Abstract

The idea of “teacher-as-researcher” has been actively proposed by different scholars across the world. One of the approaches to studying one’s professional practice critically, advocated by Western scholars, is Action Research. Given a wide range of educational reforms in Kazakhstan, teacher educators and teachers are privileged to adopt new ideas brought to their classrooms through teacher development courses. This paper presents teachers’ learning experiences of doing Action Research on a 10-month teacher training course at the Centre for Educational Policy, Nazarbayev University. It goes on to discuss teachers’ perceptions of their roles as researchers. It examines (de)motivating factors and external circumstances influencing their values, beliefs and attitudes towards the role of teacher-asresearcher. It also draws on the authors’ personal experiences of taking part in the initial teacher education programmes and INSET courses. The paper is based on the interview and survey data and, more importantly, takes teachers’ voices seriously.