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.
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