English-language teachers’ engagement with research: findings from Bangladesh

Abstract

In this article, we report on a small-scale study in which we investigated English-language teachers’ engagement with educational research. We conceptualized engagement with research as reading and systematically using research for professional development. Using questionnaires and in-depth interviews, we gathered empirical materials from 40 English-language teachers who teach at various primary and high schools located in Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh. Our findings indicate that there is an absolute absence of teachers’ research engagement for professional development. We discuss the key reasons for this lack of research engagement. We conclude the article with some implications of our findings for teachers’ professional development and the practical value of educational research.

Keywords:

• research–practice gap
• research engagement
• professional development
• Bangladesh

Correction Statement

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

Notes

1. We discuss these themes in detail in Section 4 of this article.

2. Participants were free to write comments in English or Bengali. All comments written in Bengali were translated into English by the second author.

3. For details, see http://www.oise.utoronto.ca/rspe.

4. For details, see http://www.curee.co.uk.