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College English Teachers’ Conceptions of Research: An Institutional Case Study from China

Received: 26 September 2022     Accepted: 11 October 2022     Published: 24 October 2022
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Abstract

It’s has been a long-proved fact that Chinese college English teachers are weak in research. Language teachers’ research engagement is greatly influenced by their conceptions of research. The institutional case study focuses on the college English teachers’ conceptions of research in a Chinese non-key university. The questionnaire survey and in-depth interviews of 6 teachers of typical demographic features show that besides the confirmation of quantitative studies, their academic awareness in qualitative research is growing. Most of them have realized the pedagogical effects of research on teaching and the publicity feature of research, though some of them still assess teachers’ reflective practice as research. In contrast to the senior associate professors’ blurry perception of research, the young lecturers seem to have a rather comprehensive and rigorous definition. The college-English-teacher identity to some extent has hindered their conceptual development of research and the construction of the identity as a researcher. Moreover, the impacts of teachers’ educational background, in-service training experiences, and gender differences should not be ignored. This study implicates that the university administrative should lay due emphasis on raising the practitioners’ conceptions of research before imposing the research requirement to them. Regular in-service professional development programs should be normalized to update teachers’ research conceptions, raise their research awareness, and research literacy, and finally promote their research engagement.

Published in Teacher Education and Curriculum Studies (Volume 7, Issue 4)
DOI 10.11648/j.tecs.20220704.11
Page(s) 118-124
Creative Commons

This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.

Copyright

Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Science Publishing Group

Keywords

College English Teachers, Conceptions of Research, Identity, Teaching, Researcher

References
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    Hui Ni. (2022). College English Teachers’ Conceptions of Research: An Institutional Case Study from China. Teacher Education and Curriculum Studies, 7(4), 118-124. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.tecs.20220704.11

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    ACS Style

    Hui Ni. College English Teachers’ Conceptions of Research: An Institutional Case Study from China. Teach. Educ. Curric. Stud. 2022, 7(4), 118-124. doi: 10.11648/j.tecs.20220704.11

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    AMA Style

    Hui Ni. College English Teachers’ Conceptions of Research: An Institutional Case Study from China. Teach Educ Curric Stud. 2022;7(4):118-124. doi: 10.11648/j.tecs.20220704.11

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  • @article{10.11648/j.tecs.20220704.11,
      author = {Hui Ni},
      title = {College English Teachers’ Conceptions of Research: An Institutional Case Study from China},
      journal = {Teacher Education and Curriculum Studies},
      volume = {7},
      number = {4},
      pages = {118-124},
      doi = {10.11648/j.tecs.20220704.11},
      url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.tecs.20220704.11},
      eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.tecs.20220704.11},
      abstract = {It’s has been a long-proved fact that Chinese college English teachers are weak in research. Language teachers’ research engagement is greatly influenced by their conceptions of research. The institutional case study focuses on the college English teachers’ conceptions of research in a Chinese non-key university. The questionnaire survey and in-depth interviews of 6 teachers of typical demographic features show that besides the confirmation of quantitative studies, their academic awareness in qualitative research is growing. Most of them have realized the pedagogical effects of research on teaching and the publicity feature of research, though some of them still assess teachers’ reflective practice as research. In contrast to the senior associate professors’ blurry perception of research, the young lecturers seem to have a rather comprehensive and rigorous definition. The college-English-teacher identity to some extent has hindered their conceptual development of research and the construction of the identity as a researcher. Moreover, the impacts of teachers’ educational background, in-service training experiences, and gender differences should not be ignored. This study implicates that the university administrative should lay due emphasis on raising the practitioners’ conceptions of research before imposing the research requirement to them. Regular in-service professional development programs should be normalized to update teachers’ research conceptions, raise their research awareness, and research literacy, and finally promote their research engagement.},
     year = {2022}
    }
    

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    AB  - It’s has been a long-proved fact that Chinese college English teachers are weak in research. Language teachers’ research engagement is greatly influenced by their conceptions of research. The institutional case study focuses on the college English teachers’ conceptions of research in a Chinese non-key university. The questionnaire survey and in-depth interviews of 6 teachers of typical demographic features show that besides the confirmation of quantitative studies, their academic awareness in qualitative research is growing. Most of them have realized the pedagogical effects of research on teaching and the publicity feature of research, though some of them still assess teachers’ reflective practice as research. In contrast to the senior associate professors’ blurry perception of research, the young lecturers seem to have a rather comprehensive and rigorous definition. The college-English-teacher identity to some extent has hindered their conceptual development of research and the construction of the identity as a researcher. Moreover, the impacts of teachers’ educational background, in-service training experiences, and gender differences should not be ignored. This study implicates that the university administrative should lay due emphasis on raising the practitioners’ conceptions of research before imposing the research requirement to them. Regular in-service professional development programs should be normalized to update teachers’ research conceptions, raise their research awareness, and research literacy, and finally promote their research engagement.
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  • School of Foreign Languages, Heze University, Heze, China Email address:

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