Exploring the influence of teachers’ motivation, self-efficacy, and institutional support on their research engagement: A study of Chinese university EFL teachers

Abstract

Teachers' research engagement is vital for the quality and quantity of their research outputs, but there is a lack of investigation into the influence of individual and institutional factors on their research engagement. To address this issue, this study draws from the Research Capacity Model to investigate the predictive effects of intrinsic and extrinsic research motivation, research self-efficacy, and institutional support on teachers' research engagement. 536 Chinese university EFL teachers were recruited voluntarily to complete an online questionnaire. Factor analysis and Structural Equation Modeling were used to analyze the data. The results show that while the EFL teachers' research self-efficacy and intrinsic motivation had little impact on their research engagement, their extrinsic motivation and institutional support had negative and positive effects, respectively. Findings suggest that offering adequate research mentorship and fostering a supportive working environment may effectively improve the EFL teachers’ research skills and confidence, thereby promoting their research engagement. Particularly, establishing and maintaining a research mentorship community with institutional support may create a learning and modeling space wherein EFL teachers can gain access to knowledge, experiences, and resources for conducting research, engaging with research activities, and handling negative emotions and other problems and issues they may encounter while researching.