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A Communities of Practice approach to practitioner research: recognition and togetherness

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Jeffrey Pocock
Centre for Academic Language & Development, University of Bristol

Kevin Haines
Centre for Academic Language & Development, University of Bristol

 

ABSTRACT
The question of how to promote research activity among language professionals is challenging and complex. As well as effecting positive change in pedagogy and the classroom, teacher participation in research into teaching and learning contributes to identity and professional development. This paper records the experience over a two-year period of six language teachers at the Centre of Academic Language and Development (CALD), University of Bristol, who volunteered to participate in a small internally-funded research community. This Research & Publications project has provided a space through which these and other participants gained research experience while producing publishable output. In two stages of interviews in 2022 and 2024, we employed Lave and Wenger’s (1991) and Wenger’s (1998) Communities of Practice (CoP) as our overarching conceptual framework, resulting in descriptions of the lived reality of becoming, being, and belonging to an EAP teacher-researcher community of practice. The interviews reveal themes of recognition and togetherness, confidence- and community-building, and mutual support, as well as responses to hierarchy, and feelings of isolation, vulnerability, and self-doubt. We conclude that such projects are potentially empowering and transformative of both identity and career trajectories, as has been the case for some of our participants. We also conclude that research and scholarship projects should be mindful of existing organisational dynamics, of additional, competing CPD demands, and of pre-project research experience. In particular, to ease the journey into research, consideration should be given to more explicit forms of researcher training, buddying or peer mentoring.

KEYWORDS: communities of practice, research, mutual engagement, togetherness, recognition

 

INTRODUCTION
This article describes the experiences of teachers who have carried out research into learning and teaching practices at the Centre for Academic Language and Development (CALD), University of Bristol, with the dual aim of informing practices at CALD and publishing their findings externally. Through two stages of interviews (summer 2022 and January 2024) we documented the lived experience of six of those teachers as they undertook research projects. Those research projects took place within the context of a Research & Publications (R&P) project at CALD, which started in November 2021. This article reports on the experience of six (later five) of the project participants in the period from the inception of the project until January 2024. We consider the experience of these participants through a Communities of Practice (CoP) lens (Lave & Wenger, 1991; Wenger, 1998) and also reflect on how a Communities of Practice approach contributes to the debate in EAP circles around the position of EAP professionals (or practitioners) in relation to research (Davis, 2019).

The majority of the participants in the R&P project have by now published in the CALD in-house blog,[1] while several participants have also published articles in EAP journals; for examples, see Boswell, 2023; Catavello, 2023; Faulkner and Hartley, 2023; Johnson, 2023; and Johnson, 2024. According to our participants, these achievements can be attributed either directly or indirectly to the R&P project, with participants benefitting from various forms of collaborative support, including co-writing in the case of Faulkner and Hartley (2023), help with the technical or intellectual side of the analysis, and peer proof-reading of drafts. It is important to note that such support has not only been provided by those at the core of the project, but also by more experienced colleagues on the periphery of the R&P community at CALD.[2]

During the project, participants met online and face-to-face, approximately once every month, with smaller groups also meeting informally throughout the period (November 2021 to January 2024). Practical training was provided by experienced group members, for example on the use of NVivo, and further input was provided on the expectations of journal editors and reviewers by an experienced editor of a renowned international educational journal. The R&P project aimed to foster a spirit of community amongst the participating teachers, whose increasing knowledge and understanding of their professional practices has had a positive impact on the quality of provision at CALD, both in the formal sense of adjustments made to details in the curriculum, and in the less formal sense of stimulating discussion in the staffroom. For these reasons, some of the research emanating from the R&P project has also been described as critical participatory action research (Kemmis, MacTaggart and Nixon, 2014) by Haines, Hartley, Faulkner and Gillway (2024), who explain that such projects ‘provide teachers with opportunities to collaborate in re-thinking educational processes, and that this can act as a catalyst to their professional development’ (2023, p.156).

This article presents qualitative evidence regarding the experience of the R&P participants, delving into the emergence of the R&P project as a Community of Practice (Wenger, 1998). The article can be seen as a contribution to existing literature on the development of teacher researchers, confirming that the Communities of Practice framework is a valuable way of framing such research endeavours (Hill & Haigh, 2012; Ng & Pemberton, 2013; Warr Pedersen, 2016; Wilson, Wilson & Witthaus, 2020; Khoo, 2023). In respect of the debate in the EAP community around the value of teacher research, we have chosen to report the experiences of our participants through their voices, and we have therefore endeavoured to avoid attributing labels such as practitioner or scholarship to them or to their activities. While mindful of the perceived differences between scholarship and research (Ding & Bruce, 2017, p.111), and also mindful of the longstanding divide between researchers and practitioners, in this article we use the term research to mean both - and we support calls and efforts to inform professional learning and development through research practices and processes (Cordingley, 2015; Davis, 2019; Bruce, 2021). Meanwhile, there remains a need for greater conceptual understanding of teacher development projects in terms of overarching frameworks, which explains why the notion of Communities of Practice (hereafter CoP) was adopted for this research.

We position our participants as individuals with complex professional identities (Ivanic, 2002; Bamber, 2014), for instance, at times teacher, at times researcher, at times both, among other identities. As well as evaluating our participants’ activity through the CoP lens, as described above, this article therefore provides insights into the benefits of practitioner research for the professional development of individual teachers and their identity, and the impact this has on the wider teaching-researching community in which they work. We take such identities to be ‘fluid, constantly (re)negotiated and reconstructed over time within their changing contexts’ (Bamber, 2014, pp.158–159).  As the environment in which they work changes, and as teachers engage in new or revised activity in that environment, this may lead them to different beliefs in terms of what they can do, what is expected of them, what they expect of themselves, and what constitutes their professional development. This identity work involves them affiliating with others as Ivanic explains: ‘Identity is discoursally constructed when people participate in the practices which constitute a discourse, and thereby affiliate themselves with others who engage in the same practices’ (Ivanic, 2002, p.16).

This article has its roots in conversations between the authors about the relevance of the concepts they have previously used in their research to the experiences of individuals in the R&P project. This relevance is rooted in previous work (e.g. Haines and Tarusarira, 2021; Pocock, 2021) which both researchers have conducted employing the notion of CoP. Haines and Tarusarira (2021) explored an insider/outside metaphor in the context of higher education and professional identity formation, while Pocock (2021) employed notions of CoP alongside MacIntyre’s concept of Practice to explore the notion of experience as it features in educational contexts relevant to training and evaluation. Our initial conversations therefore focused on CoP (Wenger, 1998) and the concepts of Legitimate Peripheral Participation (Lave & Wenger, 1991) and Mutual Engagement (Wenger, 1998). We considered the relevance of CoP to the development of the R&P project, seeing this as an emergent community of practitioner researchers, taking a critical stance in relation to the use of the term ‘Community’ to describe the relationships we were observing, as reflected in Wenger’s own discussion of the term:

Because the term ‘community’ is usually a very positive one, I cannot emphasize enough that these interrelations arise out of engagement in practice and not out of an idealized view of what a community should be like. In particular, connotations of peaceful co-existence, mutual support, or interpersonal allegiance are not assumed, though of course they may exist in specific cases (Wenger, 1998, pp.76-77, emphasis in the original).

In this spirit, we did not want to make assumptions about the extent to which our colleagues experienced the R&P project as a community, so we avoided explicit focus on ‘community’ in the first round of data collection in the summer of 2022, deciding instead to focus on Lave and Wenger’s (1991) earlier metaphor of growth through apprenticeship to situated learning (see Methods section below).  This involved using Lave and Wenger’s concept of legitimate peripheral participation (LPP) (Lave and Wenger 1991) through its different stages, asking teachers to identify as newcomers or novices, journeyfolk, or old-timers in relation to their research experience.

Our recognition of the complexity of roles and relationships in the CALD setting also led us to take a critical stance towards our own positionality as researchers. While we considered ourselves equal partners throughout the research project, we needed to recognise differences in relation to participants given our roles in the organisation. Author 1 is a senior teacher of English for Academic Purposes who has been teaching at CALD for many years, and as such he is a direct teaching colleague of the participants. He is also a union representative and branch officer. Author 2 is a member of the Senior Management Team at the Centre, and has worked at CALD for fewer years, meaning that his relationship with the participants has a different character to that of Author 1. This difference in position has been brought home to us during the project as three participants agreed to share their data openly with both researchers, whereas three participants preferred to remain anonymous for Author 1. Our response to this dilemma is outlined in the Methods section.

This article shares the experiences of these CALD teachers/researchers in the hope that these stories will inspire others in similar settings both in the UK and abroad in their research endeavours. We are also investigating how projects of this type may function as an ‘iterative process of critical reflection, reaching out in formal and informal ways to colleagues and students’ (Haines et al., 2024, p.148), and whether this may result in ‘a suspension of some of the constraints on discussion that ordinarily occur in hierarchical organisations’ (Kemmis et al., 2014, p.48).

 

METHODS
Of the 14 members of staff who originally volunteered for the R&P project, ten participated actively to varying degrees in the project, including Author 1, and six of these agreed to participate in this study. The study employed a reflexive serial interviewing technique allowing for participants to co-create understanding and for the cross-checking and validation of themes and conclusions reached (Roulston, 2010; Read, 2018; Pessoa et al., 2019). Six R&P participants were interviewed at the first stage (summer, 2022). One interviewee left the institution in between first and second interviews, with the result that five interviews were carried out at the second stage (January 2024).

Institutional and commonly established ethical protocols have been adhered to in the conducting of this research. An outline of the study and list of procedures and/or research activities, including participant recruitment and informed consent was provided prior to the start. Strict protocols were adhered to regarding anonymity and confidentiality. All participants were asked if they would prefer to remain completely anonymous, which three requested. All quotations below are entirely anonymised.

Semi-structured interview questions were prepared prior to interview. Questions (see appendix) were piloted and revised between the authors. Interviews took around 45 minutes, six taking place in the summer of 2022, and then five in January 2024. Interviews were conducted on Teams so as to allow for recording and transcription as well as to increase opportunities for participation online. Qualitative data analysis was conducted, broadly following the reflective thematic analysis associated with Braun and Clarke (2006; 2019; 2021). While not strictly employing the six-phases of the Braun and Clarke analytical process, (Braun and Clarke, 2006, p.87), the overall process of analysis was as Braun and Clarke advocate, i.e. flexible and recursive, emphasising creativity and interpretation, collaboration and autonomy. Ultimately, our current themes are our own, open to further question and interpretation.

A number of themes emerged from analysis of the data from the first round of interviews. In the second round of interviews, we addressed these themes more specifically, referring participants back to the transcripts from the first interviews, and asking them how the themes resonated with them a year-and-a-half after the initial interviews. We were interested in which themes they would still find significant or insignificant at this later stage and whether there were themes that fell outside of their later experience. We also asked whether there were any themes missing from their reading of the first interview transcripts.

 

THEMATIC ANALYSIS
Through the two sets of interviews in the summer of 2022 and January 2024, we were able to make sense of the experiences of five R&P project participants in relation to several emerging themes. These were: multi-membership; self-doubt and vulnerability; togetherness and recognition; practical support; and hierarchy.  In this section, we first discuss the theme of multi-membership, as we see this as a given, a state of being, which is entirely consistent with our CoP lens (hence our references to Wenger, 1998, in the section below). Next, we focus on issues around ‘self-doubt and vulnerability’, as by January 2024 this theme was less evident than the others, which reflects the idea that at this later stage of the project most interviewees considered themselves journeyfolk rather than novices. We continue our analysis by discussing the inter-related themes of ‘togetherness’ and ‘recognition’, before moving on to ‘practical concerns’, themes that have been recurrent throughout the data. Finally, we move on to the theme of ‘hierarchy’, which runs through these other themes. We would like the reader to see our thematic compilation of the experiences of these participants as a narrative which depicts the development of the project into a community of practice. The strength of a narrative methodology, as described by McIntosh and Nutt (2022, p.10) is that ‘these individual accounts are more than the sum of their parts - they provide layers of knowledge and pertinent insights into particular situations, moments, and roles’. In the sections below, we make use of participants’ own words, allowing them to voice their insights.

Multi-membership
A theme that was prominent from the start of our data collection was that of overlapping communities of practice, or multi-membership (Wenger, 1998, pp.160). This multi-membership can also be described as a ‘landscape of practice’ (Wilson, Wilson, & Witthaus, 2020, p.40, citing Wenger-Trayner et al.). This concept of a professional individual being simultaneously part of several overlapping communities, and of them being active to a lesser or greater extent in any of these given communities at any one time, lies at the core of our understanding of the teacher as researcher.

The premise of this article is that a person can be both a teacher and a researcher, and that the overlap between the teaching and the research community may be greater or less, but that does not make the membership of either of those communities any less valid. In the case of an EAP teacher who is writing a Masters dissertation or a PhD on a precise aspect of Applied Linguistics, the overlap in knowledge between the two communities may be limited, but the transfer of skills across those two communities can still be deeply meaningful, for instance when someone feels more confident teaching students to write academically because they have experience of writing academically themselves. In the case of the R&P project, the overlap between the teaching community and the research community will be large, because teachers are carrying out small research projects that investigate local practices. Nevertheless, the distinction between the communities is important because it validates the teacher in taking on a researcher persona or identity in one aspect of activity, while maintaining their teacher identity in another area of activity, even though both activities are closely aligned in practice. Sometimes we simplify this by explaining that at certain moments we are ‘wearing different hats’.

For professional occupations, however, the social body of knowledge is not a single community of practice … the ‘body of knowledge’ of a profession is best understood as a ‘landscape of practice’ consisting of a complex system of communities of practice and the boundaries between them. Wenger- Trayner, Fenton-O’Creevy, Hutchinson, Kubiak, & Wenger-Trayner, 2014, p. 2.

It is also important to recognise that the interplay between activity in these overlapping communities is not necessarily harmonious but can be tense and conflictual: ‘Most situations that involve sustained interpersonal engagement generate their fair share of tensions and conflicts’ (Wenger, 1998, p.77). One participant spoke of their decades-long membership of the teaching community being in tension with their newer researcher identity: ‘To be honest, I've been experimenting and doing my own action research for the last 20 years to see what worked best as a teacher’. For this participant, the explicit demands and expectations of becoming a researcher in this publication and official research sense proved a source of inter-community frustration: ‘I'm definitely new to that. I don't know how to do things like, you know, ethics requests … I've never done a course in qualitative or quantitative research, so I don't know if I'm doing it right’.

We understand that as our R&P participants are members of several overlapping communities, their sense of togetherness may also occur through collaboration in other communities (e.g. with materials developers at CALD, other HEA fellowship candidates, etc.), and we realise that a challenge for the R&P community of practice is to harness the knowledge and confidence that journeyfolk may experience through togetherness elsewhere to the benefit of newer members of the R&P community.

Self-doubt and vulnerability
In the summer of 2022, half a year into the R&P project, some participants reported a sense of vulnerability. They were taking a risk in stepping into an arena in which they had little previous experience, and this was expressed in comments such as ‘I don’t feel like we are coming up with anything new or ground-breaking’ and ‘maybe I should have stayed within my comfort zone’. For these participants there was a step into the unknown as they were confronted with a transition in their identities from a teaching persona in which they were experienced old-hands, or masters in the terminology of Lave and Wenger (1991), to a researcher persona which was unfamiliar and left them feeling like a newcomer.

In terms of identity, they were trying on a new mantle, but gradually they were also becoming more comfortable due to the spirit of sharing and an emerging sense of community: ‘I feel like an insider even though I have a million questions’. Despite the doubts and vulnerability, positivity emerged from interviewees, reporting a research process that was becoming ‘enjoyable’ and ‘empowering’, and which provided them with ‘confidence’. These realizations were also born out of the novelty of the experience, which interviewees describing their activity as ‘all quite new to me’ and admitting ‘I feel a novice’.  Yet one participant reported that they felt ‘more comfortable now with being a novice and an outsider, so I’m prepared to ask questions’.

By January 2024, the themes of ‘self-doubt and vulnerability’ were much less evident, and this was confirmed in the data as participants had gained confidence in what was no longer a new arena but a recognizable community of practice. Participants reported development, both individually and as a community of practice: ‘I see it as more collaborative now because I've done a few little projects with other people. That's a new part of my experience of research, doing it more collaboratively’ and ‘I think having been through the R&P process, I see more opportunities for research than I used to. I see more potential for research’.

Recognition and Togetherness
During the initial interviews, participants highlighted the value of ‘recognition’, for instance when referring to peer recognition of colleagues’ background and experience in research. One interviewee described how she was asked by more senior colleagues to speak at a ‘deep dive’ event, which gave her confidence, making her feel that what they were doing was useful: ‘And I thought, ooh, so I've been recognized, you know, my research, although it's small scale and I don't have a huge amount of experience in it. It's recognized as being valuable to what we're doing here in the Centre.’ This example also relates to self-recognition in the sense of not initially seeing oneself as a researcher, but through the course of the R&P project beginning to identify experiences that demonstrate ‘researcher-ness’ and provide one with researcher legitimacy. One participant spoke of meeting with two more experienced participants, sharing how their projects were developing, exchanging resources, and seeing how analysis was being conducted. This participant was also struck by the ‘enthusiasm’ of another participant, finding this ‘inspiring’, and concluded that, ‘I should be a bit more like that.’ This participant also felt validated by the R&P Co-ordinator in meetings ‘because he … sees us all as very, like, valid researchers’. Another spoke of the enthusiasm and encouragement offered by R&P colleagues. They had been made to believe that they could do it: ‘I can be a researcher!’.

We understand recognition to be a social concept that is very closely related to togetherness, which is made visible through different modes of collaboration and an emerging sense of community. Research is so often experienced as a solitary process, which can result in feelings of isolation, as described above. Our participants emphasise a growing sense of togetherness in interviews, talking about ‘everyone’ and ‘someone else’ and ‘each other’. There was recognition of what others could ‘offer’ them and what they could ‘offer’ others. Further to the sense of over-lapping communities described above, there was therefore a sense of a ‘community forming’ rather than a ‘community already formed’. During the project, the authors witnessed the development of a reciprocal and collaborative processes that led to the production of blog posts and publications. Typical reflections included: ‘We can learn from each other’; ‘I’m comparing my progress’; ‘I can pass on that knowledge’, demonstrating a growing recognition that participants could find practical support within the community. Community-building and participation were evident through the opportunities afforded to share: ‘I am able to talk about what I have learned from those experiences; then maybe you feel a bit more part of the community’. This fits, for instance, with Warr Pedersen’s (2016, p.685) description of the value of a CoP model as ‘recognition that collaborative learning can enable opportunities for both individuals and groups to share and learn from one another’s practice’.

The levels and types of recognition associated with R&P work varied from person to person. One interviewee explained how the project made them feel more valued, which shows that recognition, far from being an abstract concept, is nurtured through relationships within the community: ‘I feel more valued … From my point of view, it's the fact that other people are coming to me and asking me for advice or feedback’. Interviewees also described the importance of sharing ongoing research through the CALD in-house blog because that leads others to engage with them and recognise their contribution to the knowledge of the community: ‘The blog posts have been shared, people have read them, commented on them ... So that's kind of recognition I guess’. Meanwhile, recognition may also be provided by external bodies in a more formal way. For instance, one interviewee noted: ‘I've got the HEA accreditation now and I talked about what I’d done related to R&P’.

The second stage interviews confirmed this sense of togetherness, which interviewees explained was originally instilled by the coordinator (‘They made it so inclusive’; ‘They asked me to present’). Later, this became a more organic process: ‘So I did informally mentor a couple of colleagues, encouraging them to get involved in action research, not in a formal capacity but just talking about my experiences in the staff room’. Two years into the project, interviewees expressed how far the community of practice had come, and how far they had come in taking on a researcher identity through that community:

As long as you feel comfortable within that community of practice, to be able to be humble and to admit what you don't know. Well, then you don't feel like an outsider because you’re part of that knowledge building process, aren't you? You're all kind of trying to work together to understand the research skills in more depth.

The R&P project created a space in which researcher identities could develop through relatively informal mutual engagement and support. The project did not aim to establish more formal support mechanisms or collaborative procedures; rather, it aimed to provide a platform through which knowledge and experience can be shared. This process included asking participants to share with the community specific knowledge or experience that they have gained from courses they have taken for qualifications or from other projects. This seems to confirm that in higher education, a Community of Practice can function as ‘an alternative to traditional training or professional development programs’ (Wilson et al, 2020, p.40).

Practical concerns
A recurring theme was ‘practical support’, both the kinds already on offer and the support that could (or should) be put in place in future. More than one participant said they found R&P ‘very supportive’, and interviewees reported valuing the formal training events run through the project on NVivo and academic publishing. In both cases, what resonated was being able to learn something new, something that filled a gap.

There were also a number of suggestions as to how the practical support on offer might be improved. More than one interviewee suggested having a contact person available, ‘someone who had experience of the method that I'm using’. Another interviewee recommended ‘having a partner teacher, or just having someone to check in with’ or ‘introducing mentors’, but added, ‘a lot of people are doing the research together anyway, so I guess they can support each other’, a sign once again of emerging togetherness. Others valued collaborative support without being able to offer it themselves, one commenting: ‘I feel a little bit envious of the people who are working together because I think that's more beneficial and more enjoyable’.

Some interviewees would have appreciated more formal guidance. One interviewee suggests that guidance be offered from the very start: ‘I could have done with help at the beginning to realize that what I was trying to do was far too complex’. Early, constructive feedback would have helped this interviewee who ‘was trying too hard to satisfy the R&P project because there was this idea that I had to write a journal article. I thought I had to include complicated theories’. The value of practical support through a formalised buddy system was also expressed: ‘What I wanted on the R&P project was maybe a mentor or a buddy who I could go to at any stage in the process’. An informal buddy arrangement was started by another interviewee but later abandoned: ‘We tried unofficially to sort of help each other out, but people started at different times and finished at different times’.

Time is an issue that recurred, especially when participants were studying for other qualifications alongside R&P projects or when they are employed on fractional (part-time) contracts. One interviewee explained that they had temporarily dropped out of the R&P project because of the impact it was having on their other research: ‘I kind of drifted into it a little bit and ... my priority is my doctoral research and I'm a little bit on the fence about how much time I want to spend on this R&P project’. They explained that the difficulty was not the R&P opportunity per se: ‘it's just a conflict of interest. If I had more time, I'd be very happy to carry on doing it, but it's the balance’.

On occasions, therefore, the project did not produce the CoP experience that we had anticipated, and it was not straightforward for participants to set priorities. Furthermore, some interviewees reported feelings of isolation despite their achievements: ‘I did feel isolated and vulnerable at times and had lots of doubts about where I was going with the project. But I also felt really positive once I managed to reach certain milestones, for example writing a blog post or presenting at a conference or submitting to journals’. Another interviewee attributed such isolation to meetings being held online, something that was initially a result of Covid lockdowns, but which tended to continue due to increased working from home. If they were physically present, they reasoned they would have conversations about what other R&P participants were doing, which connects to the earlier comment about informal conversations in the staff room: ‘When I'm physically there in the room with people … there's just a sense of being a part of this, but you don't get that online’.

Other concerns relate to a sense of being forced to collaborate: ‘I get the impression that there is a very, very strong emphasis on collaboration. You have to be seen to be collaborating.’ This interviewee also wondered whether this onus on collaboration acted as an obstacle to participation for some people, given the time limitations facing staff. A suggestion for future R&P projects was to create a space where experiences could be shared but without having to collaborate as such, suggesting that ‘it could be a place for researchers to go and share experiences and learn from each other but not necessarily have to collaborate’. It seems there is a need to clarify expectations regarding collaboration in the R&P project, as there are many forms of potential collaboration and sharing in a community of practice, and the expectation of participants researching and writing together is only one such form; or rather, when considering multi-membership writing is an activity that needs to be structured alongside other activities in such a way that it is possible to succeed in activities in different communities at different times, and perhaps the envisaged mentoring should focus on the planning as much as the research process.

Hierarchy
The last theme that emerged from the initial interviews is ‘hierarchy’. Firstly, there is the ‘researcher hierarchy’, in terms of years of experience. One interviewee spoke of another R&P participant being ‘more experienced in this area, regardless of whether I knew they had a PhD, they just use knowledge that I don't have’. Hierarchy also appeared in comments about the type of research previously conducted, and whether conferences and journals were ‘proper’, ‘prestigious’, or not.

Hierarchy also appeared to operate in another way. One interviewee expressed doubt, for example, over the relevance and value in teaching and learning strategies derived from more formalised, systematic research. This doubt appeared to stem from the interviewee’s favoured positioning, in terms of identity, as an experience-led teacher rather than a researcher. The interviewee appeared to prioritise the findings of their own classroom experience, cultivated and sharpened over time. Joining the R&P project appeared to pose a challenge to their professional identity and self-understanding because ‘research’ as the interviewee understood it (lauding theory, concepts, and methods) deprioritised insights and strategies gained purely from professional experience. The opportunity to participate in the researcher community involved the interviewee reassessing the place of teaching in relation to research. In other words, whereas prior to the R&P project, teaching had been regarded as higher in the hierarchical constellation of the multiple memberships forming their identity, participation in the project had implicitly if not explicitly called for a re-evaluation.

 

DISCUSSION
The primary aim of this article has been to demonstrate the value of a CoP lens in understanding the experiences of participants in a project that has empowered teachers to carry out research into teaching and learning practices at CALD. Such a discussion touches upon debate in the EAP literature concerning the role of teachers in carrying out such research, and there is a call for more research into the experience of EAP teachers; for instance, Fitzpatrick, Costley and Tavakoli (2022, pp. 1-2) note that ‘so far little research has been conducted to understand how EAP teachers perceive their own expertise or how their professionalism develops over time’. In the following section, we therefore reflect upon the value of our data in relation to current thinking about the development of EAP teachers through research activity and their identities as researchers, taking a CoP perspective when doing so. We also reflect below on the impact the project has had on the professional development of these teachers.

Bruce (2021) sees a need for progressive development in three areas if EAP is to grow as a global academic field. These are the EAP knowledge base as a basis for future research and practice; EAP practitioner formation; and EAP discourse communities (Bruce, 2021, p. 24). In different ways, the R&P project contributes to all three areas, but it is particularly valuable in exemplifying how practitioner formation may take place through the collaborative formation of a community. A CoP provides the associative potential of a ‘discourse community’, but as a site of collaborative activity, it also contributes to ‘practitioner formation’ in a more holistic way than many training courses or CPD workshops - although such training and CPD will feed into the CoP whenever appropriate. We share Bruce’s observation that ‘it is important to conceptualize the ‘formation’ of the EAP practitioner in a holistic and ongoing way; it should be seen as a continuous, conscious, and reflexive process’ (Bruce, 2021, p.31). In this context, the R&P project fulfils many of the collective aspects of development described by Bruce, such as providing opportunities for ‘the dissemination and communication of knowledge to peers and, in the case of research, peer review’ (Bruce, 2021, p.32). We would extend the value of community to any group, such as this R&P project, which is goal-orientated in shared and collective terms. A CoP such as the R&P project, which is in a dynamic state of flux, constantly forming and re-forming, will contribute to the progressive development of the EAP field, for instance  because multi-membership results in R&P participants attending and contributing to the conferences of associations such as BALEAP, BAAL and InForm in order to disseminate and to bring new knowledge back into the CoP.

Through the R&P project, participants have had the opportunity to step outside of the day-to-day structures inherent to their teaching role, to carry out activity with others, including those who are not their regular colleagues, reaching into areas of knowledge that may not be their regular concern, and then feeding the product of this activity back into their more regular activity. This contributes to their own development and that of their colleagues, as well as development of the curriculum and the organisation. We recognise Davis’ (2019) concern that ‘the majority of EAP practitioners are not researchers or authors of journal publications, at least in the UK’ (Davis, 2019, p.73), but can report that R&P participants have become or are in the process of becoming published authors, as exemplified above, and that this is contributing to their career development. A key issue, as Davis concludes, is the provision of appropriate support: ‘opportunities for practitioners to develop their career through publishing can be pivotal, but according to the practitioner respondents, lack of support or even opposition from managers and institutions is a barrier to development’ (Davis, 2019, p.82). The R&P project has been a site of support in several ways, as discussed above, but to an even greater extent, as we have shown, it is also a site of recognition and togetherness.

We move on now to a discussion of the impact of the CoP approach during the R&P project, both on the individual participants and on others, and we discuss the (related) onward journeys of the individual participants and of the community of practice as a whole. Our interviewees report impact on themselves, on others at CALD, including their students, and also potentially on the wider university environment. For example, in terms of impact on the self, one interviewee notes that ‘the R&P gave me more confidence to apply for another role because I was able to talk about the recent action research project I did and I was able to say that I had had an article published’. Another potential impact can be found in applications for formal qualifications: ‘If they're applying for a PhD or an EdD, then I guess being able to write about the R&P project on their application form or their application for funding, that’s really, really beneficial’.

Impact is also reported on the student experience at CALD, as the R&P project has provided participants with a fuller understanding of the writing process ‘and the idea of writing for your audience, and then that helps me to explain that to the students because I've been through that process more times than I had before’. Another participant said ‘it definitely had an impact on my teaching in terms of the way I would approach peer review with the students. I've just got a better understanding of those challenges that they face and how I can try and make the process a bit easier for them’. Findings from R&P research projects have already resulted in improvements in materials at CALD, and in one case the R&P project is creating benefits across the institution as the participant has moved on to a project ‘with the aim of creating a set of guidelines for senior management at the university’.

Two years into the R&P project, there has been a tangible impact on its participants and on the learning and teaching environment in which they work. We are now considering the onward journeys both of the individual participants and of the community of practice as a whole. Interviewees describe momentum in their research journeys: ‘I definitely want to carry on researching after this case study is published. I'd want to carry on publishing, maybe a journal article and maybe carry on looking at similar topics that I've started ... I can see it building to more research and more publications’. Another person described the value in terms of confidence-building, noting that they are now better equipped to ask the right questions and to accept the vulnerability inherent to academic research, including the ability ‘to admit what you don't know, because you're more aware of what you don't know’. It is clear that the development of the R&P project as a separate entity to more formal routes to knowledge acquisition, be that CPD or traditional qualifications, has created another dimension for development alongside those activities. As a CoP, the R&P project has engendered a sense of togetherness as well as different forms of mutual recognition, as described by Wenger: ‘By recognizing the mutuality of our participation, we become part of each other’ (Wenger, 1998, p.56).

 

CONCLUSION
This study has shown that the R&P project has the potential to bring people together, increasing their sense of a researcher identity, and providing them with different forms of recognition. This recognition has included publications, dialogues with colleagues about in-house blog posts, the opportunity to present at conferences, and in some cases the chance to move into other roles in the university. As with any organisation, there are issues of hierarchy; there is a history and a culture in the organisation that individuals will experience differently. The study shows that while the project created opportunities for many of the participants, and it resulted in impact at a variety of levels, it has not produced results in equal measure for all participants. Some interviewees experienced frustration with a lack of time and even isolation. Despite this, the first two years of the project produced tangible results in terms of publications as well as proving a positive developmental experience for many participants, meaning that there is a foundation from which to grow. In order for the process to continue to achieve its potential, and for all participants to continue to experience both togetherness and recognition, there is a need for greater practical support. We need to ensure that we continue to involve the more experienced journeyfolk in such a way that newcomers feel supported and recognised as valued members of the community. We also need to ensure that we can offer these journeyfolk further opportunities for growth through the community of practice as they continue to develop further in the other arenas in which they are active.

Addresses for correspondence: jp18942@bristol.ac.uk, kevin.haines@bristol.ac.uk

 

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APPENDIX

Stage One
Your initial interviews during the early stages of the R&P project (Summer 2022)

Initial Questions for Participants

Please briefly tell us your research experience. What is your current research project?

  • What do you understand by the term research?
  • In what ways if any has your previous research experience been recognised, valued, and used by the organisation (university, faculty, department, etc.)?
  • Lave and Wenger describe a three-stage trajectory through a community of practice beginning with the ‘novice’, next the ‘journeyperson’, and ending with the ‘old-timer’? At what point - ‘novice’, ‘journeyperson’, or ‘old-timer’ - would you say you are on your research journey? Why?
  • Are there times when you feel more like one – ‘novice’, ‘journeyman’, or ‘old-timer’ - than another? Under which circumstances?
  • Are you aware of who the ‘novices’, ‘journeymen’, and ‘old-timers’ are in your current research project? What makes you categorise them in these ways?
  • What have you gained/not gained from their participation in the R&P project? How have you engaged with them/how have they have engaged with you so far?
  • Are there times when you feel more of an outsider as regards to the R&P project community? Under which circumstances? Are there times when you feel more of an insider? Under which circumstances?
  • How could your research journey be made easier?
  • Are you aware of key moments or critical incidents through which you have understood how others (the insiders or outsiders, the ‘novices’, ‘journeymen’, or ‘old-timers’) position you/are positioned in relation to and as a member of the R&P project research community? How have you responded/what has been the response in these key moments or incidents? How have you learned to respond in ways that allow you agency?

 

Stage two
Interview prompt, second round:

‘The data we've collected already from all participants has proved really very interesting and much of what emerged so far we'll be sharing with you now in the second set of interviews which are an opportunity for you to confirm or challenge our first interview findings and for us to ask a few more questions.’

  • What do you now understand by the term research? (This is what was said last time – has this understanding now changed?)
  • In what ways if any has your R&P project experience been recognised, valued, and used by the organisation (university, faculty, department, etc.)?
  • Lave and Wenger describe a three-stage trajectory through a community of practice beginning with the ‘novice’, next the ‘journeyperson’, and ending with the ‘old-timer’? (This is what was said last time...) At what point - ‘novice’, ‘journeyperson’, or ‘old-timer’ - would you say you are now on your research journey? Why?
  • What have you gained/not gained from participation in the R&P project? Your students? The wider teacher-researcher community?
  • You were asked whether there were times when you feel more of an outsider as regards to the R&P project community. You said... Has this changed?
  • Are you planning on conducting further research after the R&P project? In what ways if at all has the R&P project encouraged or informed further research interests of your own? How could your ongoing research journey be made easier?

 

[1] The CALD Teaching & Learning network in-house blog: https://teachingandlearningnetwork.blogs.bristol.ac.uk/

[2] In this respect, we are grateful in particular to our colleague Debra Jones and to Dr Luis Carabantes, now of Queen Mary, University of London.