English Language Teachers' Conceptions of Research. Applied Linguistics, 30(3), 358388. doi: 10.1093/applin/amp007

This article examines the conceptions of research held by 505 teachers of English from 13 countries around the world. Questionnaire responses supplemented by follow-up written and interview data were analyzed to understand teachers’ views on what research is and how often they read and do it (and why or why not in each case). An understanding of these issues is central to the devel-opment of informed policies for promoting teacher research engagement, but relevant systematic evidence is lacking in the field of English language teaching (ELT). The study shows that the teachers held conceptions of research aligned with conventional scientific notions of inquiry. The teachers also reported mod-erate to low levels of reading and doing research, with a lack of time, knowledge, and access to material emerging as key factors which teachers felt limited their ability to be research-engaged. Teachers engaged in research reported being driven largely by practical and professional concerns rather than external drivers such as employers or promotion. Overall, the findings of this study point to a number of attitudinal, conceptual, procedural, and institutional barriers to tea-cher research engagement. Understanding these, it is argued here, is an essential part of the broader process of trying to address them and hence to make teacher research engagement a more feasible activity in ELT. TEACHER RESEARCH ENGAGEMENT A drive to engage teachers more fully both with and in educational research has in recent years been a prominent feature of educational policy in several international contexts (Department of Education Training and Youth Affair