This study aims to explore the extent to which Iranian teachers do research, and their reasons for doing so in the English as a foreign language context, with a special emphasis on action research (AR). The present study used a mixed methods design, i.e. questionnaire and interview, to gain a richer understanding of the teachers’ reasons for doing AR. The participants were 65 English teachers from 5 private English language teaching institutions. Despite the fact that many teachers in the present study considered AR useful in solving their immediate teaching problems and improving their teaching practices, the analysis of the teachers’ reasons showed that there are serious barriers in the way of conducting AR which are in nature practical (lack of time), logistic (not having enough knowledge and support), and attitudinal (teachers believe that their job is only to teach).

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