‘It’s definitely part of who I am in the role’. Developing teachers’ research engagement through a subject-specific Master’s programme

ABSTRACT

In 2014, the final report of the British Educational Research Association and Royal Society for the Arts Inquiry called for teachers to engage both with and in research as a core part of their professional role. After considering some of the reasoning and evidence underpinning this ambition, the authors explore one way in which it might be realised: namely, through a Master’s course in teachers’ professional learning with a strong component of practitioner research. To do so, they present three case studies of Modern Foreign Languages teachers who have recently completed such a course, investigating the participants’ perceptions of both (a) the benefits and drawbacks of the course in terms of their professional learning, and (b) any facilitators and barriers they encountered when completing it. The findings support existing evidence for the positive impact of research engagement on teachers’ perceptions of their competence and efficacy. They conclude with a series of personal characteristics that seem likely to support individual teachers’ engagement with and in research, and by offering some recommendations for schools, university-based teacher educators and policymakers in terms of how such engagement might be effectively supported.

KEYWORDS:

• Teacher professional development
• teacher research engagement
• Modern Foreign Languages
• MFL
• Master’s-level inquiry

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. One of the participants in the study subsequently joined the research team following a change in professional role (being seconded from their school to work as an Initial Teacher Education tutor at Oxford University Department of Education). This unanticipated change in status occurred after all of the data for the current study had been collected and analysed. The participant’s involvement in the current paper was therefore restricted to working on the discussion and conclusions only, and we are satisfied that there is no conflict of interest that might have affected our findings.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Robert Woore

Robert Woore is a Research Lecturer in Applied Linguistics at the Department of Education, University of Oxford.

Trevor Mutton

Trevor Mutton is an Associate Professor of Education at the Department of Education, University of Oxford.

Laura Molway

Laura Molway is a PGCE Curriculum Tutor at the Department of Education, University of Oxford.