System: Anh Tran, Anne Burns, Sue Ollerhead

System xxx (2017) 1e12
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System
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/system
ELT lecturers’ experiences of a new research policy: Exploring

emotion and academic identity
Anh Tran*, Anne Burns, Sue Ollerhead
School of Education, University of New South Wales, Kensington NSW 2052, Sydney, Australia
a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t
Article history: This study investigated English Language Teaching (ELT) lecturers' experiences of a new
Received 24 December 2016 research policy and its impact on their academic identities and emotions. In-depth in-
Received in revised form 26 April 2017 terviews were conducted with 24 lecturers and four academic and administrative leaders
Accepted 28 April 2017
at a Vietnamese university, supplemented by the analysis of institutional documents about
Available online xxx
the new research policy. Taking a social-psychological approach and using inductive the-
matic analysis, the study identified four types of responses to the new research policy
Keywords:
according to participants’ emotional experiences and emergent identities: the enthusiastic
Higher education change
Emotion
accommodators, the pressured supporters, a losing heart follower, and the discontented
Academic identity performers. The study discusses implications for institutional leaders and policy makers in
ELT lecturers terms of the need to recognise different academic identities and varied emotional re-
ELT university teachers sponses among academic staff and to engage them in dialogue about their changed work
Research engagement roles. The study also suggests reconnecting teaching and research in such ways that lec-
turers do not have to experience identity conflicts and/or adopt survival coping strategies.
© 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Over the last two decades, higher education institutions (HEIs) across the world have undergone various changes,
including changes in mission, policy, governance and pedagogy (Findlow, 2012). This study is located within changes to
mission and policy with regard to the role of research at HEIs. The importance of high-quality research at HEIs is currently
stressed through the introduction and expansion of research policies and strategies across different contexts, such as the
British Research Evaluation Framework, and the Excellence in Research for Australia Scheme. In Asia, similarly, governments
have formulated various strategies to strengthen their global competitiveness in university research (Altbach, 2009). China,
for example, through the implementation of Project 211 and Project 985, aspires to build ‘world-class’ research universities
(Yang & Welch, 2012).
Against this backdrop, increasing emphasis has been placed on research excellence at the personal, institutional, and
national levels. At the personal level, academics from various disciplines, including lecturers of English and English-related
subjects at tertiary institutions (hereafter ELT lecturers), are confronted with new expectations and requirements from
their institutions about their roles as active researchers (Archer, 2008; Bai & Hudson, 2011; Borg & Liu, 2013; Leathwood &
Read, 2013). Research scholarship is now widely considered as the top priority in academic work, followed by teaching,
administration and community services (Boud & Brew, 2013). Accordingly, the higher education (HE) literature has
* Corresponding author. 1/487 Bunnerong Rd., Matraville, 2036, Sydney, Australia.

E-mail addresses: sinhngay217@gmail.com (A. Tran), anne.burns@unsw.edu.au (A. Burns), s.ollerhead@unsw.edu.au (S. Ollerhead).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2017.04.014
0346-251X/© 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Please cite this article in press as: Tran, A., et al., ELT lecturers’ experiences of a new research policy: Exploring emotion and
academic identity, System (2017), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2017.04.014
2 A. Tran et al. / System xxx (2017) 1e12
manifested a growing number of studies on how lecturers across various contexts respond to changes in their research roles
and how these changes evoke a reconceptualization of an academic/professional self (Clegg, 2008; Henkel, 2005; Huang,
Pang, & Yu, 2016, pp. 1e19; Sikes, 2006; Xu, 2014).
HE change is experienced not only instrumentally but also emotionally. Emotions help individuals make sense of what is
going on at their workplace; they are, therefore, part of individuals’ meaning-making processes (van Veen & Sleegers, 2009).
Extant studies that focus on emotion as an impact of HE change (e.g., Wilson & Holligan, 2013) do not explicitly explore the
connection between emotion and academic identity. This study aims to make a contribution to this under-represented
relation by offering a detailed account of how a particular group of ELT lecturers made sense of a new research policy,
how they perceived themselves as university lecturers in this changing context, and how the new policy impacted on them
emotionally and behaviourally. Our purpose is to draw the attention of researchers, institutional policy makers, departmental
managers and others concerned to the interaction among cognition, emotion, and action at the micro-level of policy
implementation. Within the specific context of the study, a HEI in Vietnam, we ask the following research question:
How does the new institutional research policy interact with ELT lecturers' sense of academic identity to impact on
their emotional experiences?
To seek answers to this research question, a social-psychological approach, as will be described in Section 2.1, was adopted
to analyze the way participants interpreted a new research initiative against their own systems of beliefs, values and goals,
through which we were able to attain deeper knowledge of their academic identities, the research environment they work in,
and their emotional experiences.
2. Literature review
2.1. Understanding emotion in the context of HE change
There has been increasing recognition of the affective dimension of HE change in the last two decades. Leathwood and
Read (2013), for instance, identified a range of contrastive emotions among British academics when they responded to a
research evaluation scheme. While some academics felt anxious and frustrated to secure funding and publish, others
expressed feelings of joy and satisfaction as they were afforded purposeful opportunities to pursue their research interests. In
another UK study (Archer, 2008), the eight young academics (aged 35 and under) from across England also experienced
immense pressure in response to a research audit managerialism discourse. They negotiated the pressures of publishing
through adopting various strategies, from generating more funding, creating more support opportunities, to finding their own
ways to keep a balance between work and life. Similarly, some ELT lecturers working in the tertiary environment of a Chinese
university seemed to feel vulnerable and powerless, while others were fuelled and empowered to engage in and publish
research as they responded to the external research demands (Xu, 2014). Evidence across various contexts, as reviewed here,
has shown that emotion is an inevitable part of change; however, it is viewed as implicitly interwoven into change experi-
ences. Only a small number of studies (Chubb, Watermeyer, & Wakeling, 2017; Wilson & Holligan, 2013) have set out to
examine lecturers' emotional reactions to change explicitly. In Chubb et al.’s study, for instance, positive emotions were found
to arise out of alignment between the change agenda and lecturers’ personal, moral and disciplinary identities; negative
emotions, on the other hand, resulted from misalignment.
In the sparse body of literature that discusses the impact of HE change on emotion, unfortunately, researchers rarely
articulate their theoretical perspectives. Wilson and Holligan (2013) are among the few researchers who overtly mention the
adoption of a ‘triplex’ framework of analysis to locate emotions in relation to other dimensions of the research environment.
Archer (2008) uses the psycho-social lens to explore the affective dimension of identity while analyzing the factors facilitating
or constraining identity construction of younger academics. In studies about educational change more broadly, however,
various theoretical approaches have been used by emotion researchers. Among these, three major approaches to exploring
emotion, namely, cognitivist, social constructionist, and interactionist have been reviewed in Zembylas' (2007) work. Each
theoretical perspective has its own distinctive features pertaining to the psychological and social aspects of emotion. In the
cognitivist perspective, emotion is seen mainly as an individual, psychological experience. It occurs as individuals cognitively
appraise the environmental occurrences that have relevance to their goals. This approach mainly emphasizes individual
cognition and pays some attention to social factors that affect cognition. The social-constructionist approach, on the other
hand, considers emotion as a socio-cultural phenomenon: emotions are socially experienced and constructed as individuals
engage in the historical, social and cultural work in the contexts of their institutions. The third approach, the interactionist,
attempts to link the psychological and social elements of emotions more intently than in the two previous perspectives. It
emphasizes that ‘emotions are crucial to the processes in which the psychological and the social are produced’ (Zembylas,
2007, p. 63). This perspective takes into account the socio-political context in the discussion of emotions. Overall, the last
of the three approaches recognizes that besides its psychological foundations, emotion has social elements that exert varying
levels of influence on human cognition.
Our study adopted a social-psychological (socio-cognitive) perspective to studying emotion. This approach, derived from
Lazarus' (1991) theory of emotion, allows researchers to look at the interaction between individuals and their environment to
explore their emotional arousal occurring out of this interaction (van Veen & Sleegers, 2009). Specifically, in this study it
allowed us to analyze how participants appraised and emotionally experienced the research expectations resulting from a
A. Tran et al. / System xxx (2017) 1e12 3
new research policy. Appraisal involves the process in which lecturers make judgments about their situational demands, in
this case, the new research policy. Positive emotions occur when situational demands are judged as congruent to lecturers'
academic goals, commitments and beliefs; whereas, negative emotions occur when situational demands are judged as
incongruent to their academic goals, commitments and beliefs (Lazarus, 1991). Most notable in this process, according to
Lazarus, is the mediating role of individuals' sense of (professional/academic) selves. Adapted from van Veen and Sleegers
(2009), Fig. 1 visualises the interaction among academic identity, situational demands, the appraisal process and lecturers’
emotional responses. This visual schematization of the relationships among these elements was used to guide our data
analysis. Before we unfold the research methodology of this study, the constructs of academic identity and situational de-
mands will be reviewed and discussed in more depth in the next sections.
2.2. Academic identity
Academic identity is a loosely defined concept whose meaning often shifts as work contexts change (Quigley, 2011). In this
study, it is understood as what lecturers consider as important (e.g., goals, beliefs, values, motives and experiences) (Ibarra,
1999; Lazarus, 1991) in relation to how they discuss their views of themselves as university lecturers. Academic identity has
been empirically researched in studies about academic socialisation (e.g., Boyd & Smith, 2016; Hakala, 2009), academic
seniority (e.g., Archer, 2008; Mathieson, 2011), or HE change (e.g., Ylijoki & Ursin, 2013). In these studies, various elements of
academic identity are examined, but the main themes are academic roles and expectations, and academic values. These
themes, however, were insufficient to assist our understanding of how a new research policy affected the participants of this
study. We thus looked for added elements that could portray a more comprehensive notion of academic identity. We adapted
van Veen and Sleegers' (2009) conceptualisation of teacher professional identity to sketch out certain aspects of academic
identity that are critical to lecturers' sense-making of the new policy. We were interested in identifying what images the
participants had of themselves as university lecturers at the present and in the future (self-images), what motivated them to
teach and do research (job motivation), what requirements they had to meet in teaching and research (core roles and re-
sponsibilities) and what values they attached to teaching and research (self-esteem). These aspects of academic identity can
be further understood in the context of situational demands e the new research policy, which will be discussed in the
following section. To locate the situational demands that ELT lecturers in this study encountered in the context of their
institution, we begin by providing an overview of the broader changes to ELT lecturers’ research role, first globally and then
nationally and institutionally.
Academic idenƟty
- Self-images (present and future)
- Job moƟvaƟon (moƟvaƟon for teaching and

SituaƟonal demands
research)
(The research policy)
- Core roles and responsibiliƟes (requirements
in teaching and research)
- Self-esteem (values aƩached to teaching and

research)
Appraisals of the relaƟonships between academic

idenƟty elements and situaƟonal demands
EmoƟonal reacƟons to the research policy
Fig. 1. Interactions among academic identity, situational demands and emotional reactions (adapted from Lazarus, 1991; van Veen & Sleegers, 2009).
2.3. Situational demands: the research policy
ELT lecturers working in tertiary environments are often thought of as instructors whose academic role is predominantly
teaching (Borg & Liu, 2013) with their research capacity remaining very limited and with modest research engagement (Hiep,
2006; Keuk, 2015). Recently, the global competitiveness in the HE landscape, the increasing prominence of English as an
international language, and the pressing need for on-going professional development have placed a considerable pressure on
ELT lecturers to become competent in research (Borg & Liu, 2013; Keuk, 2015). Many ELT lecturers in Asian contexts, such as in
China or Cambodia, are now obliged to conduct and publish research due to external demands (Bai & Millwater, 2011; Keuk,
2015; Xu, 2014). It is thus not surprising to observe the expanding volume of literature that reports on ELT lecturers’ con-
ceptions of research, motivations for conducting research, and tensions in research engagement as they undergo the pressure
of top-down policies (Bai & Hudson, 2011; Borg, 2010; Borg & Liu, 2013; Liu & Borg, 2014).
In Vietnam, research was traditionally carried out at research institutes, separately from universities (Harman, 2010). For
decades, Vietnamese university lecturers were not required to demonstrate their research capacity in the recruitment pro-
cess. Once in their academic positions, lecturers were requested to undertake research but their research engagement was
viewed as only supplementary to teaching. More recently, a research role for Vietnamese lecturers has been mandated in
policy documents (MOET, 2014) and accordingly lecturers from all disciplines, including ELT, are now required not only to
engage in research but also to produce research. Research engagement and research productivity have become primary foci in
their work performance evaluation.
Under the influence of the national emphasis on lecturers' research capacity in Vietnam, Lima University (a pseudonym;
hereafter LU) where this study is situated, aims to transform itself from a teaching-focused into a research-oriented insti-
tution. In its ‘organizational script’ (Gonzales & Rincones, 2011), the university recognizes the need to achieve research
excellence in order to increase its national and international reputation and ranking. In the past few years, LU has put into
practice its own research policy that requires all lecturers to become research-active. The research performance of academic
staff at LU is now measured by their research productivity, which could be in various forms, such as publications (e.g., articles,
books, and book chapters), university-based research projects, and presentations at national and international disciplinary
conferences. A major element of the research agenda constitutes the translation of the complexity of research-associated
work into a system of numerical figures according to the type of research activity (e.g., conference paper, articles, books),
the nature of the research (e.g., individual or collaborative) and the reach of the research (national or international). For
example, a lecturer receives half of the merit points for an article published in a national disciplinary journal compared to the
number of points awarded for an article published in an international journal. Those unable to meet the minimum numerical
requirement experience a reduction in their financial rewards and monthly salary. The overall message is an emphasis on the
obligatory role of research that is to be strictly supervised by the university.
3. Methodology
Situated within the context of a newly emphasised research role for lecturers at LU, this study draws on qualitative data
gathered for a larger research project that examined ELT lecturers’ academic identity and research efficacy. The larger project
first involved a questionnaire distributed to a convenience sample of 145 ELT lecturers at LU to investigate (1) their per-
ceptions regarding their academic roles through seven multiple-choice items and (2) their sense of efficacy through an 11-
point Likert-scale Research Efficacy Inventory (REI). The REI consisting of 47 items was adapted from existing question-
naires (Forester, Kahn, & Hesson-McInnis, 2004; Hemmings & Kay, 2009; Pasupathy & Siwatu, 2014). Questionnaire in-
formants were then invited to take part in subsequent individual interviews to further explore their academic identity
construction and the factors that affected their research efficacy perceptions. Emotional reactions to the new institutional
research policy, the focus of this study, surfaced as participants discussed the changes in their research environment and
reported how they viewed themselves in such a changing environment. The data from interviews served as the foundation for
the present study.
3.1. Participants
At LU, ELT lecturers working for three English departments make up the largest staff cohort. They comprise two sub-
groups: one group teaching General English and Academic English to non-English majors, and the other group teaching
Academic English and English-medium subjects to English majors. Many ELT lecturers at LU were traditionally employed on
the entry condition of their English proficiency and teaching skills, with little weight given to their research capacity. Before
the new research policy, research was considered only as a secondary activity to teaching.
To see if there are differences in the ways lecturers respond to the policy, twenty-four ELT lecturers (T1-T24) were selected
for interviews from the three English departments on the basis of maximum variation sampling. This is a purposeful sampling
strategy that allows for maximization of demographic and academic factors, resulting in diverse perspectives and experiences
(Teddlie & Yu, 2007). Table 1 describes the interviewees’ demographic and academic information. To triangulate with the data
from lecturer participants and to gain extended information about the new research policy, the Head of the University
Research Office (HURO e L1) and three academic leaders (L2-4) of the three English departments were also selected for
interviews on the basis of voluntary participation.
Table 1
ELT lecturers’ demographic and academic information.
Gender Career stage Qualification Main specialization

Male 3 EC 8 BA 4 GE & AE 15
Female 21 MC 15 MA 16 Content-based subjects 9
LC 1 PhD 4
Note. EC ¼ Early-career (<5 years of employment).

MC ¼ Mid-career (15 years of employment).
LC ¼ Late-career (>15 years of employment).
GE ¼ General English.
AE ¼ Academic English.
3.2. Data collection
Semi-structured individual interviews with the lecturer and leader participants were conducted by the first author and
were audio-recorded for data analysis. The interviews with the lecturers lasted one hour on average and had two main parts.
In the first part, the questions probed the informants' responses to change in their research environment, their research
activities and their professional roles. The key interview questions in this part are shown in the Appendix. In the second part,
based on their responses to the REI in the questionnaire, the interviewees discussed possible influences on their sense of
research efficacy. Data for this paper were mainly extracted from the first part in which participants referred directly to the
research policy, and partially from the second part where relevant information about their research environment was
identified. Concurrent with lecturers’ interviews, the departmental leaders and the HURO were also interviewed once each
for approximately forty minutes. The main questions centred on their perspectives about the changes that had taken place in
terms of research and the responses of lecturers from English departments to the new research agenda.
To triangulate with the accounts of the leaders and lecturers, the study also collected official documents about the recent
changes in research policies and practices of the institution. These documents included mission statements, job descriptions
and performance appraisal forms. These documents were collected either through the main website of the university or
through the departments, with the leaders’ written permission.
3.3. Data analysis
A two-stage procedure of data analysis was developed to examine each participant's interview transcript. In the first stage,
inductive thematic analysis (Fereday & Muir-Cochrane, 2006) was applied in order to find emerging themes. We coded and
analysed participants' transcripts through ascertaining the identity elements (i.e., self-images, job motivation, core roles and
responsibilities, and self-esteem) and their perspectives on the research policy as guided by our social-psychological
framework. Parallel with this process, selective coding was performed on emotional terms, such as ‘frustrated’, ‘worried’,
‘stressed, and ‘unsure’ that directly disclosed participants' feelings and emotions. Besides, attention was also given to the
prosodic features of participants' language, such as rising/falling intonation and sentence stress, to draw out interpretations
about their attitudes and emotions. Links between participants' academic identity and their appraisals of the new research
policy were drawn out to identify the emergent emotional response of each participant. In the second stage, a constant
comparison method (Glaser & Strauss, 1999) was used to compare and contrast individual participants' responses. The
process of data coding and analysis was cyclical until the final categories of participants' emotions and identities could
represent trends of responses across the whole data set. Both data collection and data analysis for this qualitative phase was
conducted in Vietnamese to increase the trustworthiness of the data (Squires, 2009).
4. Findings
The lecturers in this study made sense of the institutional research policy in different ways and accordingly reacted and
responded diversely to this policy. The majority of the lecturer interviewees (23 lecturers) generally supported the research
agenda while one particular participant seemed to oppose it. Within the supporter group, there were, nevertheless, different
gradations of support ranging from no resistance to tacit resistance. Based on common characteristics in their emotional
responses and representations of academic identities, these lecturers were classified into four types: the enthusiastic ac-
commodators, the pressured supporters, the losing heart follower, and the discontented performers. In each category, there
were four sub-themes that emerged: (1) lecturers’ perceptions of the research agenda and other changes in their research
environment; (2) their academic identity construction in the face of changing research roles; (3) their emotional responses;
and (4) their behavioural responses.
The analysis presented below is organized according to the typology of the four categories emerging from the data. It does
not aim to present an exclusive or ‘watertight’ typology because some lecturers might share characteristics inherent in more
than one category. Rather it seeks to illuminate trends across the patterns of responses that emerged.
4.1. The enthusiastic accommodators
Three mid-career, including two MA and one PhD qualified lecturers, (T6, T8, and T16) were collectively passionate and
excited about the recent changes in the institutional research policy and were labelled as the enthusiastic accommodators.
These lecturers were fully conscious of the ‘organizational script’ associated with the notions of ‘globalisation’, ‘perform-
ativity’, and ‘managerialism’ put forward by LU's leaders and those authorities in the upper levels of hierarchy. The com-
monality among these lecturers was the congruency between the rationale and objectives of the research agenda and their
professional values and commitments. The policy was perceived as creating a positive impact on their motivation for research,
and energising them to present research at international conferences, write papers for publication, and seek more collabo-
rative opportunities to engage in research (Leathwood & Read, 2013). All three lecturers expressed their dedication to
learning more about research and saw their self-images at the present as ‘research apprentices’. Their positive emotional
attitudes towards research and doing research were expressed through statements such as the following:
I do not know many things in research. […] That's where I can learn and gain more [knowledge]. Satisfaction1 is when
you see yourself grow up and expand your knowledge. (T8)
People said that at my age and with my experiences, my research activities were wide-ranging, but I think that's not
enough. It's only the beginning. I feel that I have lots of things to learn and improve by doing research and engaging in
research-related activities. (T16)
Like T8 and T19, T6's commitment to doing research went beyond the institutional requirements, as can be seen below:
[…] So I reckon if writing is simply to meet the institutional requirements, to get credits, etc. then it is not very worthy.
It is the recognition from the community, the wish to be recognised […]. (T6)
The identification of the enthusiastic accommodator category was confirmed by the comment of a departmental leader
(L3). L3 acknowledged that some early-career lecturers demonstrated active and enthusiastic engagement in research as a
result of the research agenda:
Recently I found that they [early-career lecturers] had both intrinsic and instrumental motivations for research. They of
course have passion, and they want to build up their profiles to apply for jobs and scholarships.
Generally, it can be seen that the emotional response from the enthusiastic accommodators was manifestly positive,
suggesting a source of professional ‘satisfaction’, a sense of being able to ‘grow up’, achieve research engagement and gain
‘recognition’ (Edwards & Burns, 2016). These lecturers were largely undisturbed by the research agenda; instead, they
appeared eagerly engaged and even excited and optimistic because the policy facilitated their professional goals (Lazarus,
1991). Embedded in the accounts of this group is a fluid and flexible sense of professional selves that was not constrained
by the shifting context (Archer, 2008).
4.2. The pressured supporters
The pressured supporters, from both early-career and mid-career stages and holding both BA and MA degrees, constituted
the largest number of the interviewees (16 lecturers). Their emotional responses indicated that the policy had created
immense pressures on their academic work and these pressures were particularly exacerbated among junior lecturers. Below
are some illustrative emotional reactions from this group:
I can kinda sense that if one knows about the status quo … he will … If I say I only teach and don't do research, I will be
kicked out. So pressured. […] I don't know how. I just feel so unsure. (T10)
Oh doing research … ? I feel like breathless. (T21)
Recently it has become imposing, compulsory, it's like a duty, and so it is rather demotivating than motivating. (T12)
These lecturers experienced increased tension and anxiety because they interpreted the policy as product-oriented and
quantitative in nature, stressing the number of research papers they had to write annually (Gao, Barkhuizen, & Chow, 2011b).
Perceiving the requirements as too demanding, some lecturers reported that they had initially attempted to voice their
opposition to the university leaders but without success. Gradually, they seemed to be complying with the research policy in a
mechanical sense “so that their performance appraisal is not influenced” (T5). They described their research engagement
during the last few years as ‘minimal’, ‘for survival’, and for ‘dealing with requirements only’. The attitude of a lecturer (T8)
who said, ‘I do research at a minimum level, to gain sufficient points, and that's all’ seemed to sum up the passive research
engagement of this group (Xu, 2014).
1
Although the lecturers were interviewed in Vietnamese, they occasionally used English expressions in their responses. The italicised words in the
quotes indicate the participants' own English expressions.
The interviews revealed several explanations for their feelings of pressure. First, with the notions of ‘scientific research’
and ‘rigorous research’ in mind, some lecturers could not see the mutual linkages between research and teaching and thus
only conducted research as an isolated activity (Xu, 2014). One of these lecturers noted:
Not only me but also many other lecturers agree that our research is not practical, not applicable, so it does not motivate
us to do more research. So we feel, sort of, we only conform to the requirements of the university. (T1)
Secondly, these lecturers had limited knowledge and training in how to conduct research ‘rigorously’ and lacked time and
support to undertake ‘serious’ research (T1, T7, T15). Some lecturers disclosed that, in the absence of institutional supporting
mechanisms for documenting research, they had developed their own strategies to negotiate the pressure of writing up. A
common strategy was to make full use of their BA and MA theses, assignments, and previous presentations to gain adequate
merit points. Some junior lecturers projected ironically into a time when their assignments and theses had all been exploited,
and they would struggle to find alternative strategies. Another strategy was to conduct two literature syntheses to meet the
requirements, which ‘sometimes could be done overnight’ (T3). This finding is consistent with the comments of L2 and L3
who said that the pressured supporters would manage to get sufficient merit points ‘by all means’. L3 was sceptical about the
quality of these lecturers' research:
[…] Towards the end of the academic year, when they only have 50 or 60 points, they need to make haste to get 40
points in one or two months. How can a research project be done in two months?
It was not surprising that lecturers of this category saw themselves primarily as teachers and prioritized teaching over
research. Although some had completed their master-by-research degrees, the majority of this category had a teaching-
dominated background. With basic research training and restricted time and support, as revealed earlier, these lecturers
evidently did not foreground their ‘researcher selves’. Instead, they felt their research roles to be marginal and imposed upon
them (Borg, 2013; Xu, 2014).
However, when asked about their future self-images, interestingly all the pressured supporters seemed to be thinking
about more commitment to research. They considered the enhanced role of research as ‘inevitable’, ‘necessary’, and ‘trendy’.
After some years of reluctantly embracing change, they had begun to think about how to renegotiate their roles to address the
institutional demands in the future. Some junior lecturers displayed a shift in their attitudes towards doing research, which
reflected their emergent sense of a researcher self (Borg, 2013):
In general, I think a lecturer needs to go on two feet, one in research and one in teaching. That's the difference in
identity between a university lecturer and a high school teacher. We must do research anyway. (T5)
If I continue to be floating like this, if I don't have a direction and if I don't choose a clear career path for myself, I will
always be like this. From this year on I will start to spend more time on reading. (T2)
Apparently, the new research policy had caused them to realise the significance of developing their research capacity
along with their teaching careers in the future. In addition, it was their colleagues’ enthusiastic and engaged participation in
research that provoked their reflections:
I'm not thinking about experienced colleagues, I'm only looking at those who are a few years older than me; they have
children but they can manage to complete the [research] requirements. Maybe they have a real passion for research and
do research seriously. They can do it, why can't I? (T1)
Overall, the pressured supporters’ interpretations of change, their emotional experiences and emerging identities seemed
to reflect a dynamic reciprocal interaction between personal and environmental factors. The sense of academic identity
constructed in this category was, however, rather fragile and constantly changing.
4.3. A losing heart follower
One junior lecturer (T7) holding a BA degree appeared to be a ‘losing heart’ follower [this participant's own words] of the
new policy. This lecturer underwent conflicting, mostly extreme and negative, emotions through her experience of change.
Initially, T7 thought that the research initiative offered lecturers opportunities to extend their academic network. She
managed the demands by participating in both institutional and self-initiated projects, presenting at overseas conferences
and collaborating with other scholars to write articles for publication. She seemed to take pride in her research achievements,
saying she was seen as an active junior researcher by colleagues.
However, T7 gradually showed her apprehension and uncertainty as the research agenda implementation continued. T7
confessed that she did not feel able to realise the true meaning of research if the motive was the institutional pressure (Liu &
Borg, 2014). In her view, the initiative encouraged lecturers to pursue quantity and to pay insufficient attention to the quality
of their research. Using a metaphor, she considered herself as ‘a beggar in research’ - someone required to do research hastily
and trickily, finding little significance in research but still being forced to do it. Unlike the pressured supporters, she expressed
her resistance to the agenda more strongly:
I can't live my life when I must chase after things I find impractical and meaningless, just because others do it and I have
to do it.
If research is done like this, if papers are produced like this, then I don't want to compete. I don't want to be part of that
competition.
Her frustration intensified when she spoke of her participation in university-based research projects whose outcomes
were merely ‘to disburse money’. She also resented undertaking ‘insignificant’, ‘meaningless’ research projects if she did not
have adequate time to read and do research properly. She realized that “the most important thing is how much we have read,
and whether it's really a gap to fill in. Our resources are limited. If we are lazy, we may think this is a gap […]”.
Conducting research, in her vision, should not be compulsory for every lecturer. She mentioned colleagues who were
unwilling and/or not capable of doing research, saying ‘they will end up quitting their job’. Referring to the possibility of
colleagues' leaving the profession more than once, T7 seemed to be distrustful of the ‘unendurable’ impact of the research
policy. After two years of policy implementation, her identity seemed to be constructed increasingly as a critic and a protestor.
Rather than overseeing herself as a competent researcher in the future, T7 oriented towards becoming an effective and
responsible teacher:
In fact, I was originally trained to be a teacher, not a researcher. Naturally I feel confident about and am attracted to
teaching, not research.
I should have done the best of my teaching job like designing a syllabus, well not necessarily a syllabus, simply a piece of
homework, but then I couldn't find enough time for reading.
Clearly, the emerging sense of her researcher self in the earlier period seemed to cause conflict with her deeply-rooted
sense of teacher identity developed from her pre-service teacher education (Borg, 2013). From a lecturer who initially had
a great interest in achieving recognition in research, she gradually lost interest in undertaking insignificant research and
eventually redefined her fundamental responsibility to teach effectively. In this transitional context, the new agenda chal-
lenged her core values (self-esteem); her sense of becoming a researcher was concurrently disrupted by her sense of un-
becoming a researcher and becoming a responsible teacher (Colley, James, & Diment, 2007).
4.4. The discontented performers
Among the interviewees, four lecturers (three at mid-career and one at late-career stages, three holding PhD and one MA
qualifications) could be categorized as discontented performers. Their accounts showed that they generally supported the
essence of the policy; however, the policy implementation had become a source of critical reflection on the institutional
research culture. Referring to the underdevelopment of the current research culture, T17 highlighted feelings of dissatis-
faction about the non-existence of a set of transparent, well-established, international-standard research evaluation criteria
that could be used in the process of reviewing the lecturers' research reports. T17 also questioned the relevance of the
research promoted by the institution to the practical needs of society, suggesting that the institution was in need of a research
strategy that could connect higher education research with the teaching of English at high schools in Vietnam. Similarly, L3
was concerned about the institutional research culture, particularly about how research was perceived at the institution:
“They said it was research, but it was not research at all. It was a synthesis of different studies. It was an essay, not research”. L3
felt a pressing need for the development of a research culture that could foster a shared discourse between institutional
leaders and academic staff about what could be counted as ‘research’ and ‘quality research’ (Borg, 2013).
The policy also evoked a sense of discontent about financial support. These lecturers claimed that there had been some
recognition of lecturers’ publications through financial rewards; however, they contended that it was not adequate. For
instance, in the extract below, T17 asserted that a lack of financial support resulted in her feelings of loss of institutional
identity:
You see when they [universities] require you to present at conferences, they'll have to fund conference fees […] that's
how they [universities] show their recognition. But here, we go [to conferences] and our uni doesn't have any support
so I feel like I don't belong to anywhere.
Although the policy prompted negative feelings about the research culture and support system, these lecturers believed
that it did not influence their research practices. Perceiving the policy as having no substantial impact on his research
engagement, T17 explained:
For me, those changes did not influence me at all, because I always think that if you want to do research you first need a
passion for it. It has no other purpose than to satisfy our curiosity, to expand our knowledge, and to contribute to the
academic communities in and outside the country. So those strategies do not have any impact on me. I had started
doing research before those changes happened.
All four lecturers reported that they had undertaken research to support their teaching, and would continue to do so
irrespective of change. There was clear evidence of intrinsic motivation and interest in doing research among this group,
expressed through the key words used in their interviews, such as ‘passion’, ‘curiosity’, ‘teaching relevance’, ‘self-esteem’, and
‘self-development’. While one definitively identified herself as a researcher, the three remaining lecturers considered
themselves to be teacher-researchers who valued teaching and research as equally important. Like the enthusiastic ac-
commodators, these lecturers envisaged research endeavours as opportunities for them to learn more about research and to
become more competent in research pursuits; however, unlike the enthusiastic accommodators, they did not think these
opportunities were generated by the policy.
In this category, it appears that the policy touched on issues that these lecturers cared about, but the implementation of
the policy was inconsistent with what they wanted, leading to goal incongruence (Lazarus, 1991) and resulting in their
negative emotions.
5. Discussion and implications
This study viewed the emotional responses of the ELT lecturers as a lens through which to investigate their academic
identities during a transitional context towards an intensified research agenda at a Vietnamese university. The findings saw
the emergence of positive emotions such as enthusiasm and contentment in some lecturers' responses but also detected the
negative outburst of lecturers who were experiencing frustration, doubt, uncertainty and dissatisfaction towards the policy. In
light of the social-psychological theory of emotions, this study ascertains that positive emotions arise out of the congruence
that exists between individuals' professional goals, values and commitments and the objectives of change, as can be seen in
the case of the enthusiastic accommodators. On the other hand, when there is a discrepancy between individuals’ profes-
sional goals, values and beliefs and the essence of change, the appraisal process is likely to result in negative emotions; as in
the case, particularly, of the losing heart follower who demonstrated some degree of resistance. The study provides additional
evidence to support the social-psychological framework which has been used in studies of educational reforms, teacher
identity and emotion (van Veen & Sleegers, 2009; van Veen, Sleegers, & van de Ven, 2005).
Notably, inconsistent with some studies (Archer, 2008; Dasborough, Lamb, & Suseno, 2015; Hargreaves, 2005; Xu, 2014)
which note the influence of demographic and academic factors such as career stage and seniority on lecturers' and teachers'
emotions as they respond to educational change, the findings of this study show that career stage, qualification and area of
specialisation do not have a clear impact on the emotional reactions of the lecturers. For instance, irrespective of areas of
specialisation, lecturers from both early-career and mid-career stages, holding either BA or MA degrees, could feel pressured
and struggled to meet the research demands. Enthusiastic responses identified in this study were from mid-career lecturers
holding MA or PhD qualifications; however, as evident from the departmental leaders' accounts, some junior lecturers
holding BA degrees in their departments also seemed to be enthusiastic and excited about the change. The late-career lecturer
interviewed in the study seemed less enthusiastic about change; however, this lecturer did not find ways to resist it as what
has been found among late-career teachers in Hargreaves' (2005) study. Generally, the PhD-qualified lecturers appeared to be
critical towards the policy, but while one lecturer's motivation for research was better enhanced by the policy, others indi-
cated that they would do research irrespective of change. The absence of a clear pattern of divergence or convergence in these
lecturers' emotions might be explained from a historical perspective. Before the issue of the policy, regardless of the type of
programs, career stages and academic qualifications, these lecturers were extensively involved in teaching. The variance in
their emotional responses, as this study shows, can mainly be attributed to the congruence or incongruence between the
goals and contents of the policy and the lecturers' academic philosophies, beliefs and goals, which seems to resonate with
what has been found in Chubb et al.’s (2017) research. This study strongly supports Trowler’s (1997, p. 314) argument that
‘individuals bring sets of values, attitudes and expectations with them when they enter higher education and, while these can
shift during their time in the institution, they continue to have an important influence on responses to change’.
The findings of this study show that academic identity is complex, evolving, and constantly reshaped and renegotiated
under diverse sources of pressure. During the cognitive-affective processes of appraisals, individual lecturers consider their
motivations for teaching and research, and the values they attach to each responsibility, define and re-define their past,
present and future images. While some lecturers gained a sense of academic identity willingly and readily, others' attainment
of a researcher self was more troublesome because of their dissonant experiences (Boyd & Smith, 2016). The study accords
with the argument made by various scholars (e.g., Clegg, 2008; Huang et al., 2016) that institutional stakeholders need to pay
close attention to how changes are being experienced, carefully consider emergent identities in the changing environment
and map out different career paths that match lecturers' research backgrounds and research expertise. T7's self-
conceptualisation as a responsible teacher in this study provides a graphic example of how lecturers should have the
freedom to develop a distinctive and discriminatory orientation towards their careers and the choices they wish to make
(Archer, 2008).
Mixed, contradictory, and more negative emotional responses suggested the complexity and tensions that the lecturers
were confronting during a turbulent process of change and transition. An important finding of the study is that a large
number of participants underwent excessive stress, experienced identity conflicts, and were driven to adopt survival stra-
tegies in response to the policy. This situation is alarming considering that the policy is annually renewed with more
demanding requirements being added into the agenda each time. An alternative approach could be that the policy is re-
examined against the current state of HEI research cultures in Vietnam and in relation to similar Asian contexts more
generally (Bai & Millwater, 2011; Xu, 2014). As evident in this inquiry and also in Nguyen’s (2016) study, although the value of
research is strongly articulated in policy documents, mission statements and strategic plans, numerous practical challenges
persist at both institutional and personal levels. The major institutional challenges include product-oriented research eval-
uation procedures, a lack of time, limited funding and resources and, most importantly, no clearly defined conceptualisations
of research shared by community members (Nguyen, 2016). At the personal level, it seems that lecturers' motivations for
research are undermined by the quantitative nature of the merit point system and the pressure to disseminate findings
through high level formal channels. With a teaching-intensive background, ELT lecturers are not typically equipped with
adequate knowledge and skills that can empower them to undertake systematic inquiries and report their findings in aca-
demic journals (Liu & Borg, 2014).
Considering these challenges, the following suggestions may assist institutional leaders to cultivate stronger research
cultures. An initial leadership strategy might be to involve lecturers in critical discussions of what research means for them
(Borg, 2013). Moreover, while it would be beneficial for institutional policy makers and departmental leaders to articulate
explicitly to their teaching staff various forms of research that are not necessarily restricted to the notion of scientific/aca-
demic research (Borg, 2013), ELT lecturers need to be given the autonomy to choose the type of research they ‘feel comfortable
with and find worthy of doing given all the contextual constraints’ (Gao, Barkhuizen, & Chow, 2011a, p. 75). This strategy is
particularly necessary in situations where the key mission of the institution is shifting from teaching to research and where
many lecturers do not see the relationships between research and professional development. Internal motivation for con-
ducting research is likely to be heightened when research is perceived as an effective strategy to generate evidence for
teaching practice and professional growth (Cabaroglu, 2014; Gao et al., 2011b; Wyatt & Dikilitaş, 2016). Further, and most
crucially, besides nurturing positive attitudes for research and taking an agentic role in research pursuits, ELT lecturers need
to be adequately assisted to conduct and write up research through training workshops provided by more experienced re-
searchers with the support of transparent, process-oriented publication and evaluation procedures (Gao et al., 2011b; Xu,
2014). These changes may take time to occur in this research context, and probably in other contexts with similar
research cultures but are essential strategies to warrant lecturers' emotional well-being and minimize identity tensions in the
process of policy enactment. Tackling the challenges of time release, funding, and resources, however, requires joint effort not
only from institutional stakeholders but also from government bodies to improve the university research system of the
country overall (Nguyen, 2016).
6. Conclusion
The study offers a close-up investigation into the impact of a new research agenda on ELT lecturers' emotional reactions
and their academic identity construction at a time of increased research emphasis. In a situation where there is a scant body of
literature on lecturers' emotional experiences of HE change being framed within a theoretical lens, this study makes a
contribution to enhancing understanding of the dynamic interaction among HE change, emotion and academic identity
through the lens of a social-psychological perspective. In this approach, academic identity, situational exigencies, emotion
and action are inextricably interconnected. The study proposes that emotion is an integral part of change experience and that
investigating emotion can provide important insights, both into lecturers' sense-making of change and into their professional
beliefs, values and expectations. An emotional lens can therefore be considered meaningful as a way to approach lecturers’
academic identities and their responses to change.
Drawing from a small sample in a particular Vietnamese university, this case study does not assume that its findings are
generalizable to other university settings in Vietnam and beyond. Nevertheless, from the perspective of naturalistic gener-
alisation in case study research (Stake, 1995), the implications can be considered salient for those local and international
institutions that may be experiencing a similar shift in mission, from a focus on teaching to an orientation towards research.
Since the emotional reactions of the participants were not originally integral to the design of the larger study, the findings also
suggest that future research could benefit from examining this under-explored construct more systematically, both theo-
retically and methodologically. To provide richer insights into the role of context on the emotional experiences of individuals
in the face of change, future studies could combine socio-cognitive with social constructionist or interactionist perspectives
and/or adopt multiple methods with a longitudinal design (Zembylas, 2007).
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by Australia Awards Scholarship and the University of New South Wales, Australia. We also wish
to thank our participants who provided insight and expertise that greatly assisted the research.
Appendix
Interview questions with lecturers
1. What changes have you observed in the research policy of your university in the past two years?
2. What changes have you observed in the research practices of your colleagues in the past two years?
3. What do you think about the new research policy?
4. How did you meet these research requirements of your university?
5. What motivates you to do research?
6. How do you see the role of teaching and research in your work?
7. Do you consider yourself a researcher, a teacher or a teacher researcher now?
8. Where are you aiming to be as a researcher or teacher in the next five years?
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Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

ELT lecturers’ experiences of a new research policy: Exploring

* Corresponding author. 1/487 Bunnerong Rd., Matraville, 2036, Sydney, Australia.

2.1. Understanding emotion in the context of HE change

2.2. Academic identity

- Self-images (present and future)

- Job moƟvaƟon (moƟvaƟon for teaching and

- Self-esteem (values aƩached to teaching and

Appraisals of the relaƟonships between academic

EmoƟonal reacƟons to the research policy

2.3. Situational demands: the research policy

Gender Career stage Qualiﬁcation Main specialization

Note. EC ¼ Early-career (<5 years of employment).

3.2. Data collection

3.3. Data analysis

4.1. The enthusiastic accommodators

4.2. The pressured supporters

4.3. A losing heart follower

4.4. The discontented performers

5. Discussion and implications

Interview questions with lecturers

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