EFL teacher research engagement: Towards a research-pedagogy nexus

Abstract

Research has shown a wide range of benefits from teacher research engagement in the advancement of pedagogy, teacher’s personal growth and their professional development. Focusing on an Omani English as a Foreign Language (EFL) tertiary context, the present study explores EFL teachers’ views and perceptions about research engagement with the view of informing the practice as part of a transformative Continuing Professional Development (CPD) model. The investigation uncovers Omani teachers’ perceptions about the extent to which teachers engage in research, the lack of research engagement among teachers and their suggestions for increasing and sustaining teacher research engagement. The study adopted a qualitative methodology with semi-structured interviews being the main method of data collection. Twenty Omani EFL teachers took part in this research and face-to-face tape-recorded interviews were conducted with the participants. The interview data was transcribed and coded thematically and inductively. Results showed that there was no consensus as to what research engagement was, yielding no generalisable or conclusive data. However, the teachers did report several personal and institutional challenges, which enriched the data on their proportions on a range of ways whereby the level of teacher research engagement could be fostered and sustained. The interviews informed the recommendations of this research and are presented and discussed to advance the practice of research engagement as a transformative CPD model.

Keywords

• cpd
• efl teachers
• research engagement
• research-pedagogy nexus
• oman
• qualitative research