Bridging the gap between second language researchers and teachers: lessons learned.

Mady, Callie

ABSTRACT

With a view to bridging the gap between elementary (primary) and secondary school second language teachers and researchers, the study reported in this paper identified differences in language register, educators' lack of access to research articles and lack of shared space for researchers and educators to communicate as causes of the gap. There is a need to address these causes in order to narrow the gap between the two groups. Using Graham, Logan, Harrison, Straus, Tetroe, Caswell and Robinson's (2006) knowledge to action process framework, this study provided second language educators with not only access to empirical, applied second language research articles but also offered corresponding support guides in more accessible language and a virtual space for second language educators and researchers to communicate via a website. This paper reports on questionnaire results, and the monitoring of the website use as gathered with Google Analytics, including the use of the discussion forum. The data showed the participants to be concerned not only with access to research articles, but also with their inability to determine the quality of articles. Although the project was successful in that it provided teachers with access to research-based articles, it had limited success in having teachers engage with the accompanying support guides and discussion forum made available for interaction.

Key Words knowledge mobility, second language research, research to action

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

INTRODUCTION

It is common to hear about the gap between educational research and practice (Hess, 2007; Lagemann, 2000; Levin & Cooper, 2010). Less commonly known are the causes of the gap, and, even less so, the potential means of reducing it. Rather than a singular gap, Cooper (2010) identifies 11 types of gaps that contribute to the distance between research and practice in education. She also highlights the importance of identifying the type of gap in order to choose the means by which to narrow it.

LINKAGE GAP BETWEEN EDUCATIONAL RESEARCHERS AND TEACHERS

The project described in this paper isolated the linkage gap (defined as lack of communication between researchers and educators) as the gap in need of reduction in order to make applied second language research more accessible to teachers. With the goal to reduce the linkage gap, I had to first consider the causes of such a gap in order to choose strategies by which to reduce it (Sebba, 2007). One of the identified causes of the linkage gap is a difference in workplace cultures between educators and researchers that impacts on their ability to communicate with each other. Specifically, as can be the case with different cultures, educators and researchers use different language registers (i.e. practical and academic registers) to communicate within their fields. Cooper (2010) identifies the use of different registers as a gap in and of itself, and suggests that necessary skills or a lack of research literacy on the part of teachers leads to their incomprehension of the researchers. She states that teachers often lack the research experience to understand research articles thereby contributing to the gap between educational research and practice. Although I acknowledge and will provide evidence that educators' focus may not include frequent reading of research articles (Cooper & Levin, 2009), which may facilitate comprehension, I also note the responsibility of applied researchers to use appropriate registers in order to reach the teacher audience. Whereas the skills gap places the burden for comprehension on the teachers, I suggest a difference in register to be a contributing factor to the linkage gap, thus placing responsibility for successful interaction with both groups.

In addition to teachers' challenges in accessing research being a factor contributing to the linkage gap, whether due to language register or access to resources, researchers may also contribute to the linkage gap by resisting adaptation of their research results to make them more accessible to teachers. Researchers often prefer, as required for job security and promotion, to communicate within their own workplace culture by publishing complex results in peer-reviewed scholarly journals (Schwartz & Kardos, 2009); journals that do not necessarily value clear language, practical implications, nor frequently offer open, timely access to readers outside the academic sphere. Such divergent workplace cultures encourage teachers to communicate with teachers and researchers to communicate with researchers without shared language or space to facilitate intergroup communication. Lack of common space, therefore, is another factor contributing to the linkage gap.

Strategies to reduce linkage gap

Efforts to reduce the linkage gap between educators and researchers and thus potentially reduce the research to practice gap need to address the differences in workplace cultures. Ideally, teachers would form part of a research team. In addition, as it pertains to improving teachers' access of research in general, such efforts would need to focus on language register and offer access to research and shared space. There are many conceptual frameworks that provide approaches to bridge the gap between research and practice (e.g. Lavis, Robertson, Woodside, McLeod & Abelson, 2003; Syed-Ikhsan & Rowland, 2004). Graham, Logan, Harrison, Straus, Tetroe, Caswell and Robinson's (2006) knowledge to action process framework, although created with the health sciences field in mind, is particularly pertinent to the idea being explored in this paper as it offers specific steps that can be followed by researchers and teachers and/or intermediaries with the view to reducing the linkage gap between these two groups. Graham et al's (2006) framework presents two, often overlapping, phases: knowledge creation and action. As it pertains to this project, the knowledge creation phase provides guidance to address the language register and infrastructure challenges to intergroup communication seeking to (a) reduce the number of studies available (knowledge inquiry) to practitioners through synthesis (knowledge synthesis) and then to (b) provide tools to the practitioners (knowledge tools) with the goal of facilitating application. The second phase, the action phase, encourages consideration of how the information from the knowledge creation phase can be brought to a specific audience and subsequently monitored.

KNOWLEDGE CREATION

Knowledge inquiry

The necessity of phase one is based on the knowledge, evidenced above, that educators do not typically read research directly (Hemsley-Brown, 2004), partially due to their inexperience in accessing research articles or journals which are often only readily available through university libraries. In fact, Levin and Cooper (2010) go as far as to say it is not reasonable to expect teachers to seek out research. Application of the knowledge inquiry step of the knowledge creation phase, then, would require reducing the vast number of potential research articles to a manageable and more useful number chosen for a given audience (Graham, Logan, Harrison, Straus, Tetroe, Caswell & Robinson, 2006). Such a filtering also addresses the inability to access research due to the time restrictions in teachers' busy schedules (Mitton, Adair, McKenzie, Patten & Perry, 2007). Where applicable, researchers, graduate students, librarians and/or others would prepare a synthesis, an aggregation, of such information.

Knowledge tools

In addition to reducing the amount of research and findings presented to educators, Graham et al. (2006) highlight the need to make the knowledge accessible to a specific audience through the use of tools and/or products (e.g. synopses, guidelines). Beyond the provision of articles through knowledge inquiry, knowledge tools could be created to specifically address two additional causes of the linkage gap: differences in language register between researchers and teachers and lack of common space for interaction. More precisely, differences in language register could be addressed by presenting research in the language of the user. Specifically, Lavis et al (2003) underscore the importance of using comprehensible language for the audience and using the language to provide actionable messages. Other research provides similar support highlighting the importance of brief summaries (Cordingly, 2008) as well as simple formatting (Sanders & Lewis, 2005), the potential for videos to appeal to a practitioner audience (Olivero & Sutherland, 2004) and the importance of providing implications for research use (Davies & Nutley, 2008; Dobbins, Rosenbaum, Plews, Law & Fysh, 2007; Maynard, 2007). Further to addressing language register differences, knowledge tools could respond to the infrastructure challenges by providing a space for communication between researchers and teachers in recognition of the importance teachers place on personal interactions and social networks (Sebba, 2007; Williams & Coles, 2003). Such a space has the potential to improve the communication of information and ideas between workplace cultures (Bennet & Bennet, 2007). In fact, Lavis et al (2003) go as far as to say that spaces that allow for such interaction have the power to change established cultures.

THE ACTION CYCLE

The action cycle includes consideration of how to best get the information from knowledge creation to its target audience and subsequently monitor its use. It offers a 7-step process with the view to having research results applied in practice. The first 5 steps suggest preparatory work before making research accessible to practitioners. Firstly, the action cycle purports to identify a problem such as the linkage gap identified for this paper's context. Secondly, and overlapping with the creation of knowledge tools, it suggests modifying the knowledge to suit the context. An evaluation of the barriers to accessing research is the third step. The fourth step requires development and implementation of interventions. As it pertains to getting knowledge to teachers in particular, the research suggests this often happens through intermediaries (Levin & Cooper, 2010). One such intermediary could be a professional organisation. Three of the noted advantages of using a professional organisation are its potential to create links between groups (Israel, Schulz, Parker, & Becker, 1998), its established credibility with and awareness of the target audience. In addition, Levin (2010) posits that such partnerships encourage researchers' commitment to making research more accessible to practitioners.

In addition to using an intermediary, as it pertains to the fifth step- monitoring of research use- the internet offers the potential not only to attract teachers to research, but also to provide a format for research sharing and interaction, and a way to monitor its use. That teachers already use the Internet to find research and depend on it to search for solutions to problems (Rickinson, 2005), speaks to their familiarity and comfort with this communication platform and thus potential willingness to engage in research via an online format. In addition, a variety of online formats can offer accessibility to research and interactive space to facilitate researcher/ educator communication (Ho, Cockalingam, Best, & Walsh, 2003; Morahan-Martin, 2004). However, the dearth of educational research on how teachers use research online (Edelstein, 2011) highlights the importance of further investigation so as to better respond to their needs. Where providing the resources and the space does not indicate interaction (Reychav & Te'eni, 2009), research (Clifton, 2008; Ledford & Tyler, 2007) suggests using analytics to monitor online use. Such analytics can provide information as to how the provided resources and space are used. Such monitoring responds to the sixth step in the action cycle--evaluating its use. The last step highlights the importance in examining the previous steps with the view to sustaining the use of research in the future.

METHODOLOGY

This study followed the above-described steps of knowledge creation and action to provide second language teachers and researchers shared online space in which to interact and access resources with the view to monitoring its use and potentially promoting closer links between these groups, thus reducing the linkage gap.

Instruments: knowledge creation phase

For the purposes of this project, the Canadian Association of Second Language-Teachers (CASLT), the Canadian Modern Language Review (CMLR) and I formed a partnership with the goal of making second language research more accessible to teachers. As a well established, national teacher organisation CASLT offered credibility and links between me as a researcher and a pool of second language teachers. As its commitment to the project, the CMLR provided free access to six second language articles to the project's participants, for which I created the knowledge tools and monitored their use. It is worth noting that with a view to sustaining the practice of engaging with research, the resources created for this project remain available through CASLT and CMLR.

In the filtering stage of the knowledge inquiry phase, I explored the recent article choices available in the Canadian Modern Language Review. Given that the audience was practicing teachers and teacher candidates, selection of the articles was made in consultation with three second language coordinators from three different school boards and three professors from three faculties of education. In particular, we selected six articles to be made available to the project's participants- four with French as a second language focus and two with an emphasis on English as a second language, including articles from American, Australian, Chinese and Canadian researchers. The limitations of one journal did not allow for a synthesis of research findings within any one area of focus.

In collaboration with the articles' authors, I created support guides to accompany each article. Each support guide followed the research recommendations to encourage teacher engagement by (a) introducing the researchers, thus providing for a personal connection, (b) offering pre-reading questions to acknowledge and engage the teachers' experiences on the topic, (c) following an interview format to present a brief summary of the research findings in comprehensible language, and (d) providing actionable messages, post-reading questions and references to additional research articles on related topics. CASLT then provided for the translation of the support guides so each of the six support guides--one per article--were available in English and French.

The authors were also invited to make a YouTube video to introduce themselves to the participants. In addition to my own, two other researchers provided introductory videos for the purpose of this project.

ACTION CYCLE

Making the tools available

The six research articles, corresponding support guides, and videos were made available on a password protected website created for the purpose of this project. The website also housed a questionnaire and a discussion forum that provided a virtual space for the participants and researchers to interact. The questionnaire was created for the purpose of this project. It was created in English with CASLT providing the corresponding French translation. The questionnaire consisted of: a) 9 biographical questions among those questions pertaining to gender, employment, teaching experience, qualifications, education, and research experience, b) a question identifying factors that impede use of research articles, and c) a 24 item Likert scale pertaining to the frequency with which the participants consider research in their teaching practice. Grounded in literature on barriers to accessing research (e.g., Bransford et al., 2009; Estabrooks et al., 2003), the second section of the questionnaire explored whether the following factors impeded teachers accessing research: the availability of research articles, quality of research, complexity of language of articles, consistency of results across articles, the-lack of practical implications indicated in articles, the pertinence of topics, the datedness of the publications and their transferability to the practical context. Similarly, the Likert-scale section was also based on research (Cooper & Levin, 2010) that suggests an examination of frequency of practice bears greater consistency that an exploration of beliefs. The 24 items therefore explored the frequency with which teachers engaged in activities grounded in research.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

The discussion forum featured one article and its author(s) per week for a period of six weeks. Each week, I would post an introductory question related to the featured article to which the participants could choose to respond in the manner of their choice.

To attract teachers to this project, CASLT provided information at its booth at second language teacher conferences, published a description of the project in its newsletter and I sent information to second language coordinators in Ontarian boards via email and to various Faculties of Education as per my personal and CASLT's connections. In order to participate, teachers were to send their name and contact information to CASLT at which point I provided them with the information to access the website.

Teacher candidates at two universities were provided access information by their instructors. As a result, the website and password were provided to 52 potential participants.

FINDINGS

Questionnaire findings

A total of 38 participants responded to the questionnaire, the majority of whom were female (78.9%). Approximately 47% of respondents were teacher candidates, 24% identified their current position as probationary elementary (primary) or secondary teachers with the remaining 22% identifying their current position as 'other' which included PhD students, teacher educators and former teachers. A very small number of participants (8%) indicated that they were consultants or permanent teachers of core French. Consequently the majority of respondents (55%) had less than one year's teaching experience.

In relation to research experience, respondents were asked to indicate the frequency with which they did any of the 24 statements in Table 1. Examination of the distribution of responses for each response option (never, rarely, sometimes, often, always) showed that for most statements only a small number of respondents chose one or two of the options and therefore those response options that were conceptually related were combined: never/ rarely and often/always.

The majority of respondents reported they 'often/always' do the following: choose their teaching strategies based on practical experience (84.4%), and learn of research through the Internet (63.7%). Between 40 and 50% of respondents reported they 'often/always' do the following or it often/always occurs: read research articles (48.5%), learn of research through professional publications (42.5%), learn of research through personal interaction with my colleagues at my school (42.4%), and board provides access to research journals (43.7%).

The majority of respondents indicated they 'never/rarely' do the following or it never/rarely occurs: worked on a team to conduct a research project (81.8%), led a research project (75.8%), read the Canadian Modern Language Review (63.7%), attend conferences that present research evidence (60.6%), learn of research through association publications (60.6%), board provides funds to conduct research (56.7%), board encourages me to do action research (55.2%), have been a participant in a research study (54.5%), board undertaking research projects in FSL (53.3%), discuss research findings in staff meetings (53.3%), and board undertaking research projects in ESL (51.8%). Between 40 and 50% of respondents choose 'never/rarely' for the following: learn of research through subject specific conferences (48.5%), learn of research through inboard professional development activities (45.4%), board is involved in research projects (44.8%), consultant/coordinator shares research findings (44.8%), and discuss research findings in subject specific meetings (44.8%).

The majority of respondents indicated they do the following 'sometimes': consider research evidence when choosing materials (576%). Between 40 and 50% 'sometimes' do the following or it 'sometimes' occurs: choose my teaching strategies based on research evidence (45.5%), learn of research through personal interaction with my colleagues at my school (45.5%), read research articles (42.4%), and board is involved in research projects (41.4%).

Respondents were also asked to choose as many factors as they felt were impeding their use of research. The percentages for each statement reported in Table 2 are out of the total number of respondents. The quality of research being unknown was an impeding factor for 47.4% of respondents while the availability of research articles was an impediment for 39.5%. The least percentage of respondents (21.1%) indicated both the complexity of language of articles and datedness of articles got in the way of them using research.

In summary, the majority of the questionnaire respondents were inexperienced teachers/teacher candidates without a lot of primary research experience. The majority did not consult research directly nor was research presented to them by intermediaries within their associations or boards of education. The unknown quality of research and the lack of its availability were the most common reasons impeding research use.

MONITORING THE USE OF TOOLS

Website use

The website use was examined for the uptake of research by participating users by way of Google Analytics for the six week period it was available.

In addition to the 52 potential participants, four of the article authors also accessed the site directly with the three others providing contributions through me. One Webmaster also had access to the site during this time.

Table 3 shows the overall data for the metrics visits, visitors, page views, page views by visits, average time on site, bounce rate and the percent of new visits. The website was sent to 52 users which generated 1,089 visits to the site from 669 visitors to the site where there can be multiple visits by a visitor. The large number of visits to the site may come from visitors refreshing the pages, visiting from different IP addresses, or repeat visits by the same user at different times, counting the visitors as a new visit. Overall, the 1,089 visits to the site resulted in visitors viewing 2,926 pages in total (from the four pages), with the potential that some pages were viewed multiple times during a single visit. Visitors spent an average of 4:46 minutes on the site and bounced off the site (visited for less than 10 seconds) 47% of the time. The average time on site of 4:46 minutes could be attributed to visitors viewing the videos on the resources page and the time they potentially spent formulating responses and contributing to the discussions on the Forum page. Across the site 35% of the visits during the period of analysis were new visits to the site.

The overall data for each page are presented in Table 4: the homepage, the resource page (which housed the support guides, videos and articles), the questionnaire and the forum page. In particular, it shows the breakdown of each page's page views, the time that visitors to the pages spent on the page over the six weeks, and the visits to each page.

The homepage had the most page views and visits, but visitors spent more time overall on the resource page (over 14 hours).

This table shows that user engagement across the website varied according to page and that visitors spent the most time on the resource page. It is important to note that the while the videos opened in the resource page, the articles and support guides, when clicked, opened a new tab.

The following table (Table 5) shows the overall use of the articles and the support guides. The data here are indicative of how many visitors viewed each article and guide and the average time on each page.

From the data in Table 5, it becomes evident that the articles were viewed twice as often as the support guides (total articles = 105 page views; total guides = 52 page views). Also of interest is the more frequent accessing of the support guides in English rather than French, especially given that the vast majority of the discussions were in French despite the bilingual introduction, questions and invitation to use either of Canada's official languages. More frequent access of the articles as opposed to the support guides is worthy of note because the guides were meant to assist the users in understanding the articles.

The Google analytics data shows how users engaged with the website. From the reported 62 users to whom the website and password were provided, the site generated 669 visitors with 1089 visits over the six week period.

The article and guide analysis suggests that the visitors to the site used the articles and support guides provided by the site. This can be seen through the data that suggest that the articles and support guides were potentially accessed 160 times by 111 visits to the Resource page. The Resource page being the most frequently visited page indicates the importance placed on the resources.

Discussion forum

The discussion forum provided space where the researchers and teachers could interact. Seven researchers--the author of each article, or at least one of the authors in the case of co-written articles--contributed to the discussion forum on the week their article was featured. Their comments were always in response to a comment posted by a teacher participant. Thirty-four teacher participants contributed to the discussion forum. The vast majority, thirty-three of the teacher participants, were teacher candidates. These participants contributed on an average of four occasions over the six-week period with the majority of contributions corresponding to the last four weeks when they were attending classes rather than on practicum or on reading week. None of the participant messages addressed the researchers directly either to instigate conversation or in response to researchers' direct questions.

DISCUSSION

This study sought to reduce the linkage gap between second language researchers and teachers by addressing the causes of the gap--difference in language register and lack of access to resources or common space for interaction--by means of following the steps in Graham et al's (2006) Knowledge to Action Process Framework and in particular by choosing strategies within the framework that were aimed at bridging the identified differences between the two work cultures. In this discussion section, I return to the steps followed and data gathered with a view to determining their influence on reducing the linkage gap as identified.

The first stage of this project, the knowledge inquiry phase, sought to bring a limited number of research articles to teachers. The analytics showed that the teachers spent the most of their onsite time on the Resource page of the website, accessed all of the articles and chose to access the articles almost twice as often as their corresponding support guides. This stage of the process responded directly to the following participants' cited impediments to using research: availability of articles, irrelevance of topics, datedness of articles and lack of transferability to their context. Unfortunately, given the limitations of this project--lack of synthesis of research results and no guidance as to how to judge the quality of a research article--this phase did not respond to participants' cited concerns with the unknown quality of research and the inconsistency of results. Despite the success of the project to bring research to the participants, it fell short of responding to the participants' major concern--that of the unknown quality of research articles.

The second stage of this study, the action cycle, sought to create and use certain tools to build a bridge between second language research/researchers and teachers. In particular, the tools were created or chosen with the goal of addressing differences between researcher and teacher cultures specifically targeting differences in language register and lack of common space. To facilitate offering such tools to teachers, an intermediary--CASLT--was used to link the project with second language teachers. That the vast majority of questionnaire (97%) and discussion forum (97%) teacher participants were brought into the project by me and another Faculty of Education instructor reveals the ineffectiveness of using CASLT as a link to teachers for this study. Whereas CASLT's instigation and financial support of the project were successful in seeing the project come to fruition, CASLT did not provide study participants from their links to the teaching community with the promotion methods used. When this finding is considered in conjunction with the fact that my personal communication with second language consultants did not succeed in garnering much, if any, teacher participation, it suggests several potential mitigating factors to using intermediaries. For example, teachers may not have received the information or teachers may have known about the project but were not interested or did not have the time to participate. As it pertains to my communication with second language consultants at various boards of education, it is also possible that the second language consultants served as gatekeepers and thus did not forward the information to teachers. The partnership was successful, however, at having researchers commit to the study in that an author of each article participated in the creation of her or his support guide and contributed to the discussion forum. Such commitment may speak to the power of the intermediaries, as suggested elsewhere (Levin, 2010), to have researchers commit to make their research accessible to a teaching audience. Further, the project successfully engaged two Faculties of Education in the study. Although such participation may have been a direct result of instructor influence, such an experience may prove to positively influence the participants' willingness to consult research in the future. This less than ideal teacher participation highlights the need to approach potential participants in different ways, through a range of contact and communication mechanisms.

In order to further bridge the gap between second language teachers and researchers, this study addressed the difference in language register by creating support guides for each of the research articles. The provision of the support guides was grounded in the research of Hemsley-Brown (2004) that found teachers to be inexperienced at reading research articles. The questionnaire findings, however, revealed that the majority of this study's participants read research on the Internet and almost half of them also read research articles.

Given that the majority did not read articles from the Canadian Modern Language Review, the most established journal for second language research in Canada, suggests that their familiarity with research may come from other areas of interest rather than second language education.

Given that this study's participants had more experience with reading research articles than those from other studies may also be indicative of the group of participants being a majority of teacher candidates who, at the time of the study, were studying in an academic institution rather than more experienced teachers potentially further removed from academia and less likely to use research (Costa, Marques, & Kempa, 2000; Everton, Galton, & Pell, 2002).

Further to providing support guides, the support guide creation process included the use of comprehensible language and the provision of implications following a short, simple format. Although such support guide creation responded directly to the questionnaire respondents' identification of language as being an impediment to using research, their more frequent access of the full-length articles as opposed to the support guides suggests a desire to directly access research. Such a proposition is supported by the actions of participants who were more concerned with accessing articles than they were with the language used in the articles.

In addition to the support guides as a means to bridge the linkage gap between teachers and researchers, this study also provided a common space, a discussion forum for interaction on the article topics. That the discussion forum was accessed less than the resources page highlights the greater importance placed on accessing the resources than discussing them. In the future, provision of more than one article on a given topic may encourage greater discussions with the potential comparisons that could be addressed. It is also worthy to note that although some questionnaire participants were practicing teachers, none of the discussion forum participants were. Such lack of forum participation implies an undervaluing of the social interaction with the researchers. Alternatively, it may speak to the practicing teachers' busy schedules (Mitton, Adair, McKenzie, Patten, & Perry, 2007).

Beyond who participated in the forum, when examining how the participants contributed, it became evident that the forum did not translate into interaction between researchers and teachers. In fact, although researchers directly responded to some teacher candidates' messages, the teacher candidates never re-engaged following researchers' input. Although the research (Sebba, 2007; Williams & Coles, 2003) suggested that teachers would appreciate the opportunity to communicate within social networks, this study's findings as supported by other research (Rickinson, 2005) suggest that they may prefer to communicate with each other within their communities of practice.

Future attempts to provide for interaction between teachers and researchers might meet with more success if there were opportunities for face-to-face interaction (Jadad, 1999), community building (Dede, 2000) and/or integration of such discussions into communities of practice (Mathiassen, 2002) which may address time constraints (Mitton, Adair, McKenzie, Patten, & Perry, 2007) and create forums that specifically address a community's pressing concerns. I suggest that such additional steps may prove beneficial to achieving the genuine interaction referred to by Lavis et al (2003).

CONCLUSION

It is evident that this project provided its participants with access to research articles. That such experience would translate to future access is uncertain, as the study did not address the question of individuals finding research articles nor evaluating their quality. Upon reflection on this study's findings as a means to reduce the linkage gap between second language researchers and teachers, it is arguable that, despite a concerted, well-informed effort, greater success may be possible with attention to additional considerations. For example, direct contact and partnerships with teachers before undertaking such a project would allow future projects to respond to teachers' specific interests and needs as well as offer the potential to include such a project in their already established communities which they have already chosen or are expected to devote time, With regard to enhancing the quality of the project itself, in addition to the limitations mentioned within the discussion section, future studies could better address the needs of their target community if they determined their specific needs prior to designing the project. A longer period of interaction may also provide for diverse results. In addition, the research could be improved by providing opportunities for the participants, and non-participants, to explain the reasons for their actions/non-action and thus offer means by which to further improve. However, beyond the scope of a research project such as this, it is essential to consider how such efforts could be sustained. Where this project was grounded in the evidence that research can inform practice, this project's findings firmly highlight the value of teachers being involved in research from the outset.

REFERENCES

Bennet, A. & Bennet, D. 2007 Knowledge mobilization in the social sciences and humanities: Moving from research to action. MQI PRESS: Virginia.

Bransford, J., Stipek. D., Vye, N., Gomez, L & Lam, D. (eds.) 2009. The role of research in educational improvement. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press.

Clifton, B. 2008. Advanced web metrics with Google analytic& Indianapolis, Wiley Publishing Inc.

Cooper, A. 2010. Knowledge brokers: A promising knowledge mobilization strategy to increase research use in education. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting for American Education Research Association, Denver, Colorado. Retrieved 7 March 2012 from http:// www.oise.utoronto.ca/rspe/Publications_Reports_ Conferences/index,html#CSSE_2010.

Cooper, A., Levin, B. & Campbell, C 2009. The growing (but still limited) importance of evidence in education policy and practice. Journal of Educational Change, 10, 2-3, 159-71

Cooper, A. & Levin, B. 2010 Research use by leaders in Canadian secondary school districts. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting for American Education Research Association, Denver, Colorado. Retrieved 7 March 2012 from http://www.oise.utoronto.ca/rspe/UserFiles/File/ CEA_Research_Use_in_SS Final_Report.pdf

Cordingly, P. 2008. Research and evidence-informed practice focusing on practice and practitioners. Cambridge Journal of Education, 38, 1,37-52.

Costa, N., Marques, L. & Kempa, R 2000 Science teachers' awareness of findings from educational research. Research in Science and Technology Education, 18, 37-44

Davies, H. & Nutley, S, 2008. Learning more about how research-based knowledge gets used: Guidance in the development of new empirical research. New York, NY: William T. Grant Foundation

Dede, C. 2000. The role of emerging technologies for knowledge mobilization, dissemination, and use in education. A paper commissioned by the Office of Educational Research and Improvement, US Department of education Retrieved 7 March 2012 from http://www.v)rtual.gmu.edu/ss_pdf/knowImob.pdf

Dobbins, M., Rosenbaum, P., Plews, N., Law, M. & Fysh, A. 2007 Information transfer: what do decision makers want and need from researchers? Implementation Science 2007, 2, 20. Retrieved 7 March 2012 from www.implementationscience.com/content/2/1/20

Estabrooks, C. A., Floyd, J. A., Scott-Findlay, S., O'Leary, K. A. & Gushta, M 2003. Individual determinants of research utilization: A systematic review. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 43, 5, 506-520.

Edelstein, H. 2011. Les pratiques collaboratives d'organismes publics utilisant internet pour la mobilisation du savoir dans Le domaine de l'education. Telescope, 17, 3, 140-157

Everton, T, Galton, M. & Pell, T 2002. Educational research and the teacher. Research Papers in Education, 17, 373-401.

Graham, I., Logan, J., Harrison, M, Straus, S., Tetroe, J. & Caswell, W. 2006. Lost in knowledge translation: time for a map? Journal of Continuing Education in the Health Professions, 26, 1, 13-24.

Hemsley-Brown, J. 2004, Facilitating research utilization: A cross-sector review of research evidence. The International Journal of Public Sector Management, 17, 6, 534-552.

Hess, F. 2007 When research matters, Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press.

Lagemann, E. 2000. An elusive science: The troubling history of education research. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Ho, K. Cockalingam, A., Best, A,, & Walsh, G. 2003. Technology-enabled knowledge translation: Building a framework for collaboration, Journal of Canadian Medical Association, 710-711.

Israel, B., Schulz, A,, Parker, E,, & Becker, A. 1998. Review of community-based research: Assessing partnership approaches to improve public health. Annual Review Public Health, 19, 173-202.

Jadad, A, 1999. Promoting partnerships: Challenges for the internet age. BMJ, 319, 761-764.

Lavis, J., Robertson, D., Woodside, J., McLeod, C., & Abelson, J. 2003. How Can Research Organizations More Effectively Transfer Research Knowledge to Decision Makers? The Milbank Quarterly, 81,2, 221-248.

Ledford, J. &Tyler, M. 2007 Google analytics 2,0., Indianapolis: Wiley Publishing Inc.

Levin, B. 2010. Evidence in education. LEARNing Landscapes, 3, 2, 73-79.

Levin B. & Cooper, A. 2010. 'Hew do people learn about research?', Education Canada, 50, 3.

Mathiassen, L. 2002. Collaborative practice research, Information Technology and people, 15, 4, 321-345.

Maynard, A. 2007 Translating evidence into practice: Why is it so difficult?. Public money and Management, 251-56.

Mitton, C., Adair, C., McKenzie, E., Patten, S. & Perry, B. 2007 Knowledge transfer and exchange: Review and synthesis of the literature. The Milbank Quarterly, 85, 4, 729-768.

Morahan-Martin, J. 2004. How Internet users find, evaluate, and use online health information: A cross-cultural review. CyberPsychology & Behavior, 7, 5, 497-511.

Olivero, E, John, R & Sutherland, R. 2004. Seeing is believing: Using videopapers to transform professional knowledge and practice. Cambridge Journal of Education, 34, 2, 179-191

Reychav, I. & Te'eni, D. 2009. Knowledge exchange in the shrines of knowledge: The 'how's' and 'where's' of knowledge sharing processes. Computers & Education, 53, 1266-1277

Rickinson, M 2005. Practioners use of research. The National Educational Research Forum, U K.

Sanders, M. & Lewis, K. 2005. Building bridges toward excellence: Community involvement in high school. High School Journal, 88, 3, 1-9.

Schwartz, R. & Kardos, S. 2009. Research-based evidence and state policy. In J. Bransford, D. Stipek, N. Vye, L. Gomez and D. Lam (Eds), The role of research in educational improvement, Cambridge Massachussetts: Harvard Education Press.

Sebba, J. 2007 Enhancing impact on policy-making through increasing user engagement in research. In L. Sunders (Ed), Educational research and policy-making, London: Routledge.

Syed-Ikhsan, S. & Rowland, F. 2004. Knowledge management in public

organizations: a study on the relationship between organizational elements and the performance of knowledge transfer. Journal of Knowledge Management, 8, 2, 95-111.

Williams, D. & Coles, L. 2003. The use of research by teachers: Information literacy, access and attitudes, Final Report.

Callie Mady is an Associate Professor at Nipissing University in the Schulich School of Education, North Bay, ON, Canada. She holds a PhD from OISE of the University of Toronto with a focus on second language education. Her research interests include French as a second language education and multilingual language acquisition. In particular, her research focuses on minority populations in those areas-immigrants and students with learning difficulties.

Table 1: Frequency of research exposure (%)

                                     Never/               Often/
Research experience                  Rarely   Sometimes   Always   N

I choose my teaching strategies      18.2     45.5        36.3     33
based on research evidence

I consider research evidence when    6.0      576         36.4     33
choosing materials

My board provides access to          21.9     34.4        43.7     32
research journals

I read research articles             9.1      42.4        48.5     33

I read the Canadian Modern           63.7     12.1        24.2     33
Language Review

I attend conferences that present    60.6     12.1        27.3     33
research evidence

I learn of research through          48.5     18.2        33.4     33
subject specific conferences

I learn of research through          45.4     21.2        33.3     33
inboard Professional development
activities

I learn of research through          33.4     24.2        42.5     33
Professional publications

I learn of research through          60.6     21.2        18.2     33
association publications

I learn of research through the      6.0      30.3        63.7     33
internet

I learn of research through          12.2     45.5        42.4     33
personal interaction with my
colleagues at my school

I have led a research project        75.8     12.1        12.2     33

I have worked on a team to conduct   81.8     9.1         9.1      33
a research project

I have been a participant in a       54.5     273         18.2     33
research study

My board provides funds to conduct   56.7     26.7        16.7     30
research

My board is involved in research     44.8     41.4        13.7     29
projects

My board is undertaking research     53.3     33.3        13.3     30
projects in FSL

My board is undertaking research     51.8     33.3        14.8     27
projects in ESL

My board encourages me to do         55.2     20.7        24.1     29
action research

My consultant/coordinator shares     44.8     31.0        24.1     29
research findings

We discuss research findings in      44.8     24.1        31.0     29
subject specific meetings

We discuss research findings in      53.3     26.7        20.0     30
staff meetings

Table 2: Identification of factors impeding
the use of research

Factors impeding          %       N
use of research

Availability of           39.5    15
research articles

Unknown quality of        47.4    18
research

Complexity of             21.1    8
language of articles

Inconsistency of          23.7    9
results across
articles

Lack of practical         26.3    10
implications
indicated in articles

Topics of irrelevance     36.8    14
to my practice

Datedness of articles     21.1    8

Lack of transferability   31.6    12
to my context

Table 3: Overall website data for six week  period

Visits                 1089
Visitors               669
Page views             2926
Page views /Visit      2.7
Average Time on Site   04:46
Bounce Rate            47%
New Visits             35%

Table 4: Overall page data for page view, time on page, and visits

Page Title             Page views   Time on Page   Visits

Welcome/Bienvenue      1016         10:36:39       828
Resources/Ressources   743          14:50:33       111
Forum                  727          2:09:52        132
Questionnaire          440          8:43:59        11

Table 5: Articles and support guides page views and time on page

Articles and Guides                Page views   Average time on page

Article 1                          23           0:05:16
Article 2                          19           0:05:04
Article 3                          20           0:03:57
Article 4                          15           0:01:13
Article 5                          14           0:09:10
Article 6                          14           0:01:26
English support guide, Article 2   8            1:20:22
English support guide, Article 1   6            0:04:16
English support guide, Article 6   6            0:02:58
French support guide, Article 2    5            0:00:16
French support guide, Article 1    5            0:00:29
French support guide, Article 6    5            0:03:21
English support guide, Article 4   5            0:01:54
French support guide, Article 4    3            0:03:15
English support guide, Article 3   3            0:01:54
English support guide, Article 5   3            0:03:10
French support guide, Article 3    2            0:00:16
French support guide, Article 5    1            0:00:11