These studies, echoing those outside
ELT, reported notions of research closely tied to
quantitative and statistical methods and a general
ambivalence about the role of educational research
in teachers’ professional lives. Crookes and Arakaki
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S. Borg / Teaching and Teacher Education 23 (2007) 731–747
(1999) refer to some factors which hinder teachers’
research engagement (e.g. lack of time) while
McDonough and McDonough (1990) cite concep-
tual inaccessibility as another barrier. Papers based
on the languages inservice programme for teachers
(LIPT) in Australia (a context which is perhaps
unique in the opportunities it has provided for
language teachers to be research engaged) have
discussed in more detail how the conditions of
teachers’ work may militate against research en-
gagement and the strategies through which teacher
research engagement might be achieved (Burton,
1997, 1998; Burton & Mickan, 1993). Generally,
though, teachers’ conceptions of research and the
nature of teachers’ research engagement do not
seem to have been studied in any systematic way in
ELT. There has, in contrast, been more extensive
theoretical discussion of relationships between
teachers and research in ELT, and this has included
commentaries on the factors, such as the attitudes,
knowledge and skills teachers have, which may
support or discourage them from engaging with and
in research (Borg, 2003a, 2003b, 2003c; Ellis, 1997;
Freeman, 1996; Markee, 1997). Empirical research
into these issues, though, is required if we are to
develop an evidence-base which can inform policy
and initiatives aimed at promoting research engage-
ment by teachers in ELT.
This review of the literature suggests that while in
education more generally the development of policy
in promoting EBP has been informed by studies of
teachers’ conceptions of research and of the factors,
including the institution, which influence the extent
to which teachers can be research engaged, in ELT
there has to date been little empirical study of these
issues. This gap in our understanding means we are
unable to make informed decisions about the
development of policy and initiatives whose aim is
to enable teachers to engage more fully both with
and in research. I am developing a programme of
research which aims to address these issues and here
I report on the survey which forms the first stage in
this programme.
2. Method
2.1. The survey
In the form of a questionnaire, the cross-sectional
survey allows large amounts of data to be collected
efficiently, economically, and in a standardised
manner (Aldridge & Levine, 2001; Dörnyei, 2002).
733
The larger research programme referred to above
reflects what Creswell (2003) calls a sequential
explanatory multi-method strategy. This is a design
which ‘‘is characterised by the collection and
analysis of quantitative data followed by the
collection and analysis of qualitative data’’ (p.
215). This survey is the first part of this strategy,
allowing for the initial, more extensive analysis of
data but also being the means through which a
smaller sample of participants will be identified for
the subsequent interview phase of the study (see
Findings, Section 3.6). Overall, the aim of the
programme of research is to understand the con-
ceptions of research held by ELT teachers working
in different contexts, the role which both reading
and doing research plays in these teachers’ profes-
sional lives, and the factors which influence their
research engagement.
2.1.1. Research questions
A self-report questionnaire was developed to
address the aims outlined above. Specifically, it
aimed to collect data relevant to the following
questions:
1. What are the characteristics of ‘research’ accord-
ing to ELT teachers?
2. To what extent do teachers say they read
published 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 they
report?
2.1.2. Design
The survey had six sections, focusing in turn on
respondents’ background information, their con-
ceptions of what counts as research, their views
about the characteristics of good-quality research,
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734 S. Borg / Teaching and Teacher Education 23 (2007) 731–747
their perceptions of their institutional culture in
relation to research, their engagement in reading
research, and their engagement in doing research.
This range of themes was chosen on the basis of
issues raised in the literature reviewed earlier, both
in education generally and in ELT.
Section 1 collected background data about the
teachers. Information was requested which was felt
to be relevant to understanding teachers’ research
engagement (e.g. qualifications and experience).
Information on gender, for example, was not
requested as there was no reason to hypothesise
that this might be a relevant factor. In Section 2, the
use of research scenarios was suggested by the work
of Ratcliffe et al. (2004), who used a similar strategy
in interviews as part of a study of science education
teachers’ views of research. Collectively, the scenar-
ios devised for this study aimed to portray a range
of activities with different characteristics (e.g.
methods, data, outputs) and which might, depend-
ing on one’s definition, be called research. An earlier
draft of the questionnaire contained additional
scenarios (e.g. one depicting a single case qualitative
study) and also asked teachers to give reasons for
their choices; to keep the instrument to a reasonable
length, though, and to minimise the amount of
writing required of respondents, I decided to limit
the number of scenarios to ten and to leave the
exploration 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 investigate
the characteristics respondents felt were important
in determining the quality of a piece of research.
The characteristics listed (full details are described
in the findings below) referred to issues of research
design, data collection, analysis, and application.
Section 4, on institutional attitudes to research, was
suggested by empirical work mentioned earlier
which indicates that the institution influences
teachers’ research engagement. The lists of factors
presented in Sections 5 and 6 in relation to why
teachers do and do not read and do research were
informed by the discussion of these issues both in
the ELT literature and outside. Collectively, the
items covered in the survey addressed the range of
research questions listed above.
The design of the questionnaire—question types,
wording, layout, length—was informed by the
relevant methodological literature (e.g. Aldridge &
Levine, 2001; Dörnyei, 2002; Fowler, 2002; Oppen-
heim, 1992).
2.1.3. Administration
The questionnaire was administered to teachers
on a Freshman English programme at a university
in Turkey in June 2005. All 62 teachers teaching on
the programme were invited to complete the
questionnaire, which was distributed and collected
by a member of the management team for this
programme.
3. Results
3.1. Background information
Questionnaires were returned by 50 teachers,
representing a response rate of 80.6%. The data
were analysed using SPSS 12. Section 1 asked about
(1) the country where teachers work; (2) years of
experience as an English language teacher; (3)
highest relevant qualification to ELT; (4) type of
institution (private or state); (5) whether the
institution was attached to a university; and (6)
the age of the learners respondents taught most
often. As part of the larger research programme the
questionnaire will be administered to ELT teachers
in a range of contexts around the world and this
information will facilitate comparisons among
these. For this administration, though, the respon-
dents were homogenous in several respects and this
was reflected in their replies to items 1, 4, 5 and 6:
they all worked in Turkey, at a private institution
which was part of a university, teaching students in
their late teens or early 20s. The results to items 2
and 3 in Section 1 are summarised in Tables 1 and 2
below. In terms of experience, the largest group of
teachers belonged to the 10–14 group, while in terms
of qualifications the figure that stands out is that
almost 68% of the teachers said they had a Master’s
degree 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 examined
respondents’ views of what research is and of the
characteristics of good-quality research.
3.2.1. Evaluating research scenarios
In Section 2, the teachers were asked to indicate
to what extent they felt the activities described in ten
scenarios were or were not research. The scenarios
are listed in Table 3. The findings for this question
are summarised in Table 4, which gives the
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S. Borg / Teaching and Teacher Education 23 (2007) 731–747 735

Table 1 teachers (98%) was number 4, in which a university

Respondents by years of ELT experience lecturer conducts a large-scale survey and analyses
Years N %
the data statistically. This was the only scenario out
of the 10 where no respondent felt that it was
0–4 1 2.0 definitely not research. This is perhaps not surpris-
5–9 12 25.0 ing as it does explicitly mention a number of
10–14 16 33.3
elements (e.g. questionnaires, statistics) which tea-
15–19 9 18.8
20–24 5 10.4 chers often associate with research (see, for exam-
25+ 6 12.5 ple, Shkedi, 1998 and similar studies cited earlier).
Total 49 100.0
Scenario 6 was also highly rated, with 87.5%
judging it to be in the ‘research’ category. This too
Throughout the paper, where totals in tables do not add up to 50 reflects characteristics (e.g. pre- and post-tests)
or 100%, this is due to missing data. typically associated with research, though in this
case no explicit research terminology was used.
Scenario 8 was that least recognised as research
Table 2 (73.5% placed it in the ‘not research’ category).
Respondents by highest ELT qualification Asking learners for feedback is a routine pedagogi-
Qualification N %
cal or administrative activity which is not normally
recognised as research. The low number of feedback
Certificate 1 2.0 sheets returned and the use to which the informa-
Diploma 4 8.2 tion was put may have also contributed to the low
Bachelor’s 6 12.2
ratings this scenario received. Scenario 1 also
Master’s 33 67.3
Doctorate 5 10.2 received a low rating, with 68% of teachers rating
it as ‘not research’. Nonetheless, 28% of respon-
Total 49 100
dents still felt it was probably research and 4% that
it was definitely so. The spread of responses was
even more pronounced on scenarios 7, 9 and 10. For
percentage of teachers selecting each of the four example, on scenario 9, while 20% said it was
possible ratings for each scenario. definitely research, 18% said it was definitely not.
Fig. 1 collapses these results into two categories There are clearly elements here which for some
for each scenario—‘Not research’ made up of teachers were characteristic of research (e.g. perhaps
definitely not research and probably not research) the analysis of data and the writing of an article);
and ‘Research’ (probably research and definitely others were clear in their views though that this was
research). This allows the overall direction of the not research (e.g. perhaps because there was no a
teachers’ responses to emerge more clearly. priori research question to guide data collection or
While defining research is in itself not a straight- because the writing of the article was not originally
forward issue, it is possible to extract from the intended). This item is particularly indicative of the
research methodology literature (e.g. Brown & diversity which exists among the teachers in terms of
Rodgers, 2002; Cohen, Manion, & Morrison, their understandings of what counts as research.
2000; Nunan, 1992; Wiersma, 1991) a number of Exploring these understandings in more detail (e.g.
commonly cited minimal elements—a problem or the reasons underlying their assessments of the
question, data, analysis, interpretation. Character- scenarios) will be one goal of the follow-up inter-
istics of the process, such as systematicity and views.
rigour, are often commonly cited (though these are The ratings of these scenarios were studied (using
of course open to multiple interpretations). Addi- Spearman’s rank correlation) for associations with
tionally, it has been argued that to qualify as teachers’ qualifications (banded into two cate-
research, inquiry needs to be made public (e.g. gories—up to BA and over BA) and experience
Freeman, 1996; Stenhouse, 1975). These factors will (0–9, 10–19, 20+). No significant relationships were
be borne in mind as the results to this question are found between teachers’ ratings and their qualifica-
analysed. tions; experience did relate though to scenario
It is clear from Table 4 and Fig. 1 that the 5 (N ¼ 48, r ¼ 0.375, po0.01) and 9 (N ¼ 49,
scenario which was rated as research by most r ¼ 0.311, po0.05). Though statistically significant,
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736 S. Borg / Teaching and Teacher Education 23 (2007) 731–747

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.

Table 4 Scenario 10
Teachers’ assessment of ten scenarios Not Research
Scenario 9 Research
Definitely Probably Probably Definitely
Scenario 8
not not research research
research research (%) (%) Scenario 7
(%) (%)
Scenario 6
Scenario 1 44.0 24.0 28.0 4.0
Scenario 5
Scenario 2 4.1 12.2 36.7 46.9
Scenario 3 10.2 20.4 40.8 28.6 Scenario 4
Scenario 4 0 2.0 28.6 69.4
Scenario 5 6.1 18.4 38.8 36.7 Scenario 3
Scenario 6 4.2 8.3 33.3 54.2 Scenario 2
Scenario 7 14.3 32.7 30.6 22.4
Scenario 8 28.6 44.9 16.3 10.2 Scenario 1
Scenario 9 18.0 38.0 24.0 20.0
Scenario 10 12.0 34.0 36.0 18.0 0% 25% 50% 75% 100%
Percentage of teachers

the strength of these relationships was weak
(Salkind, 2004, p. 88) suggests that a correlation
of less than 0.4 is weak and that 0.4–0.6 is
moderate). Overall, then, there are no grounds here
for concluding that experience is associated with
these teachers’ ratings of the scenarios.
It is also interesting to note that teachers’ ratings
of the ten scenarios yielded a Cronbach’s a of 0.82.
This figure indicates that the scenarios scale well
and can be considered to address a common
Fig. 1. Teachers’ assessment of ten research scenarios.
underlying concept (teachers’ conceptions of re-
search).
3.2.2. Characteristics of good quality research
Section 3 of the questionnaire focused further on
teachers’ conceptions of research by asking them to
rate the importance to good-quality research of a
list of characteristics. Table 5 summarises the
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S. Borg / Teaching and Teacher Education 23 (2007) 731–747 737

responses to this question. For the purposes of this generalisability, were not rated very highly, while
table, ‘Less important’ includes ‘unimportant’ and the practical utility of results to teachers received
‘moderately important’ ratings for each character- the fifth highest rating here (‘the results give
istic, while ‘More important’ constitutes ‘important’ teachers ideas they can use’).
and ‘very important’ responses. The responses are The characteristics teachers were asked to com-
listed in descending order according to the percen- ment on included a number of data collection
tage of teachers who indicated that a characteristic strategies (e.g. experiments, interviews). The reason
was ‘more important’. for their inclusion is that research can sometimes be
The characteristic which was seen overall to be directly equated with the use of a specific method
most important was ‘the researcher is objective’— (Gorard, 2001, p. 80, for example, comments that
97.9% of ratings for this item were in the ‘more research is often strongly associated with surveys or
important’ group. ‘Hypotheses are tested’ was the alternatively with interviews). The results here do
second most rated as important, while the third not suggest that data collection methods in them-
highest rated characteristic was ‘variables are selves were seen as a determinant of research quality
controlled’. Taken together, teachers’ views here (in fact, three of the four lowest rated characteristics
reflect a conception of research where objectivity, were related to methods).
hypothesis testing, and the manipulation of vari- The teachers were asked to suggest further
ables are fundamental concerns. I will comment features of good-quality research and 11 respon-
further on these findings later in the paper, but they dents made suggestions. Four referred to the need
do reflect those emerging from similar studies for research to draw on existing sources, suggesting
outside ELT. Having said that, it is interesting that that these should be current, reliable and varied.
other notions commonly associated with ‘scientific’ One respondent also mentioned the manner in
research, such as the use of experiments and which research is communicated as being important:
It’s important that research is conveyed to
teachers in ways they can understand. Statistics
Table 5 for example are not always helpful for language
Teachers’ views on the importance of sixteen research character- teachers unless they are analyzed verbally.
istics
Contemporary discussions of quality in research
Characteristics Less More (e.g. Boaz & Ashby, 2003) do in fact recognise the
important important quality of communication as an important criterion.
(%) (%)
Other characteristics mentioned were the need for
The researcher is objective 2.1 97.9 clear conclusions to be drawn from the analysis of
Hypotheses are tested 12.5 87.5 the data, the need for a clear statement of the
Variables are controlled 16.7 79.2 problem being investigated, the choice of topics that
A large number of people are 26.5 73.5
are ‘interesting’, and the integrity of the tools used
studied
The results give teachers ideas they 25.0 70.8 to collect data.
can use Teachers’ ratings of the 16 characteristics were
The topic studied is of interest to 27.1 66.7 also analysed in terms of qualifications and experi-
teachers ence. The results appear in Table 6. Teachers’ rating
Information is analysed statistically 37.5 62.5
A large volume of information is 39.6 60.4
of one characteristic—‘The results apply to many
collected ELT contexts’ was in a significant positive relation-
The results are made public 37.5 56.3 ship to both qualifications and experience, though
Observations are used 40.4 55.3 in both cases the strength of the association was
Practical teaching problems are 45.8 52.1 weak. Nonetheless this suggests that generalisability
studied
was an issue valued more by teachers with higher
Information is collected in real 46.8 51.1
classrooms qualifications and more experience. Qualifications
Questionnaires are used 45.7 50.0 were in a negative relationship with the value
Experiments are used 45.8 47.9 attached to statistical analysis. This indicates that
The results apply to many ELT 56.3 39.6 teachers’ ratings of the value of this characteristic
contexts
decreased as their qualifications increased. And
Interviews are used 56.3 37.5
experience was significantly but weakly associated
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738 S. Borg / Teaching and Teacher Education 23 (2007) 731–747

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).

with teachers’ views about the importance in good-
quality research of topics which are of interest to
teachers.
Correlations tell us about associations but they
do not indicate whether teachers with different
levels of qualification and experience were signifi-
cantly different in the way in they rated the
importance of the different research characteristics.
Although the practice of generating mean scores
from ordinal data is an area of debate in the
literature on statistics (see, for example, Bryman &
Cramer, 2005; Gorard, 2001), it is common in
published educational research. In this case, calcu-
lating the mean ratings for each characteristic
allows us to compare whether there were differences
in the ratings of teachers with differing qualifica-
tions and experience. When qualifications are
grouped into two categories—up to BA, and above
BA—Mann–Whitney’s test shows that the only
significant difference between the two groups was
in their rating of the item ‘the results apply to many
ELT contexts’ (up to BA mean rating ¼ 1.55, above
BA 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 on
each characteristic compared (using the Kruskal–
Wallis test), no significant differences were found
for any of the characteristics. Overall, then,
teachers’ ratings of the importance of research
characteristics did not differ significantly according
to their experience and qualifications.
3.3. Research culture
As noted earlier, there is evidence in the literature
that institutional culture will influence the extent to
which teachers are research engaged. The questions
in Section 4 of the questionnaire aimed to elicit
teachers’ views of the extent to which they worked
in an environment which encouraged learning about
and doing research. Table 7 summarises these views
(the original five point scale, with ‘disagree strongly’
and ‘agree strongly’ at the extremes, has been
collapsed into three categories and responses
expressed as percentages).
As Table 7 indicates, the majority of teachers
agreed with five of the statements. On one item
(‘Teachers talk about research’), the responses were
spread over the three categories, while on the
remaining two items teachers’ views were less
positive; 40% disagreed that ‘teachers feel that
doing research is an important part of their job’,
while 77.6% disagreed that ‘time for doing research
is built into teachers’ workloads’. Overall, though,
the responses to this question suggest that the
institution was seen to constitute a positive context
for research engagement: access to research pub-
lications was seen to be good, teachers felt they had
opportunities to learn about current research, and
teachers were believed by colleagues to engage in
research themselves.
The eight items in this question were devised on
the assumption that they addressed a common
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S. Borg / Teaching and Teacher Education 23 (2007) 731–747
Table 7
Institutional research culture according to teachers
Statement
Teachers do research themselves
The management encourages teachers to do research
Teachers feel that doing research is an important part of their job
Teachers have access to research books and journals
Teachers have opportunities to learn about current research
Teachers talk about research
Teachers are given support to attend ELT conferences
Time for doing research is built into teachers’ workloads
underlying concept, which we may refer to as
institutional research culture. A measure of the
extent to which this assumption is justified is
provided by Cronbach’s a. According to Bryman
and Cramer (2005, p. 78), 0.8 is the a level which
indicates a good level of conceptual relatedness
among items. The a level of 0.783 in this case
suggests that the items in this question did address a
common underlying concept. Each teacher’s re-
sponse on these eight items can therefore be
summated to provide an overall measure of their
views about the institutional research culture.
Below, these summated views are examined in
relation to teachers’ reported frequencies of reading
and doing research.
3.4. Reading research
Section 5 of the questionnaire asked respondents
about the extent to which they read research, if so,
about its impact on their work, and if not, about
their 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 each
category said they read research rarely. None of
the teachers qualified up to BA level said they read
research often, compared to almost 20% of those
with higher qualifications.
Table 9 presents these responses in terms of
experience. The percentages of teachers in each
group who said they read research sometimes is
quite similar; the responses under the ‘often’ head-
ing were in contrast quite diverse, with the figure of
4% for the 10–19 group standing out.
739
Disagree (%) Don’t know (%) Agree (%)
16.0 24.0 60.0
36.0 12.0 52.0
40.0 26.0 34.0
6.1 8.2 85.7
22.4 8.2 69.4
32.0 30.0 38.0
26.0 14.0 60.0
77.6 4.1 18.4
Teachers’ summated scores on the institutional
culture items in Table 7 were correlated with their
reported frequencies of reading research. A fairly
strong and significant positive relationship was
found (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 of
reading published research.
3.4.2. Influence of reading on practice
Teachers who said they read research often or
sometimes were asked to indicate what influence they
felt this reading had on their teaching. Of the 34
teachers responding to this question, 29.4% reported
a slight influence, 50% a moderate influence, and
20.6% a fairly strong influence. The extreme options
for this item—no influence or a strong influence—
were not selected by any teachers. There was a
significant and moderate to strong relationship
between the frequency of reading research reported
by teachers and the influence they said this had on
their teaching (N ¼ 34, r ¼ 0.570, po0.01). These
figures give us a general sense of how teachers rated
the impact of their reading on their work in the
classroom. They are, however, limited in what they
can tell us about the relationship between research
and classroom practice, a relationship which, as the
work of Ratcliffe et al. (2004) in science education
has shown, is very complex. This is thus a clear
example of why this survey will be followed up with
interviews. These will enable a deeper exploration of
the ways in which teachers feel their reading
influences their work. Interviews will also provide
insights into the kinds of published research which
teachers feel do and do not influence them (this is a
theme which has attracted much recent attention in
the context of EBP in the UK—see, for example, the
work of CUREE, the Centre for the Use of Research
Evidence in Education at www.curee.co.uk).
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740 S. Borg / Teaching and Teacher Education 23 (2007) 731–747

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

3.4.3. Reasons for not reading research Table 10

Teachers who reported reading research rarely or
never were asked to comment on the reasons for
their low engagement with research. The reasons
cited by the 15 teachers answering this question are
listed in Table 10.
We can make connections between these com-
ments and the views about the institutional research
culture discussed earlier. No teachers explained
their low engagement with published research in
terms of lack of accessibility to books and materials;
this supports the views expressed earlier, where
85.7% of teachers agreed that such materials were
available. Over 77% of teachers, though, also
agreed earlier that time for research was not built
into their workloads and a lack of time was a factor
cited by over 73% of the teachers who said they
read research rarely or sometimes. While the
comment by over half the teachers answering this
question that they felt research lacked practical
relevance resonates with findings from existing
research on teachers’ views of research, the admis-
sion by seven teachers that they were not interested
in research was not wholly expected and indicates
that for these individuals the barriers to research
engagement are primarily attitudinal.
3.5. Doing research
The last major section of the survey focused on
teachers’ engagement in research. Teachers were
asked how often they did research, if so, why, and if
not, what the reasons for this were.
Reported reasons for not reading research
Reasons Frequency
I do not have time 11
Published research does not give me 9
practical advice for the classroom
I am not interested in research 7
I find published research hard to 1
understand
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 individual
reported never doing research. Overall, a significant
but 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). Although
the percentage of teachers who said they engage in
research may appear high, caution is required in
interpreting this finding as teachers’ responses will
have reflected their conceptions of what counts as
research (see Section 2 above). This is thus another
item which requires deeper exploration through the
follow-up interviews—for example, when a teacher
says they engage in research often, what kinds of
activities do they engage in and how frequently?
Table 11 and 12 summarise teachers’ reported
frequency 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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S. Borg / Teaching and Teacher Education 23 (2007) 731–747 741

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

To solve problems in my teaching.

To find better ways of teaching.
To contribute to the improvement of the school generally.
Because other teachers can learn from the findings of my work.
Because my employer expects me to.
Because it will help me get a promotion.
Because it is good for my professional development.
Because I enjoy it.
As part of a course I am studying on.

0 10 20 30
Frequency

Fig. 2. Reasons for doing research.

said they did research often, though the difference in
this distribution was not significant. In terms of
experience, the 0–9 group had the largest proportion
of teachers who said they did research rarely
(46.2%) while the proportion of teachers in the
10–19 group who said they did research often (16%)
was almost half that in each of the other two
groups, though again this difference was not
significant.
Teachers’ summated scores on the institutional
culture items in Table 7 were correlated with their
reported frequencies of doing research. A weak but
significant positive relationship was found (N ¼ 49,
r ¼ 0.305, p ¼ 0.017, 1-tailed). Teachers reporting
more favourable perceptions of the institutional
research culture, then, said they did research more
often. This suggests that, once again, understanding
the institutional research culture is an important
element in understanding the extent to which
teachers are research engaged.
3.5.2. Reasons for doing research
The 30 teachers who reported doing research
often or sometimes were asked to indicate their
reasons for doing so by selecting items from a list
provided and suggesting others if required. The
findings are summarised in Fig. 2.
No one reason dominated here; the most com-
monly cited reasons were ‘because it is good for my
professional development’ (24 times) and ‘to find
better ways of teaching’ (23). Nineteen teachers also
said they do research because they enjoy it. Career
advancement did not emerge here as a major factor
motivating teachers to do research. Additionally,
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742 S. Borg / Teaching and Teacher Education 23 (2007) 731–747

none of the teachers said that their employer’s 3.6. Further participation
expectations influenced their involvement in re-
search either. Twelve teachers said they were doing The final item on the questionnaire asked
research as part of a course; this may provide the respondents to indicate whether they would be
kind of external pressure which teachers in the study willing to participate in continuing explorations
by Worrall (2004) said enabled them to sustain their of the issues covered here. As I mentioned at
engagement in research. the outset of the paper, the survey is the first stage
in a larger research strategy which will also involve
3.5.3. Reasons for not doing research in-depth interviews. Eleven teachers (22% of the
The 19 teachers who reported doing research total) responded positively and supplied their name
rarely or never were similarly asked to indicate and e-mail address. Table 13 summarises the
reasons for this. Their responses are summarised in characteristics of these individuals in terms of quali-
Fig. 3. fication, experience, reported frequency of reading
A lack of time was the factor most often cited (16 research and reported frequency of doing re-
times). This factor was mentioned more than twice search. It is positive that a range of characteristics
as often as the next most frequent reason, which was are represented here, including teachers who re-
the view that the work of teachers was to teach, not ported low levels of research engagement. Five of
to do research. This is an example of the kind of these teachers actually participated in a follow-up
deep-rooted belief which Worrall (2004) highlighted interview and these data are currently being
as one reason why teachers did not engage in analysed.
research. Joint third in terms of frequency were
‘most of my colleagues do not do research’ and ‘I
am not interested in doing research’, both of which
were selected five times. A number of these reasons Table 13
(e.g. time, colleagues) connect once again with issues Characteristics of teachers willing to participate further
related to the broader research culture in the
Qualification Up to BA MA or more
institution; as noted earlier, the overall perception
3 8
of this by teachers was positive, and the belief
expressed here that most teachers do not do Experiencea 0–9 10–19 20+
2 6 2
research came from only 10% of the respondents
in this study. Nonetheless, these responses do add Read Research Often Sometimes Rarely
further weight to the view that the institutional 2 8 1
research culture is an important element to examine Do Research Often Sometimes Rarely
in our attempts to understand teachers’ research 2 7 2
engagement in ELT. a
One teacher did not provide this information.

Most of my colleagues do not do research.

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

I am not interested in doing research.

My employer discourages it.

I do not have time to do research.

My job is to teach not to do research.

I do not know enough about research methods.

0 5 10 15 20
Frequency

Fig. 3. Reasons for not doing research.

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S. Borg / Teaching and Teacher Education 23 (2007) 731–747
4. Discussion
The focal concern of this study was research
engagement—the extent to which teachers read and
do research—and factors related to it. Almost 70%
said they read research at least sometimes and
almost a third rarely; just over 61% said they did
research at least sometimes while over 38% said
they did so rarely or (in one case) never. Given the
absence of comparative data, I cannot comment on
how these figures relate to research engagement in
our field more generally. This survey also does not
shed light on what kinds of research activity
teachers engage in; this is one of several issues
highlighted here which will be explored in more
depth in the subsequent interviews.
I will discuss the level of research engagement
found here by considering two factors: teachers’
conceptions of research and the institutional re-
search culture. Experience and qualifications were
examined in this study in relation to teachers’
research engagement but did not emerge here as a
significant factor. This is perhaps surprising, parti-
cular in relation to qualifications, and suggests
perhaps that it is not so much the qualification
which matters here as much as the nature of the
‘research education’ (Borg, 2003a) which teachers
have experienced (e.g. the kinds of courses on
research they have done). It may be worthwhile to
collect information about this issue when the
questionnaire is next administered.
4.1. Conceptions of research
In this study, teachers’ conceptions of research
were predominantly associated with what has been
called a ‘standard’ view of scientific research (Robson,
2002, p. 19). The scenario rated most highly as being
research was a large-scale survey conducted by an
academic, analysed statistically, and published in an
academic journal. The four characteristics of research
seen to be most important in enhancing its quality
related to objectivity, hypothesis testing, the control
of variables, and the involvement of a large-scale
sample. The tendency of teachers to associate research
with more conventional forms of inquiry is reflected
in existing studies of this issue and which I reviewed
earlier in this paper (e.g. Brown, 1992; Shkedi, 1998).
The ‘standard’ view of research, on the basis of the
available evidence, thus seems to remain the pre-
dominant model in the minds of teachers both
generally and specifically in ELT.
743
Understanding the conceptions of research held
by teachers is important in attempts to engage them
with and in research. If, for example, large samples
and statistics are considered by teachers to be key
characteristics of research, then this may become a
less viable activity for many teachers who either do
not have access to large samples or do not have the
knowledge of statistics they feel is required. Alter-
natively, the impact of such conceptions on teachers
may be that they only consider a limited range of
approaches when they do decide to do research
themselves (e.g. discounting forms of inquiry which
are more qualitative in nature but which may
actually be more amenable to the kind of research
teachers are well-placed to conduct—see, for
example, Hopkins, 2002).
Evidence of teachers’ conceptions of research also
emerged here from their comments on their lack of
research engagement. The responses suggest that
several teachers feel that doing research is person-
ally and professionally beneficial and of value in
enabling them to explore issues related to their own
teaching. This reflects the main reason cited by
teachers for doing research in both Worrall (2004)
and Barker (2005). Amongst the reasons teachers
gave for not being research engaged, two reflect
views 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 as
distinct activities and only the former is part of a
teacher’s work; the second (‘I am not interested in
doing research’), which was mentioned in the
context of both not reading and not doing research,
may imply a lack of awareness of the professional
and pedagogical benefits which research engage-
ment might lead to. Such views were only reported
by a small proportion of the teachers, but they are
indicative of the kinds of underlying assumptions
about research which may work against attempts to
enhance teachers’ research engagement. As noted
earlier, Worrall (2004) also found evidence of such
personal dispositions in teachers who were not
research engaged.
Further insight into teachers’ conceptions of
research comes from two further questions in the
survey; 9 teachers said they did not read research
because it does not give them practical advice
for the classroom; 34 teachers also said that a
characteristic of good-quality research is that it
gives teachers ideas they can use. These, again,
are conceptions which recur in studies of tea-
chers’ research engagement (e.g. McDonough &
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744 S. Borg / Teaching and Teacher Education 23 (2007) 731–747
McDonough, 1990; McNamara, 2002; Shkedi,
1998). Teachers are commonly found to report that
they are unable to see what published research
means for their classroom practice; more recent
evidence indicates that unless such relevance is
perceived by teachers they will not be willing to
become research engaged:
Throughout this study, practitioners have stated
that whilst research is important to their work, it
must be founded upon the intention to improve
the quality of their teaching and the learning of
their students. Where this link is not recognised,
then the findings of research may be ignored by
them (Barker, 2005. p. 33).
Of course, the instrumental value to teachers of
educational research should not be presented as a
necessary criterion for judging its value (Goldstein,
1998). However, it is clear that if our goal is to
encourage teachers to engage with published re-
search, and that teachers consistently report that
one reason they do not is because they are unable to
see its relevance to their work, then this is clearly an
issue that merits attention. It has, though, not been
the focus of any empirical work in our field, once
again, in contrast to work in education generally
(see, for example, Cordingley et al., 2005). We
thus lack insights into teachers’ perceptions of
published research in our field, whether this work
is seen by teachers to address their concerns,
and how it impacts on what happens in class-
rooms (in science education, Ratcliffe et al., 2004
suggest this impact may be more indirect than
direct). These issues could very easily provide the
basis of a focused empirical study of their own, but
in any case these are clearly matters to explore in
more depth in the follow-up interviews with the
teachers.
Overall, what emerges here in relation to teachers’
conceptions of research suggests that initiatives to
further research engagement in this institution could
benefit from giving teachers on-going opportunities
to discuss and clarify their understandings of what
research is and how its worth can be judged, of the
range of forms it may legitimately take, and of the
ways that research and classroom practice may
interact in the lives of teachers. Teachers’ under-
standings of these issues, I would argue, are central
to the extent to which they can be productively
research engaged.
4.2. Institutional research culture
The literature discussed earlier highlighted the
role which the institutional research culture may
have on teachers’ research engagement. In this
study, teachers’ responses to a set of questions
about their institution indicated that in many
respects it was seen to provide an environment
conducive to research engagement. Also, the more
positively the institution was rated by teachers in
this respect, the more frequently teachers reported
both reading and doing research, and in both cases
these associations were significant.
In terms of specific items related to the institu-
tional culture, although only just over half of the
teachers agreed that the management encouraged
teachers to do research and only 34% agreed that
teachers feel that doing research is an important
part of their work, the key finding was that almost
80% disagreed that time for research is built into
their workload. This view was also reflected in the
comments of teachers who did not read and do
research; in both cases, a lack of time was the most
commonly cited reason. Although it is easy to
dismiss this as an excuse which teachers make to
explain their non-engagement in an activity they feel
they should do, there is growing evidence in
education generally that sustained and productive
research engagement is not feasible unless the time it
requires is acknowledged and built into institutional
systems (see, for example, Barker, 2005). In ELT, I
referred earlier to the study by Crookes and
Arakaki (1999) which found that work pressures
were a key reason why the teachers in their
institution did not read research. And in a personal
communication to me on this subject, a teacher in
North America wrote that:
As a teacher–researcher I’ve found it extremely
difficult to carry out research projects and
publish. I just don’t have the time. I teach 32.5
hours/week and need to prepare for those classes
in addition to work with the teachers’ union and
our technology committee. It’s a shame. Until
policy changes to permit teachers to do research
in their classrooms and publish results there
won’t be much connection between research and
practice except within the individual classroom.
In my own context almost nobody reads TESOL
publications—they don’t have time. There is
a huge gap between research and practice in
the US.
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S. Borg / Teaching and Teacher Education 23 (2007) 731–747
Research engagement demands time and the
evidence is that teachers generally do not feel this
time is available within their current allocations; the
consequence is that for many teachers research
engagement becomes an activity they must do in
their own time. The results here suggest that even
where the institution is generally seen to be
supportive of teachers’ research engagement, time
may be a factor which carries more weight than
others in influencing the extent to which such
engagement actually takes place. This suggests that
different conditions for research engagement carry
different weights and that time may be one of those
that is particularly influential. The institutional
conditions which facilitate research and the relative
weightings of these is thus another specific issue
which emerges here as meriting further specific
study. The work of Ebbutt (2001) is relevant to this
issue. He analysed the conditions which characterise
institutions in which a research culture was present
to different degrees (which he calls emergent,
established, and established-embedded). ‘Invest-
ment in time’ was one of the 19 criteria he considers
and the presence of such investment was one of the
ways in which schools where a research culture was
more established differed from those where it was
less so. This would seem to be an issue which the
institution where the teachers in this study worked
would benefit from considering if it wanted to
enhance the levels of research engagement among
its staff.
5. Conclusion
In concluding this paper there are two points to
highlight and which need to be considered in
interpreting its findings. Firstly, the ELT context
studied here is not being presented as typical of ELT
generally; it is my goal to study a range of contexts
as part of a larger programme of research, but this
initial study allowed me to assess the feasibility of
the issues chosen for study and the instrument used
to study them as well as to generate issues which
could be explored in more detail through follow-up
interviews. In these respects this work has I feel been
worthwhile. At the same time, the substantive
findings of this study are indicative of the potential
that work of this kind has for exploring the nature
of research engagement in ELT. Second, question-
naire responses about conceptions and practices
must always be examined in the knowledge that they
are respondents’ reported perceptions of the issues
745
under study and that, for a range of reasons, there
may be a gap between actual and reported beliefs
and practices. Well-designed instruments can mini-
mise to some extent such problems (see, for
example, the advice in Oppenheim, 1992), but
supplementing questionnaire data with in-depth
interviews, as I plan to do, will allow the findings
emerging here to be explored in more detail with a
sub-set of the original sample of teachers. Without
implying that interviews are free of the dangers
associated with respondent bias which affect ques-
tionnaires, the combination of questionnaire and
interview data can provide a more complete and
convincing account of research engagement in ELT
than reliance on questionnaire data alone would.
The findings of this study highlight a number of
areas for continuing inquiry into the topic of
teachers’ research engagement in ELT. I will
continue to study these through my on-going
programme of research, but if as a field ELT values
and wants to promote and support research
engagement by teachers more widely it is necessary
for it to begin to generate the empirical evidence
which is required to inform initiatives of this kind.
The notion of teacher research is certainly not a new
one in this field; what is new, however, is the
systematic study of the extent to which teachers
in ELT read and do research (particularly out-
side the context of formal programmes of study)
and of the factors, personal to teachers as well as
institutional, which influence the extent to which
such research engagement occurs. Funders of
educational research in the UK in the last decade
have invested significantly in programmes of re-
search which investigate these issues, and this had
led to the development of a significant body of
evidence which can inform policy on matters
pertaining to teachers’ research engagement; while
we need to acknowledge and draw on this work, the
recognition by funders of ELT research of the
importance of a better understanding of research
engagement by teachers would seem to be funda-
mental to the development of a comparable
evidence base in our field.
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