O n f e r e n c e

Wearing the researcher’s hat 
 
We concur with Colpaert (2013) that CALL as a field lacks a dedicated research 
methodology, and that many teachers fall into the trap of faulty and low-quality research 
design, with poor project reports that do not present the audience with a solid analysis of 
the CALL phenomena. In her study, Cuesta (2014), validated this claim and posed that 
the limited reporting of the success of the technology being used in higher educational 
contexts affects further project development and dissemination, and makes it very 
difficult to understand, validate and/or replicate resultant findings in other contexts. This 
claim was also found in the present study, as teachers reported lacking the abilities to be 
actively immersed in research activities, and despite their desire, they often faced 
barriers to developing research-
based practices. Thus, wearing the researcher’s hat may 
easily lead these unprepared teachers to navigate through the academic avalanches of 
want-to-do 
CALL research, just to comply with the demands of the so-
called “publish or 
perish” environment. Therefore, for “wearing the researcher’s hat”, important decisions 
need to be made within educational groups interested in developing research and 
documented practices. One pathway could be to establish a systematic procedure to 
sustain research amongst those faculty members who already wear the hat, and/or to 
promote research among the remaining staff (
developing researchers
, hereafter). By 
outlining a research agenda derived from collective work of faculty study groups, 
teachers might view research as a more feasible mission, despite their daunting time 
limitations. In this view, faculty research review committees should be established to 
consolidate a growing body of understanding that meets current academic needs; this 
committee should meet regularly with developing researchers to ensure that academic 
dialog and strategic planning actions can support their projects. In addition, 
stakeholders should have balanced teaching and research workloads and support the 
dissemination of projects all overtime. Likewise, there should be a common platform that 
informs the scholarly community of projects in progress, so that further academic and 
research agreements evolve. Thus, if several institutions developing CALL projects offer 
these services, it would be relatively easy to create and/or update the state-of-the art in 
the field and to stay abreast of global project foci and needs. Naturally, stakeholders at 
the national/international level should also be involved in this initiative, which drawing on 
Gimeno’s (2010) arguments, view project dissemination as a necessary step to ensure 
the sustainability and the emergence of lifelong partnerships, which can be extremely 
beneficial to the development of CALL as a field.