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Complexity Theory as a Conceptual Framework for Language Teacher

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DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-93467-5_2

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Chapter1
Complexity Theory as a Conceptual Framework for Language Teacher
Research

Phil Hiver

Abstract: This chapter has two broad objectives: first, to provide an accessible introduction
that will aid readers in understanding the central concepts of complexity theory; and, second,
to examine the utility of complexity theory as a robust conceptual framework for empirical
research—particularly in the lives of language teachers and the work they do. I begin this
chapter by examining the principles underlying the theoretical perspective of complexity,
considering how this framework encourages scholars to view the world and its phenomena,
and detailing how complexity theory has been used by other disciplines. Then, by extending
the recent work of Larsen-Freeman (2015, 2017), I explore some of the key intellectual ideas
and theoretical tools that are on offer from the complexity perspective and relate these to
existing work in the field of teacher motivation, autonomy, and development. Finally, I
transition into looking at the endeavor of teacher-related research from within this conceptual
framework in order to establish the ways in which complexity theory might inform
transdisciplinary research in the discipline, and how it can assist in plugging gaps left by
conventional research paradigms.

Keywords: complexity theory, complex systems, language teachers, teacher education,

transdisciplinary research, methodological innovation

If a doctor, lawyer, or dentist had 40 people in her office at one time, all of whom had
different needs, and some of whom didn’t want to be there and were causing trouble, and
the doctor, lawyer, or dentist, without assistance, had to treat them all with professional
excellence for nine months, then she might have some conception of a teacher’s job.

~ Donald D. Quinn ~

1.1 Introduction
Conventional thinking privileges the belief that humans, their behavior, and interactions
are ordered and structured along simple and linear contingencies (Morrison, 2008). The ability
to think in terms of the combined interactions of many individual parts does not come naturally,
__________________________
P. Hiver (✉)
School of Teacher Education, College of Education, Florida State University, 1114 W. Call St., G128 Stone
Building, Tallahassee, FL, USA
email: phiver@fsu.edu
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nor does the capacity to deal with complex effects or situations where results and outcomes
are multi-determined (Radford, 2008). Researchers, too, rely heavily on the kind of
explanation that is consistent with intuition and that attributes causality to single factors,
often oversimplifying analyses of outcomes. Although this conventional way of thinking
about the field of applied linguistics, and particularly the work and life of second and
foreign language (L2) teachers, may be compelling in its simplicity and apparent coherence,
it cannot tell how many different things and processes act together when exposed to many
different influences at the same time—a hallmark of how the human, social world functions
(Mercer, 2016).
With regard to the social and psychological aspects of L2 teachers’ work and life,
there are no easy answers to the broad socio-political challenges present in educational
contexts worldwide. Policies of language ideology and power, a growing norm of
multilingualism, and rising linguistic commodification and social marginalization are
evidence that language teaching remains a critical profession for the 21st century
(Kubanyiova & Crookes, 2016). In many classroom settings, policy factors combine with
institutional constraints to place unpredictable demands on teachers’ capacity to serve their
learners’ needs (e.g., Hall, 2016). To paraphrase Morin (1999, 2008), if things were simple,
word would have gotten around. It is becoming clearer to more and more scholars who
study the work and lives of teachers that complexity is not merely a useful metaphor, it is
an empirical reality (Cochran-Smith, Ell, Ludlow, Grudnoff, & Aitken, 2014; Sanford,
Hopper, & Starr, 2015). This underscores the importance of the present volume’s focus and
the significance of taking a more situated and dynamic view of the social and psychological
aspects of the work and lives of L2 teachers. Complexity not only enriches current
understanding of the discipline, but it also has the potential to provide new empirical
answers to long-standing questions and is a conceptual framework well suited to advancing
this ambitious agenda (Burns, Freeman, & Edwards, 2015; Atkinson, 2017).

1.2 The Origins of Complexity Theory in Social Science

For many of the social sciences, humans, their behavior, and interactions are the objects of
interest. And, looking at that behavior and interaction in all its richness is not something
social scientists have shied away from (Byrne, 2011). A complexity-rich discourse in the
contemporary human and social sciences can be traced back to Adam Smith’s “invisible
hand” and can be found in the critical social theories of Marx and Engels, who highlighted
how seeming contradictions in the environment and in social systems were in fact what
sustained social order (Urry, 2003). Compatible notions are apparent throughout the work
of the English philosopher Herbert Spencer, and are also evident in Durkheim’s holistic
conception of social facts and Pareto’s notions of political economy. Ideas from complexity
theory closely parallel the scholarly work of Kurt Lewin and George Mead from the 1930s,

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and prominent social researchers from the second half of the 20th century represent
additional examples who did not explicitly associate themselves with complexity theory:
these include Anthony Gidden’s structuration theory, Talcott Parson’s discussion of the
cognitive complex, Jürgen Habermas’ theory of communicative action, Albert Bandura’s
reciprocal causation model, and Urie Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory (Eve,
Horsfall, & Lee, 1997). Even more remarkable, however, since the middle of the 20th
century the human and social disciplines have contributed at least as much to theorizing
complexity theory as they have drawn on its insights (Capra & Luisi, 2014).
Complexity has indeed become a foundation for scientific inquiry in domains such as
chemistry, applied mathematics, computer science, meteorology, and neuroscience
(Larsen-Freeman, 2017). Thus, because its roots are in the physical and mathematical
sciences, borrowing insights and ideas from complexity theory may strike some as
inherently incommensurable with the social phenomena most applied linguists are
concerned with and even the existing theoretical frameworks that are used to conceptualize
these phenomena (Lantolf, 2016). A general point can be made to address this issue of
compatibility, and it is the fact that there are many instances when the human and social
sciences have taken their inspiration from developments in the physical sciences or actually
developed parallel insights independently from those domains (Horn, 2008; Ridley, 2015),
to the degree that these have now become net contributors to the fields initially drawn from.
For instance, the philosopher Edgar Morin, famous for first drawing a distinction
between general and restricted complexity, has remained active into his 90s, while Gregory
Bateson, an anthropologist by training, spent the final decade of his life pulling together
various early forms of systems theory and developing a meta-science of epistemology.
Other substantial contributions to complexity made by the human or social sciences have
been made—to name just a few—in areas of philosophy of science by Roy Bhaskar, John
Urry, Willis Overton, and Paul Cilliers; in systems and network thinking by Francis
Heylighen, Derek Cabrera, and Albert-László Barabási; and in methodology by Robert
Axelrod, Peter Checkland, Charles Ragin, and David Byrne. Centers and institutes
dedicated to the study of human and social complexity now exist at preeminent universities
across the globe; academic journals, conferences, and associations for the discipline have
been around for the better part of two decades. Complexity theory, clearly, is no longer—
if it ever truly was—the domain of the physical and mathematical sciences, and there are
at least three primary ways in which complexity theory can contribute directly to theorizing
and researching language teacher motivation, autonomy, and development. I will examine
each of these potential contributions in turn.

1.3 Conceptual Tools and Principles of Complexity

The first major contribution of complexity theory for the study of language teacher

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motivation, autonomy, and development is a new way of thinking that entails
reconceptualizing the objects and phenomena of interest in our discipline. This new way
of thinking, increasingly taken up by leading scholars (e.g., Gao, 2019; Johnson, 2019;
Mercer, 2018), provides a set of powerful intellectual concepts and principles (e.g., time;
self-organization) that allow us to theorize and interpret particular phenomena or aspects
of language teacher motivation, autonomy, and development in new ways (Cochran-Smith
et al., 2014). However, this contribution also raises a number of questions that future
language teacher research will need to tackle (Grossman, Hammerness, & McDonald,
2009). For instance, (1) to what extent does a complexity perspective upend our existing
knowledge of the discipline (i.e., the work and lives of teachers)? And, (2) with its roots in
the physical sciences, can complexity still account for the social/human phenomena with
which our discipline is concerned? It is possible, even highly likely, that using these
conceptual tools will challenge many of our existing assumptions and encourage us to
reconsider research and practice underlying the work and life of language teachers (Mercer,
2016). New ways of conceptualizing the discipline are likely to suggest new approaches to
practice and a rejection of certain ideas regarding teacher motivation, autonomy, and
development (Burns, Freeman, & Edwards, 2015). I will turn now to exploring the
principles, tools, and concepts that a foundation in complexity theory offers for doing this
kind of research.

1.3.1 A Relational Unit of Analysis

First and foremost, complexity invites us to think how parts of the whole relate to each
other in language teacher research (Mercer, 2016, Hiver, Sánchez Solarte, et al., 2021).
Thus, the first conceptual tool on offer from a complexity perspective is its distinctive
relational unit of analysis—a complex system. As the world is dynamic, the unit of analysis
should be a unit that is equally dynamic (Ragin, 2014). A case in complexity theory refers
to a phenomenologically real complex system situated in its context. Complex systems in
context can be considered the paradigmatic object of interest, and thus, the fundamental
unit of analysis in language teaching research which adopts this perspective. It is from the
components and their relationships that the systems we are trying to understand emerge,
which illustrates the importance of relational units in language teacher research (Hiver,
2018; Hiver, Kim, & Kim, 2018; Hiver & Whitehead, 2018a, 2018b). This also parallels
recent work from a more sociocultural perspective (e.g., Golombek, 2015; Johnson, 2015).
Outcomes arise from a web of relationships that continually grow, change, and adapt to
new situations, underscoring a fundamental quality of complexity, that it is relational in
nature (Overton, 2007).
At the same time, the study of human and social systems—whether those systems exist
in the physical or the symbolic social domain—always implicates agency, whether this is

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individual or collective, contingent or essential (Al-Hoorie, 2015; Larsen-Freeman, 2019).
This makes it necessary to include within any system’s boundaries an agent, or agents,
capable of exercising intentional action that contributes causally, though not
deterministically, to the system’s outcomes and processes of change. Complex systems
(Hiver & Al-Hoorie, 2016) that may form the basis for language teacher research:
• consists of many elements or components situated in context;
• these components, at least one of which is an agent, interact with each other based
on certain principles of interdependence;
• over time, the components change as a result of their interactions with other
components;
• the effects of these interactions result in the system exhibiting system-wide and
macro level patterns of behavior.

1.3.2 The Necessity of Time

One of the most important changes of adopting a complexity perspective for language
teacher research is that time matters, and that it cannot be reduced or relativized (Lemke,
2000). This gift of time might be slightly unwelcome in our discipline as it entails
refocusing attention more explicitly on processes than products; However, it has certain
advantages as well. One is that it allows us to take a much more developmental perspective
in language teacher research (e.g., Hiver, 2017, 2018; Sampson, 2016). Complex systems
have a history and a sensitive dependence on their initial conditions, and this history and
context has a critical role to play in every system’s process of becoming (Verspoor, 2015).
In a complex system where many components and factors interact over time, small
differences in some factors at an early point in time can have a substantial impact on future
behavior and eventual outcomes. This underscores the rich interdependence of all the
components that are part of the work and lives of teachers and illustrates that tiny
differences in initial inputs can quickly become overwhelming differences in output
(Kubanyiova, 2012).
Secondly, the reality of time highlights the nonfinality of system change. Nonfinality
simply means that complex systems are not defined by progressing towards an endpoint
because, essentially, they have no final state (de Bot, 2015). They evolve indefinitely over
time and are self-maintaining. Dynamic change is non-telic in the sense that it progresses
through time without a predetermined, fixed goal. And, in any case, what might seem to be
an end point in language teaching motivation, or autonomy and development is likely just
one of many points in an ongoing and dialogic process (Johnson, 2009). The complex
systems that are part of the phenomena we would like to investigate in teacher motivation,
autonomy and development evolve through time; As they do so, the interactions they rely
on to remain adaptive often enter into nonlinear periods where a priori predictions are

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unlikely to be borne out in the actual system behavior (Davis & Sumara, 2012). Thus,
although it is possible to explain the behavior of complex systems after the fact, and to
anticipate future system interactions based on general trends, the reliability of these
probabilistic predictions of complex system behavior depends on multiple factors that
overlap and interact interdependently, with some factors in the system playing a larger role
at certain times but not at others (Overton & Lerner, 2014).

1.3.3 Dynamic Change and Development

Very little in the social world is fixed; change is everywhere. Teacher development too is
not an event, but rather a process. So, a particular added value of a complexity perspective
for our discipline, and its explicit focus on time, is an emphasis on processes of change and
development (Elman, 2003). Complex systems constantly reorganize their internal working
parts and adapt themselves to the problems posed by their surroundings. This is why
complex systems have a reputation as being adaptive and dynamic. This adaptivity in the
work and lives of teachers is iterative in nature so that systems may return to the same state
repeatedly as they continue to move and change (Atkinson, 2017). Evidence also indicates
that while they are adapting, complex systems are able to learn from experiences and
conditions, and that this adaptive learning in turn influences their ongoing behavior (Byrne
& Uprichard, 2012). Complex systems adapt and evolve to allow the system to perform or
develop optimally, and over time develop guidelines which influence the actions of the
components and by extension the system’s outcomes (Holland, 2012). Through their
experience in context complex systems come to anticipate the consequences of certain
interactions and seek to adapt to changing circumstances, and this parallels what some in
language teacher research have called “sense making in action” (Kubanyiova & Feryok,
2015, p. 418).
The ability of system parts to adapt and learn is the prime characteristic of complex
adaptive systems (Holland, 2006). Consequently, even in systems that might appear almost
identical, their subsequent adaptation and development may diverge significantly. When
seemingly similar complex systems are observed over time, it may be puzzling to observe
that they are performing very differently from each other. This sustained adaptation of
systems that are part of the phenomena of interest in teacher motivation, autonomy and
development is capable of producing a rich repertoire of behaviors (see e.g., Henry, 2016).
It can, of course, be challenging to understand these dynamics or control a system’s
trajectory of change. However, adaptive change is the pivotal characteristic of seeing things
from a complexity perspective because it allows us to value variation as strongly as states
(Larsen-Freeman, 2012, 2013). Conceptualizing language teacher motivation, autonomy,
and development from this perspective requires applied linguists to think in a connected
way about both outcomes and their processes (Davis & Sumara, 2010). For this reason, it

7
entails an expansionist perspective for our field that takes into account the fact that
variability and change are at the heart of all language teaching (De Costa & Norton, 2017;
Hiver, Sánchez Solarte, et al., 2021).

1.3.4 Openness of Systems to Context

Another major conceptual tool is the idea that context shapes complex system behavior and
its outcomes. This notion of interdependence between a context, the individuals studied
within that context, and the phenomena of interest is not new in applied linguistics
(Kramsch, 2008; van Lier, 2004) and has come to be discussed more explicitly in the work
and lives language teachers (Atkinson, 2017). However, to extend this and say that context
is an intrinsic, core part of all individual motivated thought and action is a conceptual shift.
The main implication of this is that teacher motivation, teacher autonomy, and teacher
development are always situated and thus contextually constrained (see also Feryok, 2018).
This assumption is grounded in the idea that adaptation and development are not based on
hard-assembled mechanisms that exist off-line in some form of absolute state (Byrne,
2005). Hard-assembled mechanisms exist independently of the immediate context which a
system is part of; they apply more or less uniformly in various settings; they are discovered
in context-independent performance; and, they are activated in each situation the system
encounters (Larsen-Freeman, 2015). Instead like many things in teacher motivation,
autonomy and development, soft-assembled mechanisms involve a particular adaptation of
the system in its environment and are only realized within the immediate context of a
situation or task (Mercer, 2016). Their composition and performance is temporary and
occurs in real-time, involving only the tools and structures that are currently available and
necessary.
Any complex system is an open synthesis of many parts interacting with one another
and with the larger context in which it is situated. Complex systems in teacher motivation,
autonomy, and development are not only embedded within an environment and interact
with these surroundings continuously, but they are also an integral constitutive part of that
context (Dörnyei & Kubanyiova, 2014). Thus, the environment clearly cannot be seen as
merely an additional factor, among many, for consideration when interpreting teacher
behavior (McDonald, Kazemi, & Kavanagh, 2013). Instead, contextual factors should be
seen as actual dimensions of the system itself. Rather than cutting off the complex system
from the rest of the environment, these boundaries remain open and connect the system
closely with its environment through the transfer of information, energy, or material
(Ushioda, 2015). Without this bi-directional exchange of energy, resources, or information
between the complex system and its environment there is no impetus to change. Complex
systems’ openness to the environment gives rise to context-dependent behaviors and this
means that their outcomes and paths of development cannot be understood by decomposing

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them into analytically discrete elements or variables.

1.3.5 Self-organized Emergence

Given the right conditions or inputs over time, many things in life tend to sort themselves
out even better than if those involved had sat down and tried to force a solution. This is
because systems spontaneously take advantage of upheaval by adaptively restructuring
their working parts and connections and settle in a coherent outcome (Larsen-Freeman &
Cameron, 2008). Within a complexity frame of reference, the outcomes of interest are self-
organized outcomes, tied to the notion of attractor states (Hiver & Al-Hoorie, 2020).
Attractors represent pockets of dynamic equilibrium that a system stabilizes into despite
the many layers of complexity it may encounter. In the domain of language teacher
motivation, autonomy, and development, for example, language teachers might come to
make sense of their professional context through certain repertoires of action or inaction
(Feryok, 2018; Kubanyiova & Feryok, 2015), settle into a pattern of resistance to change
or other more virtuous psychological outcomes (Hiver & Dörnyei, 2017; Hiver &
Whitehead, 2018a, 2018b), or solidify a unique representation of who they are and their
purpose as professionals (De Costa & Norton, 2017; Henry, 2016). Thus, as they develop
over time, complex systems display qualitatively distinct patterns that could not have been
anticipated by looking at their component parts individually. When complex systems
change their structure and overall aggregate function in response to some external
circumstances through a process that is not overtly directed or engineered, this is known
as self-organization (Larsen-Freeman & Cameron, 2008). This self-organization is a
process by which higher-level order emerges from the local interaction of disordered
components, and the emergent patterns it leads to in the human and social world are at the
very heart of a complexity perspective (Larsen-Freeman, 2015).
Determining how this spontaneous self-organization takes place is the primary goal
of complexity research (Holland, 2006), and one key mechanism is feedback (i.e., when
the system output loops back as input). From a complexity perspective, feedback is simply
an input that can influence change, and this adaptation to feedback is not a one-time process
(Larsen-Freeman & Cameron, 2008). Instead, systems adapt nonlinearly in response to
feedback from the changing environment. Negative feedback is the most common type —
it should not be thought of as undesirable—and it feeds into self-organization by restoring
equilibrium to the system and bringing its behavior back in line (Goldstein, 2011). One
common example can be seen with language teachers who return from a course of
professional development and encounter challenges to implementing the more
constructivist teaching methods they have been introduced to and gradually return to their
conventional didactic teaching methods (Kubanyiova, 2012). Positive feedback, on the
other hand, reinforces a system’s movement along the development path which it is already

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moving, that can lock-in a system into path dependence or spread to a system-wide pattern.
A relevant example here would be when language teachers encounter performance-based
evaluation schemes in the workplace which results in greater focus on teaching to the test
to increase their standing on those indicators (Davis & Sumara, 2006). How complex
systems in context self-organize through feedback loops in order to maintain their
functioning over time has applications in the way we conceptualize language teacher
motivation, autonomy, and development (Davis & Sumara, 2012; Hiver, Kim, & Kim,
2018; Sockett, 2008)

1.4 What Does Complexity Theory Mean for Language Teacher Research?
The second contribution from complexity to the study of language teacher motivation,
autonomy, and development is methodological, in that the logic of complexity can be used
as an aid to design a program of research that prioritizes adaptive and developmental
processes (Gao, 2019; Hiver, Sánchez Solarte, et al., 2021; Mercer, 2018). Using ideas
from complexity allows researchers to identify pressing issues that need addressing or
questions that demand answers, and then determine how to shed light on possible solutions
(Larsen-Freeman, 2016). At one level this might mean using ideas from complexity to
analyze empirical data and provide more complex descriptions, analyses, and
interpretations of programs, practices, and initiatives (see e.g., Hiver, Whiteside, et al.,
2021). At another higher level the result is a new transdisciplinary approach to scientific
inquiry that creates unity beyond disciplinary boundaries, turns more toward a problem-
oriented approach, and allows researchers to achieve common scientific goals (Halliday &
Burns, 2006; Hiver, Al-Hoorie, & Larsen-Freeman, 2021). The idea of transdisciplinary
research is not without its own set of challenges, and some questions for consideration
include these: (1) What does doing impactful L2 teacher motivation, autonomy, and
development research from a complexity perspective actually entail? (2) Does complexity
require researchers to discard existing methodological toolkits, like some from social
complexity argue? and (3) How should a genuinely meaningful transdisciplinary program
of empirical research be designed and conducted?

1.4.1 Methodological Choices and Research Design

Social complexivists have addressed the methodological contribution of complexity in
various ways (Anderson, 1994). Among other things, complexity theory has been described
as an approach to describing and explaining change (van Geert, 2008), an interpretive
paradigm for understanding the social world (Byrne, 2009), a methodological frame of
reference (Cilliers, 2005), a scientific perspective of continuity and change (Mason, 2008),
and a unified conceptual framework for understanding social structures (Urry, 2005). A
theory is essentially a set of claims used to describe and explain an observable phenomenon.

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However, it is apparent from the above descriptions that the inclusion of the term “theory”
in complexity theory can be misleading as it results in what is perhaps too narrow a band
of possibilities (Larsen-Freeman, 2015). Instead, it would be much more accurate to refer
to complexity as a metatheory—essentially a set of coherent principles of reality (i.e.,
ontological ideas) and principles of knowing (i.e., epistemological ideas) that underpin and
contextualize object theories consistent with these principles, and which influence the
research designs and methodological choices researchers make (Hiver & Al-Hoorie, 2020).
Complexity theory means different things to different researchers, but the very existence
of the transdisciplinary intellectual tools and concepts that complexity brings to bear on
the problem space of language teacher motivation, autonomy, and development points to
complexity’s function as a meta-theory capable of informing a broad range of theories and
research designs (Overton, 2007, 2013). Overton (2015, p. 166) remarks that metatheories
such as complexity theory “capture concepts whose scope is broader than any particular
theory, and which form the essential conceptual core within which scientific theory and
observation function”. Furthermore, while object theories are provisional and their
predictions must constantly be evaluated against proximal observation of new evidence,
metatheories pertain to questions of what phenomena, questions, and aspects of social and
human inquiry are “meaningful and meaningless, acceptable and unacceptable, central and
peripheral” for a field (Overton, 2007, p. 154). As such, they have enormous potential to
move beyond discipline-specific approaches to address common problems—the very
definition of transdisciplinarity (Hiver, Al-Hoorie, & Larsen-Freeman, 2021; Nicolescu,
2008).
Language teacher research, by its very nature, is interdisciplinary because it combines
different perspectives and builds bridges between them, allowing each perspective to
inform the others (Kubanyiova & Crookes, 2016). To take just one example, a researcher
who integrates knowledge and methods from teacher education and second language
acquisition/development (SLD) may still have to choose a dominant approach and may feel
more like a teacher education researcher when working with SLD scholars, and as a SLD
researcher when talking to mainstream teacher educators (e.g., Hiver, Sánchez Solarte, et
al., 2021). However, transdisciplinarity actually transcends knowledge boundaries and
renders the dominant disciplinary frames of reference—for just one example whether one
self-identifies as a quantitative or a qualitative researcher—and methodological silos
redundant (Byrne & Callaghan, 2014, p. 3). What transdisciplinary research leaves in place
of disciplinary boundaries is a problem-oriented approach to scientific inquiry that creates
unity beyond the disciplinary perspectives (Gao, 2019; Johnson, 2019; Klein, 2004), and
the implications of these efforts are far reaching as they allow researchers to achieve
common scientific goals. A general example of a transdisciplinary research topic might be
researching the effects of a new nationwide language assessment reform initiative which

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is simultaneously an educational policy issue, a socioeconomic issue, a teacher education
and classroom practice issue, and even a psycho-developmental issue which requires more
than just a coming together of fields to build an understanding of the nature of the problem
and potential solutions. The idea in transdisciplinary research is to identify pressing issues
that need addressing or questions that demand answers, and then determine the most
appropriate methods—typically multimethod—or framework to shed light on possible
solutions (Hiver, Al-Hoorie, & Larsen-Freeman, 2021; Larsen-Freeman, 2017). This is why
complexity has such potential to add value to the empirical study of language teacher
motivation, autonomy, and development.

1.4.2 On Methodological Innovation

Especially important for this particular domain, CDST functions as a necessary intellectual
blueprint for conducting and evaluating research. For instance, Hiver and Al-Hoorie (2016)
suggest that the core objectives of CDST research in applied linguistics should be to:

(a) represent and understand specific complex systems at various scales of description;
(b) identify and understand dynamic patterns of change, emergent system outcomes
and behavior in the environment; (c) trace, understand and where possible model the
complex mechanisms and processes by which these patterns arise; and (d) capture,
understand and apply the relevant parameters for influencing the behavior of systems.
(p. 752)

While many degrees of freedom exist with regards to the methods of data elicitation
and analysis, the appropriacy and robustness of the methods that are already prevalent in
our field warrant closer scrutiny. Several methods in widespread use (e.g., pre-/post-
experimental designs) seem poorly-suited to studying teacher motivation, autonomy, and
development in ways that acknowledge its complex and dynamic realities and situate these
phenomena firmly in context. Critically examining these is important to advance what
Byrne (2009) has called “the central project” (p. 1) of research: going beyond the purely
idiographic without resorting to being radically nomothetic, while still elucidating
causation. The primary objective of any science, Byrne affirms, is “the elucidation of
causes that extend beyond the unique specific instance” (2009, p. 1). Recent work has
proposed ways in which complexity encourages innovation and diversification in
methodological choices (Hiver & Al-Hoorie, 2020; Sampson & Pinner, 2021). This work
features both individual and group-based methods with emergent, recursive, and iterative
designs that are suited to studying dynamic change in context and interconnectedness. Our
field is therefore following other social and human disciplines that also seek to understand
complexity by innovating with existing methods and experimenting with new ones (e.g.,

12
Molenaar, Lerner, & Newell, 2014; Valsiner, Molenaar, Lyra, & Chaudhary, 2009).
Research informed by CDST is different from other, more conventional research in
two main ways: the basic assumptions that underlie it and the designs and methods that
follow from those assumption (de Bot & Larsen-Freeman, 2011; Dörnyei, 2014). All
research methods and paradigms have a number of inherent assumptions, some of which
are unstated or implicit in the techniques of data elicitation and analysis. As outlined above,
CDST research takes a systems view as its point of departure (Hiver & Al-Hoorie, 2020).
CDST posits that the reality of the human and social world is one in which, first, everything
counts and everything is connected (i.e., the relational principle) and, second, everything
changes (i.e., the adaptive principle) (Overton & Lerner, 2014). And as I have suggested
earlier, CDST research reconceptualizes the core of teacher motivation, autonomy, and
development as systems or systemic phenomena that are context-dependent, adaptive, and
self-organizing.
Primarily, the study of complex systems entails a focus on processes of change, and
one way of doing so is through dynamics-dominant research using time-intensive methods.
The question of how complex systems adapt to their environment in order to maintain their
functioning over time is in fact relevant to nearly every part of teacher research (Cochran-
Smith et al., 2014; Sanford et al., 2015). Complex macro-behaviors, dynamic micro-
interactions within a system, and the emergence of new patterns of behavior are all of great
interest in teacher motivation, autonomy, and development. Dynamics-dominant research
includes a focus on relational dynamics, trajectories of change and development, self-
organized processes, and emergent outcomes. Of course, since complex systems also have
constituent parts, another basic approach is component-dominant research using relation-
intensive methods. These designs describe systems’ parts and their interactions, providing
a focus on the complex underlying structure of interdependent relations (Hilpert &
Marchand, 2018, p. 8). With both time- and relation-intensive methods available to study
key questions in teacher motivation, autonomy, and development, complexity is rendered
a more inclusive approach to research (Hiver & Al-Hoorie, 2020; Hiver, Al-Hoorie, &
Larsen-Freeman, 2021).

1.4.3 Contributions to Teacher Motivation, Autonomy, and Development

Complexity’s most valuable contribution comes in the form of a framework for ethical
action in dealing with practitioners’ and researchers’ commitment to values such as social
justice, and our investment in shaping or transforming key aspects of the field. This
parallels a growing critical discourse in applied linguistics of teachers as moral agents
capable of, and increasingly responsible for, enacting change (Kubanyiova, 2016, 2020;
De Costa & Norton, 2017). For instance, in their proposed reconceptualization of the
language teacher’s roles for the 21st century, Kubanyiova and Crookes (2016) argue that

13
language teachers’ stance towards their own roles, the pedagogical choices made regarding
instructional practices, and the language practices promoted institutionally and beyond
(e.g., widespread use of language assessment as a policy tool) suggest critical value-
oriented, moral, and ethical dimensions of language teaching—and indeed of language
teacher education. However, this ethical imperative also calls attention to the fact that many
of the phenomena we wish to intervene in and act on are growing overly-complex for the
simple tools or frameworks that exist with which to do so (Hiver, Whiteside, et al., 2021;
Kramsch, 2008; Johnson, 2015). Effects and outcomes in teacher motivation, autonomy,
and development, thus, cannot be attributed to single, proximate interventions because each
individual factor may trigger, influence or even counteract others (Mercer, 2018). We need
a new way of doing things (Sockett, 2008).
A componential way of thinking about intervening in the problem space of language
teacher motivation, autonomy, and development reinforces the belief that a linear
symmetry between cause and effect exist. This sort of analytical reduction relies on
condensed, single-factor explanations of causality rather than diffuse and system-level
ones (Byrne, 2011). However, the majority of phenomena of interest in the work and lives
of language teachers are multi-determined, so that no single element, input or intervention
variable controls or causes change (Dörnyei & Kubanyiova, 2014; Hiver, 2018; Hiver, Kim,
& Kim, 2018). This links back to my earlier suggestion that complexity perspectives in
language teacher research necessitate a focus on wholes and on relationships.
Failing to account for the dependence of a system’s behavior on both its current and
past environment, the time-scale of change, the context, and the crucial question of agency
in explaining development or outcomes is a “fundamental error” in intervention research
(Byrne & Callaghan, 2014, p. 258). Even in the medical sciences, where intervention built
on randomized controlled trials rules supreme, a multifactorial, related and intersequenced
understanding of etiology and causal explanations is state of the art (e.g., Kleinberg &
Hripcsak, 2011). It is not hard to see that the notion of empirical explanation driven by
simple, singular, and linear causes has serious flaws (Byrne, 2011; Jörg, 2011). Complexity
instead turns our attention in teacher research toward developing a different logic of
explanation—one that is complex (i.e., multivariate, multi-level, and path-dependent) and
dynamic (i.e., involving contingent, co-adaptive processes that are non-proportional)
(Cochran-Smith et al., 2014; Sanford et al., 2015). On the upside, however, the work and
lives of language teachers actually involves many different elements and influences, all of
which may be acting together at the same time (Atkinson, 2017), which is why this mindset
allows for a much more ecologically valid way of enacting change in language teacher
motivation, autonomy, and development (Grossman et al., 2009). To round off this section
I propose several guiding principles for doing language teacher motivation, autonomy, and
development research in ways that correspond with the conceptual tools and principles

14
outlined earlier.
Focus on relations between open systems in context: If systems are the fundamental
unit of analysis in language teacher research and represent relational building blocks for
dynamic and situated outcomes, identifying the key relations at play for shaping particular
outcomes of teacher motivation, autonomy, and development is a crucial first step for
language teacher research that adopts this perspective (Mercer, 2016). Establishing these
relations and the contribution of contexts to language teacher motivation, autonomy, and
development is a necessary step to doing language teacher research that is both meaningful
and powerful from a complexity perspective. This is also important in avoiding a reliance
on decomposing an object of interest into discrete elements or variables in teacher research
(Fransson & Grannäs, 2013). There are likely to be a handful of central relational links in
operation that can offer insight into the workings of the system and inform actual
adjustments that need to be made. Relational links can loop in bi-directional cycles where
reciprocal and recursive flows of causes and effects add another dimension to how systems
come to be what they are, or come to behave as they do. There may also be various
peripheral—and in some instances even hidden—relations between the system and its
context that may have an impact on, and in turn to be impacted by, the outcome.
Deciphering these cycles is likely to result in completely new ways of thinking about
engineering outcomes in teacher-related research (Cochran-Smith et al., 2014; Sanford et
al., 2015).
Take time and change into account: Particularly in the complex and multilayered
settings where language teacher motivation, autonomy, and development phenomena are
situated, the point of departure for effecting change may not always be what it appears to
be (Larsen-Freeman, 2012, 2016). The processes and mechanisms for system intervention
are only valid once they are rooted within a timeframe. A system’s previous history no
doubt influences any subsequent outcomes, but more importantly this history provides the
initial timeframe which is necessary to begin thinking about configuring interventions.
Time and change, thus, contribute to an expanding picture of how effects can be shaped to
impact the work and lives of teachers (McDonald, Kazemi, & Kavanagh, 2013). Outcomes,
too, such as particular classroom practices may not immediately reveal their underlying
cause if the source of that outcome or behavior is a process whose sustained effect had a
much earlier inception, such as a teacher’s apprenticeship of observation. There is also a
nonlinear quality to how effects come about, often reflected in behavior or programs which
appear to have no immediate effect because the antecedents require time and persistence
before the effect unfolds (Morrison, 2008). Given interventions may not always produce
the same outcome. We must learn, instead, to think of contingent, threshold effects in
teacher motivation, autonomy, and development which build up over time until they
cascade into one or another outcome (Davis & Sumara, 2012; Sanford et al., 2015).

15
 Complexity’s value in informing research and theorizing in teacher motivation,
autonomy, and development is that it transcends a deterministic philosophy of science and
counteracts the philosophy that causal mechanisms exist and operate independent of other
properties or relationships. Thus from a complexity perspective, language teacher research
is concerned explicitly with (1) examining agentic systems in contexts and investigating
the relational links that bring these systems to life; (b) taking into account time and
dynamic change in system development and behavior; and (c) understand and capture the
adaptive self-organization that results in salient system outcomes in the realm of teacher
motivation, autonomy, and development

1.5 Conclusion
It is clear that there is no singular perspective or framework that works as a solution
to understanding all the complexities of our disciplines (Ortega, 2012, 2013). However,
there is an increasing intellectual reorientation in research that examines the work and lives
of teachers to embrace complexity, rather than reduce or ignore it (Gao, 2019; Johnson,
2019). And, complexity thinking reflects some of the features that many applied linguists
who study teacher motivation, teacher autonomy, and teacher development already
recognize intuitively from our practice (Hiver, Sánchez Solarte, et al., 2021; Hiver,
Whiteside, et al., 2021). Complexity accentuates change. It insists on the importance of
context. And it respects variability. And because of this, complexity theory has the power
to stimulate our thinking in new directions and to teach us new lessons. It is also consistent
with many assumptions and empirical findings in applied linguistics research more broadly
(Larsen-Freeman, 2017). The most exciting contribution of complexity is that it provides
a truer perspective for looking at the problem space of language teacher motivation,
autonomy and development, and this can empower us to engage with and acknowledge
complexity without the fear of failing to meet an idealized, neat conception of what the
discipline should be or should look like.

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