Pre-Service EFL Teachers’ Research Attitudes and Critical Thinking Dispositions

Undergraduate-level students generally tend to have negative attitudes and feelings towards research-related courses, serving great obstacles to learning. Some of the factors that determine students' engagement in research might be their attitudes towards research and critical thinking dispositions. As there is little research on whether research engagement has an impact on students' attitudes and critical thinking dispositions this descriptive study explored if engaging in research within the scope of an undergraduate research methodology course had any effect on the pre-service English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers’ research attitudes and critical thinking dispositions. Thus, fourteen pre-service EFL teachers from a state university in Türkiye participated in this study. This study adopted a quantitative research design, where data were elicited via two scales, an attitude towards research scale and a critical thinking dispositions scale. Findings described the change in pre-service teachers’ attitudes and critical thinking dispositions after research engagement. Overall, it was found that participants’ attitudes and critical thinking dispositions did not experience a significant change. Although they found research useful, they had high levels of research anxiety even after research engagement. On the other hand, they had low levels of positive research dispositions; however, it increased slightly after the engagement.