Language teachers’ responses to educational research: addressing the ‘crisis’ of representation

ABSTRACT

While teachers are being called upon to turn to educational research and find evidence of ‘what works’, critics argue that research often suffers from a crisis of representation. They contend that research reports fail to sufficiently capture the lived experiences of research participants. In this article, I present insights gleaned from 12 in-service teachers who read and responded to a research-based article published in a peer-reviewed journal. Data were collected from the participants’ threaded discussions on a wiki discussion board and individual in-depth interviews. The analysis of data suggests that the participants viewed the research article as both a means of representation and a potential obstacle to it. Contrary to the crisis rhetoric, the majority of participants were not too concerned about the issue of representation. They interpreted the theoretical knowledge presented in the article in light of their past experiences and socio-material contexts of work. I use the concept of recognition to illustrate their interpretive readings of the research article. I conclude the article with a discussion of how a recognitive approach to representation may help us re-conceptualize the dissemination and utilization of educational research in the current climate of evidence-based practice.

KEYWORDS:

• Evidence-based practice
• knowledge mobilization
• research utilization
• representation
• recognition

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1. Examples of research summaries are available at http://www.etfo.ca/resources/eresources/researchforteachers/pages/default.aspx.