Validating the Research Literacy Development Framework
- Eleni Motsiou
- Sep 23
- 3 min read
We are excited to announce the publication of a new article (Kostoulas, Motsiou & Vleioras, 2025) building on our ReaLiTea work. The article, which appeared in the European Journal of Teacher Education, presents an overview of the research literacy framework for teachers of Second, Additional and Foreign Languages that we have been developing in the ReaLiTea project. It also reports on the ongoing validation of the framework, drawing on a small-scale survey among teacher trainers and specialists in language teacher education. In doing so, it consolidates and extends the work carried out in the project, showcasing some of its concrete outputs.
You can access the article by clicking on the button below. If your institution does not subscribe to the journal, you might want to download a post-print (the version of the article that was accepted for publication, but without copyediting or typesetting) by following this link.
The Research Literacy Development Framework
For those who are less familiar with the framework, this defines research literacy as a construct made up of multiple overlapping aspects: theoretical knowledge, the ability to use professionally relevant publications, the ability to theorise for practice, the ability to generate empirically informed knowledge and the ability to communicate professional knowledge. Each facet is made up of multiple competences, and each competence is operationalised with descriptors ranging from less to more expert.
Developing the framework: From Conception to Validation
Ensuring that the research literacy framework is comprehensive, theoretically robust and practically relevant has been an important priority driving its development. To achieve this, we have adopted a multi-levelled approach.
One of the first steps we took, in the early development stages, was to reach out to a number of experts in the field of language teacher education and teacher research. The input of these experts was synthesised with our own professional knowledge and bibliographical research to produce a first draft of the framework. The framework was then distributed among our professional networks to ensure that the lists of competences were comprehensive enough and that they made sense across settings. Additionally, we asked respondents to comment on whether the descriptors accurately represented what teachers in pre-service education, mid-career/M-level studies and expert/mentor stages of their career are capable of.
The article we just published is another step in this ongoing validation. In this step, we used snowball sampling (a type of sampling where each participant is asked to nominate additional respondents) to recruit experts in teacher training, and we asked them whether they thought that the competences were important in their context, and whether the way we had grouped these competences made sense to them. The results, as you might read in the article, confirmed that the structure of the framework was coherent – although there is also some reason to believe that it can be more effective if some time is spent on familiarisation before it is used.
Using the framework in a changing landscape of language education
To clarify, we do not expect that the same framework should be used without changes across contexts. Such an approach would go against our deeply ingrained belief that language teaching, and by extension language teaching education, is rooted in the particularities of context. Rather, it is our hope that teacher educators in different settings might use this as a resource that they can then adjust to the needs of the teachers with whom they work, the educational traditions of their institutions, and the expectations in their settings. In a period of rapid change in language education (e.g., the growing importance of plurilingualism, the introduction of AI-assisted teaching and learning, and policy shifts), we view such open-endedness as essential.
Concluding remarks
We are delighted that the publication of our article in the European Journal of Teacher Education showcases our work in a leading (Q1) forum for teacher professional development. What is less visible, and equally important, however, is what this publication represents for us, the authors and the broader ReaLiTea team: an example of effective collaboration across national and institutional contexts. We believe that such synergy among project partners is what underpins the quality of the work we produce; and as we move ahead with our project, we look forward to not only deepening our collaboration but also to extending this dialogue with you —the wider community of teacher-researchers and educators.
What did you think of the article? Share your thoughts in the comment section below or in our Virtual Community of Practice!
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