Language teachers’ beliefs about research: A comparative study of English teachers from two tertiary education institutions in China

System 72 (2018) 114e123

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Language teachers’ beliefs about research: A comparative study of English teachers from two tertiary education institutions in China Li Bai Z 1037, School of Business, Queensland University of Technology, Gardens Point, QLD 4000, Australia

a r t i c l e i n f o

a b s t r a c t

Article history: Received 19 April 2017 Received in revised form 14 November 2017 Accepted 16 November 2017

Teachers' beliefs about research are critical to their research engagement. This study investigated Chinese English language teachers’ beliefs about what counts as research and what value research has. Interviews were conducted with 12 English teachers from two Chinese tertiary education institutions. Thematic analysis revealed that their beliefs about what counts as research ranged from book/dictionary compilation and translation, through literature synthesis and teaching reflections, to principled inquiry. The value of research for them was representative of a continuum ranging from meeting institutional research requirements, benefiting teaching, to professionalism and satisfying psychological needs. The teachers from the two institutions displayed differences in their beliefs about research. These differences were attributed to the dissimilarities in their personal research experience, the institutional culture, and the manageability of research. The findings provide pertinent implications for tertiary education institutions and language departments as well as for language teachers to become more research-engaged. © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction Language teachers' research engagement has been a topical issue over the past 20 years. Researchers in the field of second/ foreign language teaching have not only advanced theoretical discussions about the needs, benefits, problems and possible solutions of language teachers’ engagement in research (e.g., Allwright, 1997; Borg, 2003; Xia, 2009), but also published research methodology books to guide language teachers to conduct research (e.g., McDonough & McDonough, 1997; Mackey & Gass, 2005). However, whether language teachers identify with the forms of research and the many-faceted benefits/value proposed by the leaders in the field is an interesting topic to examine. China is referred to as “a powerhouse in terms of English language teaching” (Braine, 2005, p. xvii) with its largest number of English language learners in the world (Wei & Su, 2012). Such a significant amount of government and individual investment makes the success or failure of English language teaching crucial. Against such a backdrop, as well as the inclusion of researching and publishing as part of the role performance of English language teachers in Chinese tertiary education (Xu, 2014) and the introduction of the academic journal ranking system at the beginning of the century, English teachers’ research engagement in China seems particularly pertinent. However, their research outputs, research engagement, and

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research motivation were apparently unsatisfactory (e.g., Bai & Hudson, 2010; Bai, Hudson, & Millwater, 2013Borg & Liu, 2013; Xu, 2014). Beliefs about research underlie research performance and motivation for research, and teachers could be reluctant to research and publish if they perceive no value in research (Bai, Millwater, & Hudson, 2012; Chen, Gupta, & Hoshower, 2006; Huang, 2006). The reported lack of research engagement, motivation and productivity among English teachers in China, therefore, necessitates an in-depth examination of the beliefs they hold about research. However, few studies have attempted to understand English teachers’ beliefs about research from their own perspective and even less have focused on crossinstitution comparison. This study intended to fill this research gap by addressing the following research questions: 1. What are Chinese English teachers' beliefs about what counts as research? 2. What are Chinese English teachers' beliefs about the value of research? 3. How do the research beliefs held by the English teachers from two Chinese institutions differ?

2. Literature review 2.1. Beliefs, motivation and performance It is widely accepted that beliefs hold a central position in human attitudes and actions (Bem, 1970; Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975). Belief refers to the perceived relation between an object and its attributes (Bem, 1970; Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975). People all hold many beliefs about many objects. Fishbein and Ajzen (1975) distinguish between descriptive and inferential beliefs, with the former identical to primitive beliefs deriving from one's experience. Inferential beliefs, however, transcend direct observations. They come from two sources: previous learned relationship, or logical reasoning. Fishbein and Ajzen also identify external authorities as a source of beliefs, which include news media, publications, and people. They put them under the name of informational beliefs. Vroom (1995) links people's beliefs with job motivation in his Expectancy Theory. According to Vroom, beliefs are the underlying elements of motivation, which is in turn central to the explanation about our choices. Vroom holds that a person's force to perform an act i is the function of the valence of an outcome j and the expectancy that act i will be followed by that outcome. That is, if a person views positive valence in a particular outcome from an effective performance and believes that the effective performance determines the attainment of the outcome, they will view the effective performance positively. The person's level of effort will be predicted by the level of performance that they would like to achieve, assuming that they believe that more effort produces higher level of performance. Therefore, motivation for conducting research can be predicted by the measure of a teacher’ perceived importance of the outcomes associated with being research productive multiplied by the measure of the subjective probability that high performance level of research will be followed by good outcomes (Chen et al., 2006). In other words, teachers’ beliefs about the value of research are paramount in determining their motivation for conducting research. The more value a teacher attaches to the outcomes from conducting research, the more motivated they become towards research. Beliefs are not only the essential element for an individual, but central to the definition of organizational culture (Williams, Dobson, & Walters, 1993). Shared beliefs, values and attitudes in an organization constitute a strong institutional culture. The change of the organizational culture from teaching to research, for instance, depends to a large extent on the change of the whole set of beliefs of the staff in the organization (Pratt, Margaritis, & Coy, 1999). Conversely, institutional culture also has impacts on individual beliefs (Ertmer & Ottenbreit-Leftwich, 2010). Teachers' beliefs, values, and thinking are not only the products of individual cognition, but also strongly influenced by the social context that teachers interact in (Stein & Brown, 1997). A tertiary institution, with its missions, blue prints, and incentives put in place, makes clear to its staff the priorities and aspirations of the institution. Individual teachers who are able to adjust their activities according to what the institution encourages get rewarded (Putnam & Borko, 2000). Institutional culture can also form peer pressure so that any deviation from it can be frowned upon or discouraged (Ertmer & Ottenbreit-Leftwich, 2010). In order to foster a research culture among language teachers and facilitate a smooth transition from a teaching culture into a research one within language faculties, it is necessary to identify individual language teachers’ beliefs about research first. 2.2. Language teachers’ beliefs about research Compared with considerable rhetoric in language education literature calling on teachers to conduct research for the benefits of solving classroom problems, rendering classroom changes, and theorising one's practice (e.g., Borg, 2003; McDonough & McDonough, 1990; Shu, 2002; Xia, 2009), only a few isolated studies have examined language teachers' beliefs about research empirically (Bai et al., 2012; Borg & Liu, 2013; Borg, 2007, 2009). These studies found that English educators usually hold a ‘“standard” view of scientific research (Borg, 2007, p.743); that is, research, to them, is quantitative in nature, involving questionnaire surveys and statistical analysis. In addition, they feel uncertain about the benefits that research can bring onto their continuing development as English educators. Language teachers in China are no exceptions in their conceptions about research. They share similar beliefs about the value of research as their colleagues in other English

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teaching contexts: Research should be instrumental to classroom teaching; if language research does not provide quick answers to their teaching practice, it is regarded irrelevant and its value seemed to consist in career advancement only (Bai et al., 2012). Therefore, to encourage language teachers to be research-engaged, their research motivation should be taken into consideration (Borg & Liu, 2013). Very few studies on language teacher beliefs about research have examined institutional research culture. The reason for the inclusion of institutional research culture in these studies is to discover whether a nurturing research culture exists in the institution or the department (Bai & Millwater, 2011; Borg & Liu, 2013; Borg, 2007; Hiep, 2006). However, whether and how different institutional cultures influence language teachers’ beliefs about research are not well examined. Chinese researchers have also made both quantitative and qualitative attempts to investigate language teachers' beliefs about research in China. Two large-scale surveys (Xia, 2002; Zhou, 2005) on tertiary language teachers’ general beliefs about teaching, professional development and research engagement/performance found that underlying their unsatisfactory research performance and engagement, language teachers in China reported insufficient research skills and time for research, and the belief that “A good language teacher does not have to know how to research”. A few qualitative studies tapped into Chinese language teachers’ beliefs about research and research methodology (Bai & Millwater, 2011; Bai et al., 2012; Gao, Li, & Wu, 2000). For example, Gao et al. depicted four types of English teachers on a continuum of researcher, teacher-as-researcher, teacher attempting to research, and teacher. The researcher in the study regards research as involving statistics and a way to approach truth; the teacher-as-researcher conducts research to inform classroom practice; the researching teacher is willing to do research but lacks formal research training, and the teacher treats research as activities in an ivory tower, is thus irrelevant to him/her. To sum up, the undesirable research engagement/performance by language teachers in China and sporadic findings about their beliefs about research merit an in-depth examination about their beliefs about research. Additionally, past studies have focused mainly on language teachers teaching non-English majors while little is known about research beliefs held by those teaching English majors. This comparative study aimed to find out whether these two groups of language teachers truly differ in their beliefs about research and why. The aforementioned literature was used to identify a conceptual framework to situate the present study. Fig. 1 is a graphic representation of this framework.

3. Research context In China, there are two main categories of higher education institutions conferring bachelor's or higher degrees: key national universities under the administration of the Chinese Ministry of Education and provincial institutions under the administration of the provincial Education Commission. Of the two chosen institutions for this study, one belongs to the first category with an established research tradition (hereafter referred to as RU), and the other the second category but is transitioning from a teaching culture to a research one (hereafter referred to as TU). They were selected from the same province to control the cross-provincial differences that may impose on institutions.

Fig. 1. The conceptual framework of the study.

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4. Methodology Twelve English teachers were selected for the study, six from each of the two institutions. In order to seek differences in English teachers’ beliefs about research, six teachers teaching non-English majors were chosen from the TU while the other six teachers selected from the RU were those teaching English majors. The participants from each institution were purposefully sampled (Creswell, 2008) to represent variations in work experience, title, and academic qualifications. It was hoped that selecting participants from these different categories could reveal background-related patterns in their beliefs. Archival records collected from the departments and the institutional websites were also used in selecting participants so that teachers with varied research areas and research productivity were represented. This was particularly applicable to participants from the RU as the English teachers from the TU were similar in their research interests as revealed in the archival records. Semi-structured one-on-one interviews were conducted over 35e60 min with each teacher in their staff room in the corresponding institution during the semester teaching period. Each participant signed a consent form to participate in the research and the ethics clearance was obtained by the researcher. The questions were predetermined but allowed spontaneous change when the researcher probed interesting themes (See Appendix 1 for the interview questions). The interviews were conducted in Chinese, audio-taped, transcribed, and translated into English. Table 1 provides the demographics of the 12 participants. The ongoing data analysis in this study proceeded concurrently with data collection (Merriam, 1998). The researcher started data analysis after the first interview data became available. The reflections and tentative categories emerging from the preliminary analysis were used to inform further data collection regarding the questions to focus on in subsequent interviews. In the second interview, for example, Senior Teacher 2 from the TU mentioned that she had worked for 10 years in a middle school before she started tertiary teaching and that only then did she realize the importance of research. This theme reminded the researcher that the English teachers’ job expectations may have had an influence upon their beliefs about research. In the later interviews, expectations about research before starting the teaching career was included in the interview questions. Thematic data analysis was performed of the interview data by the researcher following Creswell’s (2008) qualitative data analysis model. First, the researcher coded the first transcription by locating the text segments and assigning a code label to each of them. The code labels were words used by the interviewees or the researcher's own words, such as “beliefs about doing translation as research”. At this stage, the preliminary codes were examined and organised to build relationships among them. The codes were listed to check overlap and redundancy among codes. After redundant codes were eliminated and similar codes collapsed, the codes constructed at the early stage were narrowed down to broader themes. For example, the codes “beliefs about doing translation as research” and “beliefs about writing dictionaries as research” were collapsed as “initial beliefs about what counts as research”. After that, the researcher used the new list of codes to examine the following transcribed texts to check whether these codes recorded common themes and recurring patterns (Merriam, 1998). When new themes emerged in the checking process, they were added to the list. The researcher decided that saturation was reached when no new theme arose. Similar codes were aggregated under two broad themes guided by the first two research questions.

5. Findings The findings will be presented under two headings informed by the first two research questions: 1. beliefs about what counts as research, and 2. beliefs about the value of research. Comparison between the two institutions will be made when reporting the findings under each heading so that the third research question will be addressed. Table 1 The demographic information of the 12 interviewed english language teachers. Institution and composition of participants RU Senior Teacher 1 (ST1) Senior Teacher 2 (ST2) Mid-Career Teacher 1 (MT1) Mid-Career Teacher 2 (MT2) Early-Career Teacher 1 (ET1) Early-Career Teacher 2 (ET2) TU Senior Teacher 1 (ST1) Senior Teacher 2 (ST2) Mid-Career Teacher 1 (MT1) Mid-Career Teacher 2 (MT2) Early-Career Teacher 1 (ET1) Early-Career Teacher 2 (ET2)

Work experience

Qualifications

Academic title

33 years 28 years 17 years 13years 8 years 3 years

Masters Bachelors PhD Masters Masters Masters

Professor Associate Professor Professor Associate professor Lecturer Lecturer

30 years 25 years 16 years 16 years 10 years 3 years

Bachelors Bachelors Masters Bachelors Bachelors Masters

Associate Associate Associate Lecturer Lecturer Associate

professor professor professor

lecturer

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5.1. Understanding about what counted as research The senior and mid-career English teachers from the TU experienced many changes in the tertiary English education as well as in the TU history over the past decades. These changes influenced their beliefs about what counted as research. The interview data showed that their beliefs about what research was underwent three phases. The first phase was in the 1980s and 1990s when book/dictionary compilation and translation were the principal forms of “research” and expectations about research among language teachers. ST1 recalled that in the early 1980s when she began her teaching career, “the whole country was in a period of reconstruction [from the Cultural Revolution]”. As a typical example of her generation of English teachers for whom compiling dictionaries/textbooks and translating books had been the dominant form of research in most of her career, she felt it unacceptable that those outputs did not count as research in recent years. However, she was aware of the difference between her favourite form of research and research article writing: I feel that I am least confident in research article writing. Writing articles is creative work. My old research works were sometimes transplanting and quite different from article writing. Take translation as an example. Lu Xun (a well-known Chinese writer and translator) at his time regarded it as creative, but it is still based on something. (ST1) Some mid-career teachers reported similar experience of getting involved in textbook/dictionary compilation and translation. However, as research article publications in national-level journals became compulsory for promotion in their mid-career years (in the new century), they were able to shift from their old beliefs about research to the new one: It seemed to me that compiling dictionaries and doing some translation work was all that research meant. Now when I look back at them, they are not research but should count as practice, or they should not count as research in the strict sense. (MT2) The second phase of beliefs about research overlapped with the first phase in time, that is, although textbook/dictionary compilation and translation had dominated these teachers' research activities, research articles had always been a legitimate form of research outputs in the TU. However, most of the articles they produced were “a synthesis of literature or reflection about teaching” (MT2) which was “very shallow, not rich” and “lacked theoretical support” (MT1). Two participants provided an explanation for such a phenomenon, “The requirements for becoming a lecturer were not as high. As long as you were willing to write, you could get them published in any place, even if on the additional issues of journals” (MT2), and “promotion to professors didn't require real quality research” (ST1). The third phase of understanding about what counted as research seemed mainly a result of the newly introduced research requirements in the new century when “The Social Science Research Division of the TU set up the requirement of publishing core journal articles for promotion [to senior academic ranks]” (ST1). This new research requirement seemed to bring new understanding about what counted as research to these teachers and provided criteria for them to evaluate their own activities. One mid-career teacher reflected on her realisation about what research was, “When the time came for me to get promoted to associate professor, I started to realize what research meant. My activities may still not be called research, but I feel I am doing some serious writing” (MT1). Participants from the TU became aware that in order to gain promotion to senior titles, they needed to publish rigorous research in national-level journals (such as core journals). However, being unprepared for the change in research requirements and the lack of research training left some struggling and frustrated. Most importantly, some believed that writing articles publishable in national-level journals could be “disconnected from teaching” (ST2), as “Teaching foundation English does not require research that pushes the knowledge boundaries” (ST2). One mid-career teacher questioned the limited forms of activities and outputs that counted as research in the TU, “It shouldn't be just article writing. . . . I feel there should be more channels. Personally, it seems that whenever teachers talk about research, they mean writing articles and conducting research projects” (MT2). There was a similarity between the RU and TU participants in their initial experience of research, particularly between the senior teachers; that is, compiling dictionaries/books and translating were not limited to the TU teachers only. According to MT1 from the RU, language teachers’ awareness about what constituted research was quite vague 30 years ago. He believed that most language teachers were not only unclear about the difference between academic journals and popular English learning periodicals, but it seemed that anything that was publishable and related to teaching was considered research: In early 90s, teachers in the whole foreign language field didn't seem to realize what research was. Or at least very few did. So at that time publishing a research article or writing a little thing that does not count as research today [an article of 800 or 1000 words shouldn't be called a research article] seemed a lot easier. (MT1) This was echoed by the other mid-career teacher from the RU who shared this experience of publishing in language learning magazines, “I started from researching an English word and that kind of simplest stuff. I got them published in those language learning periodicals” (MT2). His genuine understanding about what constituted research started from his master's course, “I found that postgraduate course didn't bring any substantial improvement to my language skills per se, but provided me with academic way of thinking” (MT2). ST1, a productive researcher from the RU, agreed, “(S)ystematic language research didn't begin until I did my master's in Australia” (ST1), although he admitted that translating and dictionary compiling were “how I was led onto the road [to research] by those senior teachers”. Some participants believed that knowledge

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accumulation was required in order to do language research, as commented by MT2, “If you talk about research interests or things like that, it is basically untrue at one's early years”. According to him, a language teacher's understanding about what counted as research developed with their understanding about the field. While senior and mid-career English teachers from the RU developed their beliefs about what counted as research as the English language field in China gradually became mature and as they accumulated in-depth knowledge about the field, the early-career teachers were more fortunate. One of them was a critical reader and thinker, and such a personal trait may have provided him with a short cut in his research career: My first journal article was published when I was teaching in the middle school. . . . The article was about Communicative English Teaching and IELTS training. I was interested in the topic, and wrote the article based on some reading. (ET1) Although his remarks seemed to reveal that his first publication was an opinion paper, later he did vary his research outputs to include empirical research on teaching, book reviews, theoretical discussion, and literature critiques. ET2 believed that her master's supervisor played a key role in inducting her into the research career so that her beliefs about research aligned with the definition about researchda principled inquiry: As soon as I graduated, I started collaboration with my supervisor. All my research is along the line of my master's thesis. A bigger progress was made last year. I applied for the institutional Grant for Young Teachers, so I feel more focused about my research field (ET2). ST2, also one of the few bachelor's degree holders at the RU, was not interested in research. He believed that research was the theorisation of practice, but it “won't help teaching too much. I have a lot of personal experiences [in intercultural communication]. I summed them up, and tell them in class as little stories or anecdotes. Students like them and they bring good classroom effects” (ST2). 5.2. Beliefs about the value of research The TU participants seemed to judge the value of research with two major yardsticks: whether research benefited teaching and whether research provided personal gains, such as career advancement. They were all positive about the pedagogical value of research. Such a belief was derived from personal experience for some or from the rhetoric of the language education field for others. One of the mid-career teachers was receiving research training at a research university. Two months of further learning brought her revelations about the value of research for teaching: When you conduct research, you will do a lot of literature reading, which improves you as an English teacher. . . . If you have a better theoretical understanding of the matter, you can perform even better, and you can teach to the point. (MT2) One of the early-career teachers from the TU believed that reading and summarising literature benefited her teaching of listening skills although her research engagement was limited to literature reading and synthesis. The other early-career teacher was also affirmative that research “should be practical to teaching” (ET2), but had been focusing on teaching during her first years since entering the profession. Judging research in a linear way could prevent language teachers from perceiving the broader value of research. For example, MT1 from the TU related one experience of conducting research. He believed that the project “provided insight into teaching. I learned that theories need to be examined in practice and use of teaching methods depends on context” (MT1). Research only seemed to confirm some commonsensical knowledge with which his teaching experience already equipped him. ST2 also expressed the same sentiment when she complained about the irrelevance of national-level journal articles to their undergraduate teaching and her point was supported by MT2, “All those foreign language journals are too high, too theoretical to be accessible and comprehensible. They have lost their purpose as references. Their conclusions are all common sense. . . . Only the process of proving them is complex” (MT2). Thus, it seemed that the way that research articles were presented may have limited these English teachers’ beliefs about the value of research. The old forms of “research” such as translation and dictionary/textbook compilation brought psychological satisfaction, because they were well within the capabilities of the senior and mid-career teachers from the TU. However, when research article publications became compulsory for promotion, they were forced to step out of their comfort zone, and research was then viewed negatively. Some senior and mid-career English teachers seemed to have encountered enormous difficulties in meeting the new institutional research requirements to gain promotion. Their frustration formed a sharp contrast with what they had felt in compiling books/dictionaries or translating, “I loved translation. . . .It was interesting to write dictionary entries” (ST1). Interestingly, some early-career teachers from the TU also regarded research only as a means of increasing their chance for promotion. As promotion was not that pressing for them (at the TU, a master's degree holder will automatically become a lecturer after three years of working), an indifferent attitude towards research was developed, “Some don't care much about it [research]”, as “they may have a moonlight job. They don't care about the monetary benefits that promotion can bring about” (ET1). Different from the TU, the RU was an established research university with a comparatively long and strong research tradition. The perceived value of research varied among the participants ranging from meeting institutional/departmental

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research demand, enhancing teaching, developing professionalism, contributing to the discipline, to satisfying psychological needs. All six respondents mentioned fulfilling the institutional and departmental obligations as one aspect of the value of research. Research was regarded as a “practical need” for “at least I can keep my job” (ST2); other practical value reported included allowing a smooth career path for the two senior teachers and bringing income for ST1. One mid-career teacher remarked, “If we talk practicality, the most direct reward is your promotion, which is vital to a teacher” (MT1). The participants agreed that research could enhance teaching. The following were some typical comments. One earlycareer teacher noted that a teacher should be a researcher as well, as effective teaching in higher education involved provoking students’ thoughts. To do that, “you need to learn how to think and study. Inevitably you will touch upon the theories of your areas” (ET1). One mid-career teacher believed that an optimum state would be connecting teaching with research to achieve mutual enhancement, because “separation of the two is a miserable thing. You spend eight hours on teaching preparation, and another eight hours on research with a change of mind” (MT1). The other mid-career teacher believed that language research not only contributed to classroom change at the local level but at the discipline level: Concepts and ideas in teaching need to be elaborated theoretically or discussed. This contributes to the development of the discipline. Research by senior teachers or professors will play a role in language education planning. (MT2) Research was significant for some teachers beyond the above-mentioned practical value. Four participants mentioned professional value of research. According to ET1, research enabled him to rectify mistakes in literature interpretation, fill in loopholes, and to change malpractice in the academic world. ST1 noted that reading, reflection and research constituted language teachers’ professionalisation; as such, research was an integral part of this professionalisation. One early-career teacher felt that research offered her a professional status: “In my field, research allows me to have my say, as I have done some studies after all” (ET2). For one mid-career teacher, “Research enables me to pinpoint my field of study, clarify my areas of focus and sharpen my ideas” (MT2). He emphasised that research provided “self-improvement”. Psychological rewards were also identified as a result of conducting research. One early-career teacher talked about the “pride” of teachers, “When I look back I find I have done something. Regardless how much I have done, I am at least doing it every year” (ET2). The sense of satisfaction was also stressed by one mid-career teacher, “Of course when you complete writing an article and get it published, you have a sense of satisfaction” (MT1). He was also frank about the relief from the psychological pressure of promotion, “If you did research and got promoted, you have fewer worries in this respect than other people” (MT1). However, he noted that all these rewards were derived from hard work, such as manually-written drafts when word processors were not widely used and less income compared with those who moonlighted. Yet, he still maintained that as a language teacher, more time needed to be spent on research than moonlighting. Research rewarded one early-career teacher with “a sense of achievement” (ET1), but he emphasised that time and energy he put in outweighed the rewards. He expressed a similar view with regard to making a great effort, sometimes at the expense of family life. ST2, however, was negative about language research. He stated that he did not see any higher-order significance in language research, and believed that research in the field was led astray. To him, language research was disconnected from teaching practice, and people conducted research for the sake of research only. He described it as a “waste of time”. Research was “labelling the old bottle with new names” to him. However, his criticism of current research practice revealed his belief that language research should be integrated with teaching. 6. Discussion The English language teachers from the two institutions demonstrated more differences than similarities in their beliefs about research. The following discussion about these differences (the third research question) will be embedded in the answers to the first two research questions: beliefs about what counted as research and beliefs about the value of research. 6.1. Beliefs about what counted as research The English language teachers' beliefs about what counted as research in this study seem different from those held by the language teachers in Borg (2007, 2009) and the researcher and teacher researcher in Gao el al. (2000): quantitative, involving experiments, (inferential) statistics and/or large sample size. However, the negative beliefs of the participants from the TU that all those complex empirical research procedures simply provided nothing significant other than commonsensical knowledge for the language teachers indicated that the Chinese language teachers held the same underlying beliefs about research, which echoed the reasons cited by language teachers in the past studies for non-engagement in research. This finding also suggests that the English teachers in this study believed there should be more forms of research than quantitative procedures and publications (Borg, 2009) even though quantitative research and publishing have become the trend in China's language research field (Braine, 2005; Gao, Li, & Lü, 2001). The English teachers' beliefs about what counted as research in this study appear to be closely associated with their personal research experience and the authority (Bem, 1970; Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975). As reported previously, the senior and mid-career teachers from both institutions went through the era when the dominant scholarly activities other than teaching

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were book/dictionary compilation and translation, a finding that corroborated Shi (2002). Their experience, particularly that of the TU English teachers, in conducting these forms of “research” accorded them the belief that these were the legitimate forms of research, the forms that they were well-trained in, quite capable of and productive of, and the forms that had been much needed in the language field. With such a belief, the senior teachers were reluctant and incompetent to engage in rigorous research, therefore feeling bitter about the change of institutional research requirementsdpublishing in nationallevel journals. This finding is inconsistent with that by Tran, Burns, and Ollerhead (2017) whose Vietnamese ELT teachers’ emotional reactions to the new research policy seem unrelated to their career stage. Although some senior and mid-career participants from the RU had similar experience of engaging in dictionary/textbook writing and translation, they seemed to have more opportunities and capacity to engage in original research than their TU counterparts. For example, one of the senior teachers had the overseas visiting experience and the other started his career with a master's degree, which was quite rare for the TU English teachers. With this experience of engaging in rigorous research from early on, their belief about what counted as research seemed to be congruent with the research requirements of publishing in high-ranking journals. In addition to their personal experience, the approval of publications such as dictionaries, textbooks and translations as “research” from the authority (including the institutions) also played an important role, particularly in the TU where teaching had been the tradition. When education (including higher education) in the country was restored after 10 years' disruption by the Cultural Revolution (Adamson, 2004), there was a significant need for English dictionaries, textbooks and translations. These forms of “research” were recognised by the authority in promotion. Shi’s (2002) findings about 14 Chinese professors of English from seven universities supported such a reality and the belief about research among language teachers: The majority of their publications were dictionaries, textbooks and translations. However, time changed and the research requirements changed accordingly. The unchanged beliefs of some senior teachers from the TU conflicted with the requirements of the authorities (the institution and the language field), causing stress among these teachers. Early-career teachers from both institutions seem more fortunate because they came into the profession in the new century when “publish or perish” started to spread to aspiring Chinese tertiary institutions (Braine, 2005). More rigorous research requirements were introduced and all tertiary teachers were obliged to publish original research. As the early-career teachers just started researching and publishing, the authority could dictate the new form of research and instil the new beliefs into the new teachers without the risk of revising their beliefs about what counted as research (Pratt et al., 1999). 6.2. Beliefs about the value of research The beliefs about the value of research held by the 12 English teachers in this study seem to form a continuum from personal gains, pedagogical benefits, to professional contribution and psychological satisfaction. These findings, from a different perspective, support Gao et al.’s (2000) continuum of language teachers with regards to their beliefs about research and research methodology. However, compared with their RU colleagues who believed in a multidimensional value of research, the TU teachers believed mainly in the pedagogical and instrumental value of research. They regarded research publications in the high-ranking journals as theory-laden and detached from their daily teaching practice, thus having no genuine value other than promotion. As such, they were quite similar to the language teachers in Borg (2007, 2009), Borg and Liu (2013) and Hiep (2006). This belief about the linear and instrumental value of research among some English teachers could provide a viable explanation for their low research outputs (Bai & Hudson, 2010; Bai. et al., 2013; Yang, Zhang, & Xie, 2001). This study confirmed Yang et al.’s conclusions about Chinese language teachers, particularly those teaching non-majors: lack of research mentality and awareness due to misconceptions about practicability of research. The following discussion will centre on the differences in the beliefs about the value of research held by the English teachers from the two institutions, and the reasons behind such differences. Firstly, the TU English teachers held ambivalent beliefs about the value of research. The rhetoric of the language field by authoritative figures instil them the notion that research was beneficial to teaching, so they recognised the pedagogical value of research at the theoretical/rhetoric level; however, their own experience of reading and conducting research seemed to show otherwise: No immediate effect on or any added knowledge about their classroom practice. On the other hand, their institution, as another authority, required that they research and publish at high-ranking journals. Their scepticism about the relevance of research published in high-ranking journals to their foundation course teaching was exasperated by this institutional pressure and their lack of research training. The above ambivalent beliefs may well lead to non-engagement in research (Borg & Liu, 2013; Borg, 2007, 2009), rejecting research outright (McDonough & McDonough, 1990), or engaging in research for career advancement only (Bai et al., 2012; Borg, 2009). In contrast, the beliefs about research held by most RU participants seemed to come from their own positive research experience and meanwhile aligned with the institutional research requirements and the rhetoric in the field. Therefore, most RU teachers did not suffer as much cognitive dissonance as their TU counterparts (Festinger, 1957). Indeed, the senior teachers from the RU were the leading figures in the language education field, and they seemed to be practising what they preached. Secondly, the different beliefs held by the two cohorts seem to match the different cultures in these two institutions (Pratt et al., 1999). The TU had a long teaching tradition, and the TU teachers identified themselves more as teachers than as researchers. With teaching as their major role performance, they believed that research must be directly applicable to teaching to be valuable. In addition, the TU participants were all engaged in teaching similar language foundation courses, and this

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seemed to explain the similarity in their beliefs about the value of research. The impact of the institutional culture on the language teachers' belief was also illustrated in the early-career teachers. Those from the TU believed either that research pressure was not imminent or that moonlighting could bring them monetary reward more quickly. Their RU colleagues, however, were either critical thinkers themselves or had the opportunity to be inducted into the research culture by their master's/doctoral supervisors at an early stage. As a result of the different institutional cultures, the TU English teachers clustered at the teacher and researching teacher end of the continuum (Gao et al., 2000), while those from the RU were located on the opposite end of the continuum as the researcher and teacher-as-researcher. The wider range of beliefs articulated by the RU teachers about research was not only an excellent reflection of the long tradition of the research culture at the RU, but constituted and enhanced that research culture in the institution. Thirdly, the differences in the English teachers’ beliefs about the value of research over time and across the two institutions suggest that manageability of research may be a contributing factor. That is, if research could be managed by exerting efforts, the English teachers from the TU tended to perceive more extensive value of research just as the participants from the RU did (Bai & Millwater, 2011; Borg, 2007). For example, ST1 from the TU reported psychological satisfaction that translation had brought her, because translation fell within her area of expertise and was manageable. Conversely, when research in the sense of principled inquiry became the norm in the TU, she felt that research was out of control due to her lack of theoretical and technical knowledge about research (Yang et al., 2001). The value of research was reduced to personal gains; that is, research was passively driven by extrinsic motivations only. For the RU teachers who had better research training, original research was within their capability although it required great efforts as well. As a result, they believed that research was valuable in multiple ways.

7. Conclusion A small sample of 12 English language teachers from two Chinese tertiary institutions was used in this study to investigate their beliefs about what counted as research and the value of research. The study could have been enhanced if the interview data had been triangulated with other sources such as documentation and archival records. However, the findings from this qualitative study are not intended for generalisation to the entire population of language teachers in China and beyond, but may be transferrable to other language education contexts and therefore have implications for tertiary institutions, language departments and language teachers within China and internationally. An organizational culture is the shared beliefs of its individual members, institutions that encourage language teacher research need to understand the beliefs that language teachers hold about research. This is particularly pertinent when a new research culture is being built. For language teachers to embrace research, they must be intrinsically motivated, and the underlying beliefs held by language teachers about what counts as research and what value research has must be addressed. Old beliefs die hard, and if they are not properly dealt with, resistance and bitterness may result as shown by some senior and mid-career teachers in this study, and could undermine the achievement of the goal of building a research culture (Tran et al., 2017). In addition to instilling the importance of research in their teachers, institutions and language departments need to provide support, such as hands-on research experience, to language teachers so that their positive beliefs about research are derived from positive research experiences rather than from the authorities and rhetoric. In addition, in order to diversify language teachers’ research experience so that their beliefs about the value of research transcend benefiting teaching and promotion, institutions can encourage language teachers to explore more forms of research (Borg, 2009; Xia, 2009) before they gain confidence to publish their research. Researchers in the language teaching fields have proposed research narratives (Xia, 2009) and exploratory practice (Allwright, 2003; Hanks, 2017) to “search for local understandings rather than for incontrovertible findings and universalistic theory” (Allwright, 1997, p.369). Developing positive beliefs about research also requires that language teachers, particularly those teaching non-majors, understand the pedagogical and professional benefits of research. As some of the teachers' negative beliefs about research came from negative research experiences, it is advisable for language teachers to target their own teaching as the starting point to engage in meaningful research. Language teachers also need to develop a sense of mission as they are key players in the English teaching and research of the nation (Yang et al., 2001). Understanding their mission in the English education as well as China's future provides more chances for them to develop positive beliefs about research.

Appendix. Interview questions 1. Did you expect to conduct research when you started your career? Why? 2. What were the forms of your research outputs when you started your career and what are they like now? Is there any difference, why? 3. What counts as research according to you? 4. What is your purpose for doing research? 5. What value and significance does conducting research have for you? 6. Should research be part of English teachers' job or is it an extra pressure? Why?

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