Institutional Policies and Individual Incentives Affecting TEFL Faculty ‎Members’ Research Involvement

Khatibi, Mohammad Bagher; Shamsi, Esmat

doi:10.22080/iselt.2025.28896.1092

Institutional Policies and Individual Incentives Affecting TEFL Faculty ‎Members’ Research Involvement

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

¹ Assistant Professor of TEFL, Department of English Language Teaching, Farhangian University, Tehran, Iran. ‎

² MA in TEFL, Roudaki Institute of Higher Education, Department of English Language Teaching, ‎Tonekabon, ‎Mazandaran, Iran. ‎

10.22080/iselt.2025.28896.1092

Abstract

Faculty members are important stakeholders for any higher education institution, as they play a vital role in advancing both theoretical and practical knowledge while training specialized professionals. Research skills among faculty members are essential for sustaining and developing higher education. To enhance these skills, assessing their attitudes and educational needs in research is critical. To this end, this qualitative research was conducted by ten teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL) faculty members of Teacher Education universities of Iran. The goal was to identify obstacles that hinder faculty members from doing research and facilitators that motivate them to do it to improve their research productivity and cultivate a research-focused culture. Using face-to-face and indirect semi-structured interviews, faculty members’ ideas were gathered, transcribed, coded, and analyzed thoroughly with a thematic approach. Identified themes were categorized into two broad categories: personal and social factors. Personal factors comprised participants’ attitudes towards understanding research methodology and data analysis techniques, and other issues like motivation and lack of time due to their heavy workload. Social factors consisted of journals’ policy, financial resources, promotion and tenure, and access to newly-published materials. The findings highlight the need for focused professional development programs to enhance teacher educators' research abilities and provide required facilities, which will ultimately improve both their teaching/researching practices and teacher education programs.

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