PROS Parlindungan Pardede Attitudes of Pre Service EFL full text

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Research in Teacher Education : What, How, and Why?, November 21-22, 2012, UKSW 617 undergraduate pre-service EFL teachers toward research in English Language Teaching (ELT). The respondents were 38 fourth year students of the English Education Study Program (ETSP) of the Christian University of Indonesia, Jakarta. They had just finished

conducting researches they need to write their ‘skripsi’ when this study was carried out.

Questionnaire responses supplemented by interview data were analyzed to understand the

respondents’ (1) views on research training in ETSP, ELT research in general and its role in the undergraduate program and their future career as English teachers; (2) attitudes toward research (including research methods and topics preference and the most problematic research components), and (3) confidence to do research. Findings indicated that the majority of the respondents were positive toward the overall concept of research in ELT. Classroom action research and survey appeared to be the most preferred methods, while the most

favored topics to study were teaching strategies and media and learners’ attitudinal factor. At

the end of this paper, implications and recommendations for future research are presented.

Keywords: Pre-Service EFL Teachers, attitudes, ELT research

Introduction

Various scholars have highlighted the high importance of research to develop teachers’

knowledge and competences. Kincheloe (2003, 18–19) argues that teachers’ engagement in

researches will enable them (1) to appreciate the benefits of research; (2) to begin to

research in developing teachers’ knowledge and practices, and emphasized its important

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Research in Teacher Education : What, How, and Why?, November 21-22, 2012, UKSW 618 ‘The process of clarification [through research] illuminates the everyday theories people have that inform their conduct and their experiences, and hence the value of the research enterprise to help with this process through broadening the practitioner’s knowledge base and to aid a deeper understanding of both action and context. It should inform practitioners’ activities as knowledge workers and help them to help others, to learn in a highly structured and complex education system’ (p. 4).

Increasing interest in teachers’ engagement in research is also evident in the literature on

English language teaching (ELT). Numerous publications which advise ELT teachers on how

to do research have been published, such as the works of Allwright and Bailey (1991), Nunan

(1992), Freeman (1998), Burns (1999), Brown and Rodgers (2002), and McKay (2006).

Based on his survey on some works of ELT research, Borg (2006, p. 22-23) concludes that

when teachers inquire into their own practices, individually or collectively, that process

benefits teachers’ professional growth and pedagogical activity.

Despite the affirmation on the high importance of research, in reality, not many teachers

regularly carry out researches due to some inhibiting factors. McKay (2006, p. 1-2) lists three

factors which restrict teachers to undertake research. First, many teachers have not been

trained to undertake research. Often teacher education programs focus primarily on how to

teach, examining how to specify learning objectives, design lessons, and assess learning.

Little or no attention is given to training teachers to rigorously investigate their classrooms.

Second, many teachers have heavy teaching loads. Finally, teachers lack of support from

administrators. The results of some recent studies support McKay’s claim. Based on their

survey of 607 members of an international association for ELT professionals, Brown et al.

(1992) reported that the notions of research closely tied to quantitative and statistical methods

and a general ambivalence about the role of educational research in teachers’ professional lives caused teachers reluctant to do researches. Macaro’s (2003) study revealed that the

physical and conceptual inaccessibility of published language teaching research were a key

barrier to their engagement with it. Allison and Carey’s (2007) study disclosed that ELT

teachers felt constrained in their ability to engage in research due to their limited time left

available to them after they had fulfilled their teaching duties and their lack of encouragement

and motivation to do research.

Just like in other fields, research is the main means for developing new knowledge which is

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Research in Teacher Education : What, How, and Why?, November 21-22, 2012, UKSW 619

in research is a great loss. It is, therefore, very important to overcome the problems that

restrict teachers to undertake research. Among the factors above, the teachers’ inaccessibility

of published language teaching research could be solved quite easily because the internet

presents innumerable ELT journals. Many of them are even free to access. The time

limitation and motivation to do research are closely related to the institutional policy. By

letting the principals realize the advantages their institution can get from their teachers

regular engagement in research, to a certain extent they will facilitate the development of a

research culture. Finally, teachers’ lack of the knowledge and skills to conduct research should be resolved by providing research relevant workshops and guidance.

More than one decade ago, Crookes and Chandler (1999) had cautioned the problem of

teachers’ lack of the knowledge and skills to conduct research. They argued that foreign

language teacher preparation programs do not prepare the teacher to engage in a process of

life-long learning, do not help teachers to use published research, and do not provide them

with a problem-solving orientation to their own classroom teaching. This argument indicates

that pre-service teacher education’s failure to provide students with research competence and

skills is the main reason why English teachers do not actively be engaged in research.

This is actually quite contradictive to the fact that the curriculum of most pre-service English

teacher programs does offer some subjects related to research. Research Methodology,

Introduction to Statistics, and Research in ELT are usually a central component of the

curriculum. Many pre-service English teacher programs have even included the skills to

operate SPSS in their curriculum. In addition, students are generally required to do a final

year undergraduate project, which means writing a research paper on a topic specifically

related to ELT. But why do the students still seem reluctant to be actively engaged in

research when they have been teaching? Are the research courses, tools, and experiences not

appropriate enough to enable them to conduct research? Is it because the students do not

appreciate research? Is research too complicated or boring to conduct?

This study was a trial to answer some of these questions, particularly those related to the

pre-service EFL teacher attitudes toward research in English Language Teaching. The decision to

focus attitudes in this study was inspired by Clemente’s (2001) argument that the concept of

attitude is one of the most important elements of the belief system of the teacher, hence, an

essential element to be considered within a language teacher education scheme. A proper

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improving pre-service ELT teacher programs aimed to empower ELT teachers to conduct

research.

Methodology

Participants

The participants of this study were 38 pre-service EFL teachers who enrolled in fourth year

(eighth semester) of their 4 year undergraduate teacher education program at the Christian

University of Indonesia, Jakarta. There were actually 54 students enrolling in that semester.

However, it was assumed that to participate well in this study required certain experience in

undertaking research. Although the 54 students had passed the classes of Research

Methodology, Statistics for Social Sciences, Research in ELT, and Seminar on ELT Research

Proposal, only 38 of them had finished conducting a research required to write their

undergraduate thesis when this study was carried out. Therefore, only these 38 students were

invited to participate in this study.

Instrument

The instrument in this study was adapted from Rieder’s (2010) questionnaire used to

investigate students’ attitudes toward research. The questionnaire consisted of six sections. The first section deals with the respondents’ preference of research designs and topics. In this

section the participants responded by choosing one out of eight options they like most.

The second section explores what the respondents think about EFL research in general. It

aims to measure if undergraduates perceive research as (1) easy or difficult (2) necessary or

unnecessary (3) interesting/boring. The third section attempts to ascertain the role of research

in the undergraduate course and the attitudes of undergraduates toward the inclusion, or

otherwise, of research teaching and projects in the undergraduate program. Section four

probes respondent’s confidence to do research. The section aims to examine the confidence

of the undergraduates in understanding, designing and evaluating research in relation to

TEFL. The fifth section is about respondents, positive feeling towards research. The sixth

section deals with respondents’ negative feeling towards research. Each question on 2nd to

7th section was evaluated using a 5-point numerical scale. 1–2 represented disagreement, 3

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Results and Discussion

The results are discussed below in relation to the sections of the questionnaire.

1. Respondents’ involvement in research.

Based on their responses to the question where they are in their research process for writing

undergraduate thesis, it was found that 32% were in data analysis phase; 39% were writing

the report; and 29% were waiting for thesis examination (see chart 1). This finding

ascertained that all of the respondents had had experience in research.

2. Respondents’ Research Design Preference

Based on their response to the question what design they like most to conduct for writing

their thesis, it was found that action research, survey, and correlational were the top three

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Research in Teacher Education : What, How, and Why?, November 21-22, 2012, UKSW 622 3. Respondents’ Research Topic Preference

Their responses to the question what topic they like most to conduct for writing their

undergraduate thesis revealed that those related to teaching/learning media was the most

favorable. It was respectively followed by the area of learners and teachers' attitude,

teaching/learning strategies, and language elements (grammar, language skills, vocabulary,

etc.).

Table 1: The Topics Respondents Like to Study Most

No Topics f %

1 Teaching / learning strategies 8 21

2 Teaching/learning media 10 26

3 Teaching/learning materials 3 8

4 Student's progress assessment (evaluation) 0 0

5 Learners and teachers' attitude 9 24

6 Language elements (grammar, skills, vocabulary, etc.) 7 18

7 Educational policy 0 0

8 Others 1 3

38 100

4. What Respondents Think about EFL Research in General

The respondents tended to think that EFL research in general is necessary, interesting but

difficult. The distribution of the respondents’ perception on research in general revealed that their belief that research training should be made compulsory in the ELT course. More than a

half (57.8%) of them agreed and strongly agreed research should be a mandatory part of the

ELT course. Almost a half (44.7%) thought research interesting. However, only 36.9% of

them thought the research courses adequately prepare them to do research.

Table 2: Respondents Attitudes to Training of Research

No Statements SD D N A SA M

f % f % f % f % f %

1 Research is a very

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Newell and Cunliffe (2003) found that a higher level of research exposure of a student would

correlate with positive attitudes towards research. The participants in this study had limited

direct experience to research (the research they had ever conducted was only the project they

needed to write their undergraduate thesis). To a certain extent, the low rate of response to the

sufficiency of the research courses to prepare them to do research was caused by this limited

exposure to research.

5. Perception on the Importance of Research

The distribution of the respondents’ perception concerning with the importance of research

revealed their belief of the importance of research in the development of ELT practice. More

than a half of the respondents agreed and strongly agreed with all statements in this section

(see table 3). This is supported by the fact that the response rates (as indicated by the

response mean scores) in this section were relatively high, i.e. ≥ 3.47 (of 5 scale).

Table 3: Respondents Perception on the Importance of Research

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6. Respondents’ Confidence to do Research

The respondents felt they were slightly confident to deal with research. Only a half of (50%)

agreed and strongly agreed they were confident in their ability to understand research

terminology; 44.7% agreed and strongly agreed they were confident in their ability to design

a research thesis, and 55.3 % agreed and strongly agreed they were confident in their ability

to evaluate research findings in terms of their application to ELT practice (see table 4).

Table 4: Respondents’ Confidence to do Research

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7. Respondents’ Positive Feelings toward Research

The distribution of the respondents’ perception concerning with their positive feelings toward research revealed their slightly high fondness of research. More than a half (57.9 %) of them

stated that they enjoyed discussing about ELT research. A half (50 %) said they enjoyed

reading ELT research papers. More than 66 % found people who do research very interesting

to listen to. However, only 18.4% said research is easy (see table 5).

These findings indicate that facilitating students to attend seminars where the students could

listen to people who do researches could be used to increase their positive attitudes towards

research. The next effective way is by facilitating forums in which they could share their

research.

Table 5: Respondents’ Positive Feelings toward Research

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8. Respondents’ Negative Feelings toward Research

Findings concerning the respondents’ slightly high fondness of research were consistent with

the findings about their negative feelings to research. Only 23.7% agreed and disagreed they

would not enjoy working on a research thesis. Those who agreed and strongly agreed that

reading research papers is boring, research is stressful, and research make them stressful was

less than 30%. Since the response-rate to the statements that research is difficult and time

consuming was slightly high, it was possible that these two perceptions were the reasons why

they had negative feelings toward research.

Table 6: Respondents’ Negative Feelings toward Research

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Conclusion

As revealed through the findings of this study, a majority of the respondents viewed research

necessary, important, and interesting. More than a half of them appeared to be positive

toward the overall concept of research in ELT. Their attitude to the research and its role in

their undergraduate course and future profession was quite positive, and they were slightly

confident about their ability to understand research and research terminology related to

English teacher education.

However, most of the respondents viewed research difficult. This was supported by their

perception that the research courses did not adequately prepare them to do research. Another

reason for this perception was that the majority of them did not yet read and discussed

research papers extensively.

The findings also indicated that to increase their positive attitudes towards research among

students, facilitating them to attend seminars where they could listen to people who do

researches could be used to increase their seemed quite strategic. The next effective way was

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REFERENCES

Allison, D. and J. Carey. (2007). What do university language teachers say about language

teaching research? TESL Canada Journal 24/2: 61–81.

Allwright, D. and K. M. Bailey. (1991). Focus on the Language Classroom: An Introduction to Classroom Research for Teachers. Cambridge University Press.

Borg, S. (2006) Conditions for Teacher Research. In English Teaching Forum No.4. [Online]

Available: http://exchanges.state.gov/englishteaching/forum/archives /docs/06-44-4-d.pdf [10

June, 2009]

Brown, H. D. and T. S. Rodgers. (2002). Doing second language research. Oxford

University Press.

Brown, J. D., M. Knowles, D. Murray, J. Neu, and E. Violand-Sanchez. (1992). The Place of Research within the TESOL Organization. TESOL.

Burns, A. (1999). Collaborative action research for english language teachers. Cambridge

University Press.

Clemente, M (2001). Teachers’ attitudes within a self-directed language learning scheme. System Volume 29, Issue 1 , March 2001, Pages 45-67

Crookes, G. and Chandler, P. (1999). Introducing action research into post-secondary foreign

language teacher education. Second Language Teaching & Curriculum Center.

Freeman, D. (1998). Doing teacher research. Heinle and Heinle.

Kincheloe, J. (2003). Teachers as researchers: Qualitative inquiry as a path to empowerment

(2nd Ed.). Falmer.

Macaro, E. (2003). Teaching and learning a second language: a guide to recent research and

its applications. Continuum.

McKay, S.L. (2006) Researching second language classrooms. New Jersey: Lawrence

Erlbaum Associates, Inc., Publishers.

Newell, D. and Cunliffe, C. (20030. Attitudes toward research in undergraduate Chiropractic

students. Clinical Chiropractic, 6(3–4):109–119.

Nunan, D. (1992). Research methods in language learning. Cambridge: Cambridge

University.

Radnor, H. (2002). Rresearching your professional practice. Buckingham: Open University

Press.

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Appendix

Attitudes of Pre-Service EFL Teachers toward Research

Dear participants,

This questionnaire aims to collect data for studying the attitudes of undergraduate pre-service EFL teachers at the English Teaching Study Program (ETSP) of the Christian University of Indonesia toward research in English Language Teaching (ELT). It consists of two sections. Please read each instruction and item carefully before responding. Please note that this questionnaire is anonymous. Please do not write your name or make any other markings that may identify you.

Thanks for participating.

Section A

To complete the following two items, put a check () in the appropriate block

1. Where are you in the research process?

(a) Data analysis.

(b) Thesis write up.

(c) Waiting for thesis to be examined

2. Among the followings, which design do you like most to conduct for writing your thesis?

3. Among the followings, which topic do you like most to study for writing your thesis?

(a) Teaching / learning strategies

(b) Teaching/learning media

(c) Teaching/learning materials

(d) Student's progress assessment (evaluation)

(e) Learners and teachers' attitude, perception

(f) Language elements (grammar, skills, vocabulary, pronunciation, etc.)

(g) Educational policy

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Section B

To complete this questionnaire please indicate your agreement or disagreement degree by

putting a check () in the appropriate block.

(SD= strongly disagree; D= disagree; U= uncertain; A = agree; SA = strongly agree)

Statements SD D N A SA

1. Research is a very interesting subject.

2. The research courses adequately prepare me to do research.

3. Research training should be a mandatory part of the ELT

course.

4. The research subjects taught at ETSP are very complicated

5. Further training in research methodology is necessary.

6. Research training in the ELT course is NOT necessary.

7. Research is important for identifying and investigating

problems in ELT.

8. Research is important in the recognition and development of

the ELT profession.

9. Research is important in improving ELT practice.

10. Research should be compulsory in the ELT course.

11. Performing research is NOT an important part of an ELT

course.

12. Research subjects should be made elective in ETSP

curriculum.

13. I am confident in my ability to understand research

terminology.

14. I am confident in my ability to design a research thesis..

15. I am confident in my ability to evaluate research findings in

terms of their application to ELT practice.

16. I feel insecure about my knowledge of research design.

17. The research process is completely vague to me.

18. I am not confident in my ability to review literature

19. Discussions about ELT research are enjoyable.

20. I enjoy reading research papers in the ELT literature.

21. I find people who do research very interesting to listen to.

22. I like research.

23. Research is easy.

24. I am interested in research.

25. I do not or would NOT enjoy working on a research thesis.

26. Reading research papers is boring.

27. Research is stressful.

28. Research makes me anxious.

29. Research is difficult.