Pedagogical Relationships and Identities in Research Incubators: Reconceptualizing Research Training for Language Teachers

Abstract

This article reports on a case study that analyzed pedagogical relationships and teacher identities in research incubators. Conducted over two years in an English teaching program at a Colombian private university, the study included semi-structured interviews with four research incubator coordinators and two focus groups with eight students. We found that mentoring in research incubators nurtures attitudes and competencies crucial to the students’ construction of their identity as teacher researchers. From the results of our research, we built a theoretical model that describes pedagogical relationships in research education around the axes of power and affect. Finally, we draw some implications about an epistemological shift from knowledge-centered to knower-centered pedagogical relationships in collaborative approaches to research training.

Keywords

• language teachers
• pedagogical relationship
• research incubators
• research training
• teacher identity