Introduction

Teaching is undoubtedly a demanding and emotionally taxing profession (Mercer, 2023; Wang et al., 2022). Amidst ongoing curriculum reforms and socio-political shifts, educators face an array of challenges. These include extended working hours, inadequate compensation, managerial pressures, societal scrutiny, rigid performance evaluations tied to student outcomes, insufficient training, and familial responsibilities (Liu and Onwuegbuzie, 2012). Teachers who are not capable of dealing with these challenges are subject to various negative emotions (e.g. anxiety and boredom) (Wang et al., 2022), resulting in professional disengagement (Xie, 2021) and career vulnerability.

Resilience, the capacity that enables individuals to bounce back quickly (Gu and Day, 2007), is beneficial for teachers in dealing with those challenges and operating well in their daily work and lives (Gu, 2014). Resilience safeguards teachers’ well-being and enjoyment in their profession (Proietti Ergün and Dewaele, 2021), helps teachers who work in constraining environments to persist in conducting pedagogical research as teacher-researchers (Edwards and Burns, 2016), enables them to be a positive influence to students (Li et al., 2019).

Studies have been conducted on teacher resilience, such as its potential predictors (e.g. Ainsworth and Oldfield, 2019; Fan et al., 2021) and educational consequences (e.g., Demir Polate and İSkender, 2018; Xie, 2021). Most of these studies have been conducted in general education (Wang et al., 2022). The empirical exploration of language teacher-researchers resilience is still in its early stages. While some teacher-researchers become overwhelmed by the complex education landscape, many maintain their work engagement with an ongoing commitment to research, regardless of the challenges. Teacher-researchers are reflective individuals who actively identify and address problems with the research approach in their teaching practice (Diezmann, 2005). Previous studies have reported the theory-practice gap in language education (e.g. Nguyen et al., 2022) and the benefits teachers can gain from conducting research (e.g. Atay, 2006; Borg, 2010; Xue, 2021). However, studies on the resilience of English teacher-researchers remain underexplored and may contribute to language teacher development.

This qualitative case study aimed to examine the development of resilience in Chinese secondary school English teacher-researchers and revealing its contributing factors. The following research questions were generated: (1) How do secondary school English teacher-researchers develop resilience over time? (2) What factors contribute to the development of resilience among secondary school English teacher-researchers?

Literature Review

Conceptualizing teacher resilience

Resilience is an important personal attribute representing positive adaptation and successful stress-coping abilities (Richardson, 2002). It is not defined solely as a personal attribute but as a complex construct resulting from a dynamic relationship between risk and protective factors (Luthar and Brown, 2007). Gu and Day (2007) considered teacher resilience as ‘the capacity to continue to bounce back to recover strengths or spirit quickly and efficiently in the face of adversity’ (p. 1302). They added that resilience also enabled teachers to ‘maintain equilibrium and a sense of commitment and agency in the everyday worlds in which teachers teach’ (Gu and Day, 2013, p. 26). As for language teacher resilience, Liu and Chu (2022) demonstrated that it is ‘a psychological capacity or quality that enables teachers to deal with and recover from adversities in their teaching and thrive in their daily professional lives’(Liu and Chu, 2022, p. 2). Liu and Chu’s (2022) definition is considered the most relevant for answering our research questions because it retains the essence of resilience as a psychological variable. Furthermore, language teacher resilience can be constructed through interactions between language teachers and their surroundings (Liu and Chu, 2022).

Pioneering studies have demonstrated that resilience is crucial for teachers’ teaching effectiveness and ongoing commitment to the teaching profession (e.g. Day and Gu, 2007; Gu and Day, 2007; Fan et al., 2021; Sun and Li, 2021). In Day and Gu’s (2007) study, data from a large-scale longitudinal teacher education project showed that 218 British teachers in different professional phases remained resilient in challenging workplace environments. They further concluded that these teachers’ capacities to manage challenges vary according to life experiences and events, the strength and conviction of educational ideals, a sense of efficacy and agency, and the support of leaders and colleagues. Numerous recent studies have explored the relationship between teacher resilience and other concepts, such as teaching success (Li and Lv, 2022), job satisfaction and well-being (Han, 2022), and teaching performance in the context of COVID-19 (Liu et al., 2022; Fokkens-Bruinsma et al., 2023). These studies directly point to the essential role of teacher resilience in teacher development.

Among studies that have explored the development of teacher resilience, Sun and Li (2021) examined how teachers in rural Chinese schools maintained a sustained momentum of professional development. They interviewed 12 excellent rural teachers and identified that the development of these teachers’ resilience fit the following five patterns: low-to-high, U-trend, occasional waves, stable development, and high energy throughout. Similarly, Duan et al. (2023) explored the development of an early career English teacher’s resilience. Applying the self-narrative method, this study found that the participant displayed a roughly V-shaped pattern. These two empirical studies portrayed the dynamic development of teacher resilience and indicated its role-dependent features. However, little is known about the development of English teacher-researchers’ resilience or its contributing factors.

Unpacking the contributing factors to teacher resilience

Teachers’ characteristics and resources in the environement function as protective factors that mitigate the negative impacts of challenging events, situations, or conditions. Many researchers have identified factors that promote teacher resilience. Beltman et al. (2011) reviewed 50 empirical studies on early career teachers’ resilience. They found that the individual protective factors mentioned in these studies could be categorised as personal attributes, self-efficacy, coping skills, teaching skills, professional reflection and growth, and self-care. Among the environmental protective factors, school/administrative support, mentor support, support from peers and colleagues, working with students, support from family and friends, and characteristics of the pre-service programme were reported.

Informed by a focused review of relevant literature to determine factors supporting teacher resilience, Mansfield et al. (2016) concluded that the critical factors of teacher resilience fell into the following four categories: personal resources, contextual resources, strategies, and outcomes. The predominant personal resources included motivation, efficacy, a sense of purpose, optimism, and social and emotional intelligence. The most commonly mentioned contextual resources mainly stem from the support of school leaders, colleagues, students, and mentors. Strategies such as work–life balance, problem solving, professional learning, and goal setting have been reported by teachers as the most frequently used. Outcomes such as well-being, commitment, job satisfaction, and agency were most strongly associated with teacher resilience. In their study on a language teacher educator’s teacher resilience, Kostoulas and Lammerer (2018) developed a resilience system model that encompasses inner strengths, learned strategies, and external support. The participant’s inner strengths contributed significantly to her resilience. To cope with threatening situations, strategies such as downplaying setbacks, seeking external support from family, colleagues, mentors, school leaders, and workplace ‘small culture’ (p. 252) were also reported. Ainsworth and Oldfield (2019) investigated individual and contextual factors using a questionnaire completed by 226 teachers in the UK. Similarly, individual factors, such as emotional intelligence, self-esteem, and independent problem-solving skills, were found to be essential to teacher resilience. Contextual factors, including support from management, mentors, family, and friends, and school culture were resourceful for teachers to be resilient. In their study on the development of novice teachers’ resilience in rural China from a socio-ecological perspective, Wang and Lo (2022) identified several factors in socio-ecological systems and further emphasised the interplay of multifaceted situational factors.

The findings of the aforementioned studies support those of Beltman et al. (2011). Therefore, this study followed their classification of contributing factors to teacher resilience. Contributing factors were categorised as individual and environmental protective factors. The former includes personal attributes, self-efficacy, coping skills, teaching skills, professional reflections, and growth. The latter consists of support from school leaders, mentors, colleagues, students, family, and friends as well as academic training in pre-service programs.

Understanding teacher-researchers in the Chinese school context

Some studies have acknowledged the dual role of teachers as practitioners and researchers (Borg, 2010). Generally, teacher-researchers are motivated to engage in inquiries into their professional problems and formulate, evaluate, and refine solutions to these problems (Stenhouse, 1981). In Diezmann’s (2005) view, a teacher-researcher refers to ‘a professional who is reflective and who accepts the responsibility, has the capability, and is sufficiently motivated to identify and address problems in his or her practice’ (p. 183).

Teacher-researchers are defined in this study as school teachers who conduct classroom research and make pedagogical decisions informed by action research or literature reading. In contrast to researchers and teacher-educators in higher education, school teacher-researchers publish mostly teaching cases and lesson studies. Their papers are highly valuable to frontline teachers in Chinese K-12 school contexts because they offer practical insights into classroom instruction and contribute to primary and secondary school teachers’ professional growth.

Several studies have reported the benefits that teachers can obtain from classroom research, such as becoming more reflective and critical of teaching behaviours (Atay, 2006), identifying challenges in professional growth (Borg, 2010), and realising the significance of participating in reform (Wang and He, 2022). Other research also focuses on topics such as the identity development of school teachers in research programs (e.g. Edwards and Burns, 2016; Wang and He, 2022) and strategies to improve teachers’ research ability (e.g. Borg, 2007). While only a limited number of studies have explored the professional development of language teacher-researchers in the Chinese school context, there has not been substantial research exploring any specific dimension of their psychology, such as language teacher-researchers’ resilience. The resilience of these teacher-researchers, as demonstrated in the stories of their professional development, is explored in this study.

Methodology

According to Gu (2014), the two distinctive characteristics of teacher resilience are context- and role-specific. Therefore, the qualitative method is appropriate for exploring the development of resilience because it provides an opportunity to gain a deep understanding of the context and lived experiences of participants (Shields and Mullen, 2020).

Setting and participants

With the advancement of quality education and the deepening of curriculum reform, teacher development has received unprecedented attention in China. The Chinese government has issued a series of policies to build a professional teacher workforce. Among them, the Opinions on Comprehensively Deepening the Reform of Teacher Staff Construction in the New Era explicitly states the need to foster the quality of primary and secondary school teaching and its professional teacher team. Teachers can enhance their professional competence by conducting research, exploring, reflecting, and improving their daily teaching practices. Some Chinese secondary schools have adapted their evaluation and promotion criteria to enforce more stringent requirements on faculty teaching practices and research output. Secondary school teachers, in addition to their role as teachers, also assume the identity of researchers. Typically, insufficient research training before employment makes many teachers shy away from conducting research. However, some teachers are empowered to engage in research in response to the change in external demands. Those who performed well in using research outcomes to inform their teaching have gradually gained recognition as teacher-researchers.

At the beginning of the study, we contacted and invited six teacher-researchers (all of whom had published at least three papers) from schools in different provinces to identify potential participants. Six semi-structured interviews were conducted, each lasting approximately 90 min. A preliminary analysis of the transcribed interview data indicated that two of the six participants, Ming and Wan (pseudonyms were used to protect the participants’ privacy), exhibited salient resilience and could provide us with a rich and deep understanding of how teacher-researchers gain power in confronting setbacks. In addition, Ming and Wan are both from Jiangsu Province, making it convenient for us to understand the environmental influence and establish further connections or verification with them. The two participants’ explicit resilience, informing us with rich data and the convenience of future data collection, prompted us to investigate further and report on their cases. Table 1 presents the background information of the two teacher-researchers.

Table 1 Two Participants’ Basic Information.
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The two participants, Ming and Wan, excelled in teaching and research. Ming is an outstanding junior English teacher who won first prize in the city’s teaching ability competition and has published 15 English teaching articles in Chinese journals. Wan is a senior English teacher and the first-prize winner in a provincial middle school English quality lesson competition. He has published more than 30 English teaching papers in Chinese journals. Additionally, they are both from Jiangsu, an eastern province in China with a developed economy, abundant educational resources, and a strong research atmosphere. More importantly, this province emphasizes the professional development of in-service teachers by providing substantial mental and financial support. This favourable atmosphere prompted many secondary school English teachers to devote themselves to research and writing. It provided an important environmental foundation for the growth of the two teacher-researchers in this study.

Data collection

Semi-structured interviews and case documents were used to collect information for this study. Face-to-face interviews served as the primary data, whereas the participants’ case documents functioned as data triangulation materials. To further investigate the longitudinal changes in teachers’ resilience, both participants were given a graph indicating the years on the horizontal axis and the level of resilience (from low to high) on the vertical ordinate at the beginning of the interviews (see Fig. 1). They were asked to draw a timeline graph showing retrospective changes in their resilience levels. Furthermore, they were required to mark important events related to the development of resilience on the graph.

Fig. 1
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Sample Timeline Graph of Teacher Resilience Development.

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A follow-up stimulated recall interview (Gass and Mackey, 2000) was subsequently administered, in which each participant was interviewed while looking at their resilience graphs, allowing researchers to confirm the factors and events behind the ups and downs observed in the individual graphs. Consent for participation was obtained from all participants, and each interview lasted approximately 90 min. The interview questions were adapted from those used in Shields and Mullen’s (2020) study on veteran teachers’ resilience, providing an opportunity to identify and examine teacher resilience changes over time. The interviews were audio-recorded with consent and conducted in the Chinese participants’ first language. Written notes were also taken during the interviews to track participants’ keywords, statements, and expressions (Creswell, 2013).

The case documents included two timeline graphs of resilience drawn by the participants, their published papers, and their social media WeChat moments related to English teaching and research. All these case documents offered rich information for this study. Among these case documents, two-time graphs of resilience development and published papers that mentioned resilience development were analyzed to enrich the interview data. WeChat moments were used to crosscheck the interview data.

Data analysis

Data analysis is an ongoing process that occurs simultaneously with data collection. This study analysed the data in two phases: narrative analysis and the analysis of narratives (Polkinghorne, 1995). Narrative analysis aims to construct stories from the collected data, while the analysis of narratives is used to identify themes and patterns from these constructed stories. Furthermore, the narrative approach used in Gu and Day’s (2007) exploration of teacher resilience revealed the meanings embodied in stories of teachers’ professional and personal development from multiple perspectives.

The researchers first read and re-read all the interview data and case documents during data analysis. In the first phase, stories closely related to participants’ resilience were written. Specific steps to construct the narrative stories included (1) reviewing the timeline graphs, relevant interview notes, interview transcriptions, audio recordings, and case documents; (2) summarizing the crucial information related to each research question; and (3) writing stories with the participants’ important quotations.

After constructing stories about teachers’ resilience, two steps were taken in the second phase. First, all stories were reordered according to the time sequence and revised according to the timeline graph drawn by the two participants. Second, all stories were divided into fragments that were then coded into two categories (i.e. individual and environmental protective factors). The researcher compared the codes in each category and identified the subcategories. To improve the rigour and credibility of the data analysis, the coding process was performed inductively using NVivo 12, a computer-assisted qualitative data analysis software package. Measures were taken to guarantee data analysis quality. All discrepancies in the translations were resolved through further discussion.

Findings

Based on the data analysis, this study identified the development of resilience in secondary school English teacher-researchers in two patterns: low-to-high and W-shaped recovery.

Development of English teacher-researchers’ resilience

Low-to-high

When an English teacher-researcher’s resilience development is described as ‘low-to-high’, it means that their resilience is relatively weak during the early years of their career. Later, the teachers become increasingly resilient after experiencing the challenges and achievements of teaching and research, after which their resilience remain at its highest level. Of the two participants in this study, Ming’s resilience development followed this pattern.

Ming’s resilience was low during her first three years of teaching because of the pressure of test-oriented teacher evaluation. Since 2017, she has become increasingly resilient, gradually becoming free from teaching pressures. Her resilience peaked in 2020 when her articles were published. Subsequently, her resilience has remained stable at its highest level. A timeline graph of her resilience development is shown (see Fig. 2).

Fig. 2
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Timeline Graph of Ming’s Resilience Development.

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Ming graduated with a master’s degree in 2014. Although she did not major in English education, she learned language-learning theories when she was a postgraduate student in the Teaching Chinese to Speakers of Other Languages programme. In her words, ‘I learned some pedagogical and psychological theories, and I know how to apply them in teaching practice’ (Ming-I-1; the notes in the bracket identify the participant, the type of data resources, and the page number of the quotes. For example, ‘Ming’ refers to the participant Ming, ‘I’ refers to the interview, and ‘1’ refers to the page number in the interview transcript). Moreover, in the programme, cooperation with her classmates in the research methodology course was also a valuable experience for her: ‘Our group selected a topic, designed a questionnaire, and finally finished a paper together. The process was enjoyable’ (Ming-C; here, ‘C’ refers to case documents). This academic training experience enhanced her research capabilities and motivated her to conduct further research in her future career.

Ming saw a turning point in her teaching career in 2017. Before 2017, she did not have time to write teaching research articles: ‘For me, the period from 2014 to 2017 was a time of survival’ (Ming-I-1). Ming encountered several challenges during this period. The first challenge involved time management issues: ‘Balancing work and life was not easy’ (Ming-I-7). For Ming, ‘It felt like I was standing at a crossroads. Work or life was a matter of personal choice, and I chose work’ (Ming-I-7). Focusing more on teaching, Ming had difficulty handling household chores: ‘My mother-in-law helped me take care of my little daughter. That allowed me to concentrate on my work’ (Ming-I-4). Ming’s husband also encouraged her: ‘My husband told me to do whatever was beneficial to my personal and professional development’ (Ming-I-7). Family support provided Ming with more time for work. The second challenge concerned peer pressure within the work context, causing anxiety: ‘My colleagues have become a bit distant from me’ (Ming-I-3). However, support coexisted with the pressure. The school principal encouraged her to explore novel teaching ideas: ‘The school principal explored new teaching methods herself. Therefore, she appreciated teachers who did the same thing. Her encouragement meant a lot to me’ (Ming-I-3). Another major challenge was the mischief of students in her class. Ming believed that encouragement was better than criticism for students. To manage a naughty boy, she assigned him the task of acting as the monitor: ‘I told the class he was good and everyone should learn from him. I intended to make him feel that he was a model for the class, so he would not behave badly’ (Ming-I-8). When the student entered senior high school, he expressed gratitude toward Ming: ‘He told his mother that he got there because of me. When I heard his words, I was happier than ever before’ (Ming-I-10). After successfully dealing with these teaching-related challenges, her resilience increased.

After 2017, Ming began to spend time conducting research as she gained more experience in teaching and classroom management. Ming borrowed books and journals on English teaching from the school library. When she read an article written by an English teacher in a nearby school, she thought, ‘The English teacher there could write a core journal article, so I could write one too’ (Ming-I-1). Thus, Ming revised an article she had written before and submitted it to a top English teaching journal in China, FLTS. The editor of FLTS soon replied to Ming and gave her many suggestions on which books she should read and where improvement was required. When she started revising it based on the editor’s advice, she ‘began reading books and journal articles systematically. This article is my first article published in FLTS, and I learned a lot about academic writing from this experience’ (Ming-I-1). Since then, her resilience has increased continuously. Tasting the sweetness of success, Ming was motivated to write about her teaching practice, particularly about her extra-curricular reading: ‘I wrote 7,000 words or so. To my disappointment, the first draft was rejected by FLTS that time’ (Ming-I-2). Instead of giving up, Ming took the initiative to determine why she was rejected: ‘I read other teachers’ articles about the same topic, and then I found that they wrote around one focused point and provided supporting examples. The most important was that their ideas were novel’ (Ming-I-2). She realised that she needed to improve her writing skills.

In 2020, the revision of Ming’s fourth core journal article posed a significant challenge. She submitted an article during the summer vacation of 2020. Soon after, the editor of FLTS gave her feedback and asked her to reply via e-mail as soon as possible. Coincidentally, it was also the school opening day, thus Ming was too busy to revise the article. ‘The difficulty level of revision was 5 points, which meant the revision would be very difficult. I was swamped. I read through their suggestions and revised it roughly’ (Ming-I-5). Ming sent the first draft to the editor without double-checking. One week later, Ming received another e-mail from the editor. She was told what to revise and when to send the final draft. Ming was fully occupied with a demonstration lesson, and so she put the article aside for some time. After the demonstration lesson, she focused on revising the article. She redefined the key concept and rebuilt the conceptual framework: ‘When the concept was rebuilt, every section was rewritten accordingly. I stayed up late every day to rewrite it and carefully checked the accuracy of my expressions. The final draft was completely different from the initial version’ (Ming-I-5). Before sending it to the editor, she invited Mr Feng, one of her colleagues, to read the article: ‘Mr Feng found some mistakes the editor did not notice and he also gave me valuable advice’ (Ming-I-5). Following Mr Feng’s advice, she polished the article again. Not until a few hours before the deadline did Ming finish the revision process: ‘I got up at 4 a.m. to revise it and send it to the editor. That was insane’ (Ming-I-5). Happily, Ming’s article was accepted: ‘I cannot believe that I did it in such a difficult circumstance. Because of this article, I felt that I was much more resilient than before’ (Ming-I-5).

Although Ming encountered many challenges, she believed that ‘challenges could be overcome, and what was required to be a success could be created by a determined person. Maintaining learning can increase the likelihood of success. Success thus became the mother of the next success’ (Ming-I-11). Now, Ming always plans to write an article in advance, including when to write the first draft, when to revise it, and when to submit it. Feeling joy in success, she encourages her colleagues and apprentices to write articles.

The above examples show that Ming was not sufficiently resilient at the beginning of her teaching career. Multiple challenges, such as difficulties in academic research and writing and the imbalance between work and life, prevented her from becoming a resilient teacher-researcher. By exploiting resources such as intrinsic motivation, tenacity, interpersonal skills, and external support, Ming overcame challenges and gained ground-breaking establishment in her career. Success in turn accelerated her self-efficacy and maintained her resilience at a high level.

W-shaped recovery

When an English teacher-researcher’s resilience is portrayed as ‘W-shaped recovery‘, it means that their resilience is occasionally weakened by setbacks. However, they can quickly recover from diminished resilience by actively seeking measures or support from others. Finally, the teacher recovers their resilience or becomes even more resilient. Of the two participants in this study, Wan’s resilience generally followed this developmental pattern.

Wan’s resilience started strikingly at a medium level and wavered back and forth between medium and high levels in subsequent years. His resilience level showed an upward trend from 2008 to 2015, peaking in 2015 when he received a provincial first-class award and was promoted in his professional title. Overwhelmed by a heavy workload, his resilience was weakened for a while but peaked in 2020 for the second time. From 2020 to 2022, his resilience fluctuated and reached its highest level. Resilience development was demonstrated using timeline graphs (see Fig. 3).

Fig. 3
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Timeline Graph of Wan’s Resilience Development.

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Although Wan failed the postgraduate examinations and job hunting, he was not defeated. Instead, he reassured himself: ‘As long as I was given a chance to work as a teacher, I would have done as well as or even better than others’ (Wan-I-2). In 2008, Wan worked at a rural school. Many of his students were born into migrant families and did not learn much English in primary school, which was undoubtedly a great challenge for Wan, a novice teacher. At that time, improving students’ test scores was a major concern. After consulting other teachers, Wan chose to teach with the tests in mind. He guided the students in practicing test-taking strategies to help them improve their scores. In the final examination, the average scores of his two classes were the highest among the 12 classes. This boosted his resilience. At that time, Wan felt as though he was a teaching machine, shuttling from the classroom to the office day and night. He was confused: ‘Should I focus solely on students’ test scores all the time? Does a teacher’s success or failure depend completely on students’ test scores? What are the key factors of professional development?’ (Wan-C). After listening to a lecture given by a university professor, Wan realised that ‘students’ test scores did not entirely determine the success of his life. The value of teachers is mainly determined by the teachers themselves’ (Wan-C). Thus, he began reading books in the school library. However, due to a lack of formal academic training, he read aimlessly.

Wan did not give up because of temporary difficulties. Instead, he spent more time reading in the school library: ‘I thought I could learn something from reading more, and it was much better than chatting in the office’ (Wan-C). Wan’s confusion did not persist. He found a more effective way to read by writing summaries after reading. He wrote down the main content of the article and his reflection in his notebooks: ‘I tried to figure out the framework of journal articles so that I could quickly master the patterns of writing’ (Wan-C). He also enjoyed reading because he thought ‘it was fresh and exciting’ (Wan-C). From being unable to understand an academic article to becoming versed in writing one, Wan made remarkable efforts. As a result of accumulating theories and practices, Wan refined his teaching experiences by writing articles. He published two research articles in the first three years of teaching. When his articles were published, he was proud to share the good news with Wang, an elderly English teacher in the same office. Wang encouraged him: ‘He read my article and said it was very good. His encouragement had a significant effect on me’ (Wan-I-2). Subsequently, he submitted his articles to core journals: ‘I just wanted to make a breakthrough. I thought I could do more’ (Wan-I-2). He was rejected many times but never gave up. In 2011, his first core journal article was published in FLTS after many revisions. His confidence in teaching and research skills increased.

Due to the need to obtain a higher professional title, in 2017 Wan was transferred to teaching in a disadvantaged school, where he was assigned to take charge of the worst class, Grade 9. Wan was full of teaching enthusiasm and prepared his lessons with all his might: ‘I did a great job in both teaching and research. Therefore, when I first came to this school, I firmly believed I could make a difference in students’ English proficiency and learning attitudes’ (Wan-I-4). However, the situation was a completely different story: ‘Only five students in the class listened to me attentively, and the rest just ignored what I was talking about. Gradually, I had a sense of self-doubt about changing these students’ (Wan-I-5). What really disappointed him was that he could not establish a rapport with the students: ‘This did no harm to my professional title promotion, but it meant that I got no recognition from my students. That made me very disappointed, and my passion was weakened’ (Wan-I-5). His heavy workload also deprived him of the time and energy to read academic journals and conduct research. For the first time, his resilience decreased.

Out of his sense of vocation, he still cared about the students and taught them to the best of his ability: ‘I thought that they respected me at least. After graduation, some of them met me on the street and said hello to me’ (Wan-I-6). Wan also attempted to maintain optimism: ‘I paid more attention to their strengths and stopped comparing these students with students I taught in a better school before’ (Wan-I-5). In 2019, he took the initiative to teach Grade 7: ‘It was too difficult to change the students in Grade 9. The students from Grade 7 were like a sponge and they were more eager to learn, so I could make a difference to them more or less’ (Wan-I-5). Wan was more enthusiastic about teaching than before because the students in Grade 7 were more cooperative and their relationships were closer. ‘Although their scores did not improve significantly, they maintained good classroom discipline and completed their assignments on time. I received greeting cards and flowers on Teachers’ Day’ (Wan-I-5). Wan thought that receiving gifts from students could not measure a teacher’s status, but it showed his students’ recognition. He was emotionally uplifted by these students and his resilience bounced back to the highest level.

Wan believed that it was uncommon for English teachers to conduct research or write papers because of their heavy workload, which also posed a challenge to him. Still, he upheld his resilience to counteract any negativity: ‘For me, doing research is a remedy and responsibility, which gives me temporary respite from a heavy working schedule’ (Wan-I-13). With accumulated experience, Wan, as the leader of a teaching research group at his school, was more willing to help other English teachers conduct classroom-based research: ‘I hope that more teachers, especially young teachers, will be inspired by my articles. Many teachers know my name, so I do not want to let them down or lead them in the wrong direction’ (Wan-I-2). His resilience increased again after 2021 and has remained stable.

The development of these two teacher-researchers’ resilience indicated that their resilience was not a static innate quality but a dynamic and developmental one that resulted from the different challenges they faced in their different professional career phases. Moreover, the developmental patterns manifested in English teacher-researchers who thrive in both teaching and research differ in their resilience development.

Contributing factors to English teacher-researchers’ resilience

The two patterns (low-to-high and W-shaped recovery) revealed that the two teacher-researchers’ resilience developed differently in different phases, indicating the unique features of their individual characteristics and the environments in which they worked and lived. The constructed stories indicated two categories of factors contributing to their resilience: individual and environmental protective factors. The dynamic interactions between individual and environmental protective factors were also beneficial.

Individual protective factors: personal traits count

The individual protective factors mentioned by the participants included personal traits, professional reflection and growth, self-efficacy, coping skills, and teaching skills.

Secondary school English teacher-researcher’s personal traits positively influence their resilience. First, tenacity is a force that keeps the two teachers moving forward in the face of difficulties. Revising research articles was a challenge for Wan, but he persisted: ‘Do you think I was about to give up? Giving up is not my personality’ (Wan-I-16). Ming submitted a revised article of great difficulty in a situation in which she was already very busy. Emotional intelligence enabled the two teacher-researchers to regulate their negative emotions in challenging circumstances. When Wan was transferred to a disadvantaged school for three years, he felt like he had lost his grip. However, he tried to remain optimistic: ‘If I did not regulate my negative emotions and I kept comparing these students with those I taught before, I would be frustrated, and that was of no use’ (Wan-I-5). Finally, altruism, as the source of teachers’ care for students, brought about students’ recognition and further strengthened teacher resilience. Taking Wan as an example, he said, ‘I was responsible for every student I taught’ (Wan-I-10). He still had high expectations for his students despite their economic backgrounds.

Professional reflection and growth encompass three aspects: learning, reflection, and proactivity. First, both teacher-researchers constantly reflected on their teaching and writing skills. For example, Wan kept all the writing materials from the first draft to the final draft, as well as the editor’s suggestions for revision. Ming often reflected on her writing through reading. She wanted to determine why she was rejected by reading other teachers’ articles on the same topic and found that they had novel ideas and provided supporting examples. Second, the two teacher-researchers were committed to their ongoing professional learning, which helped them catch up with the times and refreshed their beliefs. Both participants mentioned that they had improved their teaching skills and academic writing abilities by reading extensively, taking notes, and learning from others’ experiences. Third, with increasing experience and recognised achievements in teaching and research, Wan volunteered to mentor younger teachers. As an increasing number of teachers viewed him as a role model, he identified himself as a guide for young teachers at his school:

I am very willing to mentor young teachers and strongly welcome them to join my research group. I could give them guidance and help them to make great progress. I can also learn something from them. (Wan-I-3)

Furthermore, resilient English teacher-researchers possess a sense of self-efficacy, feel confident, and are competent at teaching and research. Wan and Ming’s self-efficacy increased as their achievements increased. For example, Wan believed that he could teach well, and his self-efficacy increased as his students obtained good grades under his guidance:

I majored in English education so I know how to learn English more effectively. I shared how I learned English effectively with my students. Consequently, both classes got high rankings in examinations. It positively influenced my confidence. (Wan-I-1)

This study indicated that coping skills promoted resilience in the two participants. Coping skills refer to teachers’ active use of problem-solving strategies, including time management, help-seeking, and interpersonal skills. Good time management skills helped these teachers overcome challenges such as imbalances between work and life, heavy workloads, and long working hours. For example, after Ming’s students’ reading ability improved with extra-curricular reading tasks, she was relatively free from the pressure of test scores. Thus, she spent more time looking for research topics and writing articles: ‘A famous teacher once said that we teachers should be the masters of our time. So, I read journal articles between classes and revised my writings when I was on duty’ (Ming-I-2). Help-seeking skills empowered these teachers to obtain timely and valuable help from their social networks when facing challenges. Ming sometimes turned to her mentor, Mr Feng, for advice and sometimes chatted with her friend, Ms Yi, another teacher-researcher, to reduce her stress and anxiety. Interpersonal skills helped build rapport with others, which contributed to the teacher-researchers’ resilience. Ming managed to build good teacher-student rapport, which benefited her students’ development and her own resilience: ‘Students have relatively more freedom in my class as I believe too many rules would dull them. Sometimes, students are naughty; in fact, they need teachers to have conversations with them as equals’ (Ming-I-8).

Teaching skills were identified as the final individual protective factor that contributed to teachers’ resilience. The two English teacher-researchers who excelled in teaching and research knew how to help students succeed in learning English. Improvements in students’ English proficiency could create a sense of achievement that could add to their resilience. For example, in the context of test-oriented education, Wan showed his teaching wisdom:

I knew how to instruct students to answer questions by referring to my own learning experience. For example, I asked students to underline the keywords or critical sentences for multiple-choice questions. These test-taking strategies have certainly helped my students. In the final examination, the average scores of the two classes I taught were in the top among the 12 parallel classes. (Wan-I-1)

In addition to knowing students well, these teachers are keen to explore new teaching methods suitable for their students. The success of new teaching methods promotes teachers’ resilience. Ming described her implementation of extracurricular reading training as a prompt to develop resilience:

At the beginning of the teaching, I just asked them to read and finish the task lists I made for them. Later, I set a few requirements and invited the students to design tasks. They thus made great strides in reading. (Ming-I-2)

Thus, both teachers’ excellent teaching skills helped their students improve their learning attitudes and academic performance. These factors positively influenced their resilience.

Environmental protective factors: relational support matters

Teachers’ resilience-building processes are influenced positively or negatively by the quality of the relationships in which their work and lives are embedded (Gu and Li, 2013). Apart from support from school leaders, mentors, colleagues, and students, teacher resilience is also closely associated with support from family members and friends, as well as the support they receive during their pre-service academic training. It was concluded that these were environmental protective factors for teacher-researchers resilience.

Both participants had two types of relationships with their colleagues: the mentor–learner relationship in their early careers and the colleague relationship in teaching research groups. Both these relationships are conducive to the development of resilience. For example, Ming expressed gratitude to her mentor, Mr Feng. She said that Mr Feng is ‘a significant person in my professional development’ (Ming-I-3). Without his help and guidance, Ming would not have made significant progress in teaching or research: ‘Not until Mr Feng came to my school did I realise how important a mentor was. If I had had a mentor when I was a novice teacher, I would have done better than now’ (Ming-I-6). In addition to their mentors, the two teacher-researchers valued their colleagues’ assistance. Wan was very proud of receiving the provincial award and shared the good news with an elderly teacher in the same office, who always encouraged him. Support from school leaders was also mentioned. The school leader trusted Ming by providing both intellectual and emotional support:

Our school principal teaches politics and she actively engages in teaching research herself. She attaches great importance to training teachers’ ability to conduct classroom research. She sets an excellent example for other teachers and for me. (Ming-I-3)

Furthermore, trusting student–teacher relationships are crucial for maintaining teacher-researchers’ resilience and helping them overcome challenging situations. The closeness between Wan and his students maintained his teaching effectiveness. Ming mentioned that recognition from students ‘makes me much happier than a financial bonus’ (Ming-I-10). Student support affords teachers with additional emotional, intellectual, and vocational strengths that enhance their resilience in both teaching and research.

Family support was also significant. Ming shouldered great responsibility for her family but also received support from her husband and mother-in-law. Her husband always supported her in doing what she liked, especially writing articles. Ming’s friends also provided substantial help. When Ming was in trouble, she often turned to Ms Yi, another English teacher-researcher.

Ming also highlighted the influence of pre-service academic training on teachers’ engagement in classroom research. Although Ming did not specialise in English education when she was a postgraduate, she learned language learning theories by reading journal articles. Academic reading and writing training in pre-service education provides the impetus for her to overcome the challenges of thesis writing.

Discussion

This study identified two patterns of resilience development among secondary school English teacher-researchers, namely, low-to-high and W-shaped recovery. These findings highlight the dynamic nature of resilience development. Furthermore, this study revealed individual and environmental protective factors that contribute to resilience. The findings echo those of existing studies, while presenting some novel contributions.

Uncovering the dynamic feature of English teacher-researchers’ resilience development

This study identified two resilience development patterns among secondary school English teacher-researchers. The first pattern, low-to-high, represented by Ming, is characterised as increasing resilience, ultimately leading to a stable, high resilience level. This is consistent with the findings of Sun and Li (2021) in terms of explicit manifestation; however, some subtle differences remain. First, the reason for the initial relatively low resilience level in Sun and Li’s (2021) study was rural school teachers’ passive choice of the teaching profession, while the teacher-researcher Ming’s low resilience at first in this study was mainly attributed to teaching pressure. Second, Ming’s increasing resilience was related to her inner calling to teach, strength gained from her moral purposes and ethical values, and research conduct, which is different from the cases in Sun and Li (2021), where social perceptions of teachers’ status mattered significantly.

The identity of the teacher-researcher brings rich connotations to the dynamic development of resilience. First, teacher-researchers certainly encounter both teaching- and research-related risk factors in resilience development. Teacher-researchers’ resilience would be better maintained or increased when they successfully overcome difficulties in revising and publishing articles, indicating the coexistence of challenges and opportunities for front-line teachers to conduct research. The resilience recovery process also emphasises the critical role of support from family members, colleagues, leaders, and editors, which concurs with the findings of previous studies (e.g. Gu, 2014; Kostoulas and Lammerer, 2018; Ainsworth and Oldfield, 2019; Duan et al., 2023).

The W-shaped recovery pattern, represented by Wan in this study, is slightly different from the occasional waves found by Sun and Li (2021). Following this pattern, Wan’s resilience has wavered back and forth between medium and high levels in recent years. Most fluctuations in Wan’s resilience development reflected obvious twists or important events, while the occasional waves observed by Sun and Li (2021) were influenced by personal perceptions, such as workload and lasting homesickness. This difference supports Gu and Day’s (2013) argument that teachers’ sense of resilience fluctuates to varying degrees due to the interactions between individuals and the contexts in which they work and live. Like other novice teachers (Tait, 2008; Fan et al., 2021; Duan et al., 2023), Wan’s resilience continued to increase during his early career because of his students’ improved academic performance. Later, standing at the crossroads of their professional lives, in Gu and Day’s (2007) opinion, teachers must decide whether to pursue career advancement or to remain in the classroom fulfilling the original call to teach. Wan’s incentives pushed him forward as research targets were established. However, Wan experienced diminished resilience twice: first when he was transferred to a disadvantaged school in which he was emotionally challenged by students, verifying Day’s (2008) proposal that teachers’ resilience is more persistently challenged in more disadvantaged schools. The second time was because of heavy workloads, as reported by Wan. One possible explanation is that teaching is highly demanding owing to its emotional and intellectual nature (Mercer, 2023), and less intensive stressors, such as increasing workloads, can cause teachers’ resilience to fluctuate. This supports Gu and Day’s (2013) argument that teachers’ resilience is closely related to their everyday capacity to navigate the daily uncertainties that are integral to teaching. As Wan’s pattern suggests, he later recovered from low resilience, which can be partly attributed to the benefits teacher-researchers can obtain from educational research, as reported by prior studies (Atay, 2006; Borg, 2010; Xue, 2021; Wang and He, 2022).

These two patterns confirm the dynamic features of resilience development (Day, 2014; Mansfield et al. 2016; Li et al., 2019; Fan et al., 2021; Sun and Li, 2021), which are both role- and context-specific (Gu, 2014). Regarding role-specific features, the different resilience stories and resilience development patterns of Ming and Wan revealed the uniqueness of each individual, which was related to their different educational backgrounds, teaching beliefs, career phases, and so on (Gu and Day, 2007). Furthermore, the teacher-researchers in our study may have experienced challenges or fluctuations commonly shared by teachers, but of different intensities, echoing Xue’s (2021) finding that academic research stimulates teachers to be more responsive and resilient in ever-changing contexts. Concerning context-specific features, individual teachers’ resilience development is understood in their situational cultures and contexts (Gu, 2018; Han, 2022). In the Chinese context, the last two decades have witnessed many educational reforms (Li et al., 2019), bringing uncertainty to frontline teachers and requiring them to enhance their resilience to better cope with difficulties in transforming teaching practices. The two teacher-researchers in this study adapted resiliently to their situational contexts, achieving enhanced teaching and research performance.

Highlighting interactive factors of English teacher-researchers’ resilience

This study supports Beltman et al.’s (2011) classification of the factors contributing to teacher resilience. These protective factors, in different combinations and embedded in complex conditions (Gu and Day, 2013), function as a whole to positively influence English teacher-researchers resilience.

The data analysis sorted individual protective factors into five categories: personal traits, professional reflection and growth, self-efficacy, coping skills, and teaching skills. Key personal traits reported by previous studies also surfaced from the interview data, including altruism (Day and Gu, 2014), intrinsic motivation (Gu and Day, 2013), and emotional intelligence (Xie, 2021). Moreover, both teacher-researchers’ initial self-efficacy correlated with personal traits in building resilience, confirming the interaction between teachers’ self-efficacy and the resilient qualities found by Day and Gu (2014) and Xue (2021).

The two teacher-researchers’ professional development went far beyond honing their teaching skills. They actively participated in classroom research, the extent of which indicated that they have conducted classroom research for a long time on account of professional title promotion and teaching enthusiasm. This necessitates abundant literature reading and reflective writing, two other ways to promote teacher-researchers’ professional development. Benefiting from reciprocal connections between educational research and classroom teaching, the two teacher-researchers thrived in both areas. Hence, they were more likely to be equipped with the everyday resilience (Gu and Day, 2013) required to deal with routine pressures and unavoidable uncertainties commonly shared by teachers in their everyday work and lives (Gu, 2018). Thus, this study, through a resilience lens, provides convincing evidence that highlights the necessity and value of encouraging teachers to focus on both teaching and research to promote sustainable professional development. Some frontline teachers may find conducting classroom research burdensome, which seems to contribute little to their resilience. In contrast, the two participants in this study were gradually characterised by a research mindset and identified themselves as teacher-researchers. Diverse affordances from their surroundings, which were explored as environmental factors in this study, greatly contributed to their research engagement. The diverse perceptions of the notion of research recognised by teachers suggest that they had various and more manageable choices in terms of the types of classroom research. These factors jointly made them resilient teacher-researchers.

Additionally, coping skills, which reflect teachers’ dispositions toward responding to pressures and navigating challenges (Liu and Chu, 2022), were found to play a role in shaping teacher resilience. Ming actively employed coping skills to develop a close teacher–student rapport with mischievous students. In this way, coping skills helped improve the environment in which she worked and strengthened her resilience, highlighting individuals’ active interaction and negotiation with the environment in the resilience-building process.

Along with the five aforementioned individual protective factors, contextual factors also contribute to teachers’ resilience, as has been overwhelmingly reported (e.g. Mansfield et al., 2012; Gu and Day, 2013; Fan et al., 2021; Chu and Liu, 2022). The contextual protective factors identified in this study included support outside of school, such as family and friends; support within school, such as students, mentors, leaders, and colleagues; and support from pre-service programs, such as the experience of academic training and research cooperation. Varying degrees of support from students, principals, mentors, and family members were found to help teacher-researchers sustain their resilience, justifying researchers’ attention to trusting social networks (Gu and Li, 2013; Day and Gu, 2014; Gu, 2018; Xue, 2021). Notably, pre-service programs conducive to building resilience were only mentioned by Ming, who gained effective thesis writing training in college. A few studies have directly explored the positive effects of pre-service programmes on resilience building (Mansfield et al., 2016), but many studies (e.g. Tait, 2008; Beltman et al., 2011; Gu and Day, 2013; Fan et al., 2021) have provided implications for pre-service programmes, suggesting their essentially positive role in developing teachers’ resilience; few have paid attention to pre-service academic writing training, as mentioned by Ming. This may be attributed to the scarcity of research on teacher-researchers’ resilience development.

Informed by Wang and Lo (2022) who highlighted the interaction among different ecosystems in their study of resilience development among rural Chinese teachers from a socio-ecological perspective, this study found that teacher-researchers developed resilience in their dynamic interactions with contexts at different levels, such as society, schools, and families. Instead of being a given and static asset, the context was constructed to some extent by resilient individuals themselves. For example, contexts conducive to teachers’ resilience development feature trusting social networks, the construction of which depends on teachers’ employment of individual protective factors such as emotional intelligence and coping skills. Recent studies have found an interactive nature in resilience development (Chu et al., 2021; Liu and Chu, 2022; Wang and Lo, 2022), indicating that the ecologically constructed concept of resilience (Gu, 2018) provides a more informative perspective for understanding the development of teacher resilience.

Conclusion

This study adds to the literature on teacher resilience by underscoring the dynamic nature of teacher researchers’ resilience development, an underexplored topic in resilience studies. This study revealed the patterns of two Chinese secondary school English teacher-researchers’ resilience development and identified the contributing factors. This study further unpacks the interactive relationship between individual and environmental protective factors in shaping teacher-researchers’ resilience.

This study proposes several implications for teacher development and education. First, as resilience plays a protective and even facilitating role in teachers’ career development by empowering them to bounce back in the face of adversity, measures should be taken to strengthen teachers’ resilience. Participants showed dynamic resilience, where the level fluctuated at different stages, and they were most likely to suffer from a performative culture and perceive weak resilience over the initial years of their careers. At this vulnerable and powerless stage, schools and educational departments should provide resilience training to ease teachers’ emotional burdens and establish a favourable working environment for their psychological health and professional growth.

Second, being a teacher-researcher offered participants more opportunities and diverse ways to enact resilience in educational contexts, highlighting the value of participating in classroom research. Hence, we suggest that different stakeholders make joint efforts to cultivate teacher-researchers in secondary schools to ensure teachers’ ongoing career development and students’ academic performance. Teachers could seek time to read extensively, especially academic monographs and journal papers, improve their academic expression and logical thinking, and engage in writing and submitting research papers. Teacher educators should pursue the goal of cultivating teacher-researchers in pre-service teacher education programmes by balancing practical and research-oriented courses, arranging regular academic writing sessions, and discussing papers and lessons from frontline teacher-researchers. Schools could encourage teachers to apply for teaching research projects, invite experts to give lectures, and provide teachers with opportunities for research training, creating a favourable atmosphere for conducting teacher research. Educational administrators should attach importance to the professional development of in-service teachers and strive to provide opportunities for further study.

This study has some limitations that suggest directions for future research. First, it relied on self-reported data from two secondary school English teacher-researchers. The small sample size and retrospective nature of the data cannot fully track teacher resilience development over time. Second, the absence of observational data made it difficult to explore how participants exhibited and gained resilience in real life. Future research should focus on a larger and more diverse sample to provide a richer and more nuanced understanding of resilience development patterns among teacher-researchers. Further research is needed to explore the resilience of underexplored teacher populations, including but not limited to pre-service, novice, and rural teachers, to construct a fuller picture of teacher resilience and to offer more constructive implications for developing and strengthening resilience in continuing development.