Delving Into Iranian EFL Teachers' Technology Use for Research Engagement and Professional Development[Latin Thesis]

Mohammad Javad Azizi

Anyone who has lived through the past few decades is no stranger to the fresh life that technologies have breathed into our daily lives. Revolutionary technological developments were also the herald of a golden era in the domain of educational research. With a view to shining light on how the burst of technologies has enabled EFL teachers to engage in and with—to do and read—research, this study researched into their frequency of ICT use in the context of Iranian language institutes, schools, and universities. Whether the use of digital technologies for research engagement is associated with EFL teachers' professional development was a further concern of the study. Besides these two primary concerns, this study also delved into the extent to which Iranian EFL teachers are research-engaged; their reasons as to not being research-engaged; the frequency of their ICT use for general purposes; the association between their technology use for general and research purposes; and their perceptions in regard to ICT use for research engagement. With these aims in view, a sequential explanatory mixed methods research design was employed to collect the desired data. After 146 Iranian EFL teachers filled out the web-based closed-ended questionnaire, a number of questionnaire respondents were interviewed. Out of a total of 20 interviewees, nine attended an online semi-structured oral interview, and 11 provided online written answers. The closed-ended questionnaire was comprised of six sections focusing on research engagement, extracted from Borg (2009); general ICT use, taken from Şahin Kızıl (2017); and ICT use for research engagement, developed by the researcher. To analyze the quantitative data, descriptive statistics were computed, frequency analyses were carried out, and correlational analyses were conducted. To analyze the qualitative data, content and thematic analyses were performed. The results indicated that teacher research is a minority activity in Iran; the respondents read and do research mainly for professional and pedagogical reasons; the tremendous challenges to be tackled are a lack of time and interest; technology is being used to a moderate extent both for general and research purposes; there is an association between the use of technology for general and research purposes; Iranian EFL teachers adopt a positive attitude towards technology use for research engagement; and that technology can play a significant role in Iranian EFL teachers' research engagement and professional development. Taken together, the use of technology seems to be an appropriate facilitator of research engagement as long as the existing challenges and limitations are recognized and minimized. Digital engagement, EFL teacher, ICT, research engagement, professional development, technology