Removing the barriers to research engagement - teacher motivation for research-based teaching development in language centres
Roč.5,č.1(2015)
This article draws on several workshops we have held on teacher research engagement. These recent workshops have indicated that many language centre teachers in Finland identify the same barriers that prevent them from doing research. In the same vein, these teachers tend to agree on the factors that drive them to do research. Based on our workshop at the Language Centres in Higher Education: Sharing Innovations, Research, Methodology and Best Practices conference, European language centre teachers share similar thoughts about research engagement: they like the idea of doing research and they often do some research, but sometimes find the barriers in their professional lives too great. Using research findings as well as data collected in the Brno workshop, we aim to discuss 1) the motives of teachers to carry out or follow research in fields related to teaching and learning and 2) ways and methods that encourage or facilitate teacher research. To help us reach these aims, we present the story of Johanna, to exemplify a teacher's experiences in becoming research engaged while taking part in in-house pedagogical training that fostered research orientation.
teacher research; research engagement; professional development; university pedagogy
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