ELT lecturers' experiences of a new research policy: Exploring emotion and academic identity

This study investigated English Language Teaching (ELT) lecturers' experiences of a new research policy and its impact on their academic identities and emotions. In-depth interviews were conducted with 24 lecturers and four academic and administrative leaders at a Vietnamese university, supplemented by the analysis of institutional documents about the new research policy. Taking a social-psychological approach and using inductive thematic analysis, the study identified four types of responses to the new research policy according to participants' emotional experiences and emergent identities: the enthusiastic accommodators, the pressured supporters, a losing heart follower, and the discontented performers. The study discusses implications for institutional leaders and policy makers in terms of the need to recognise different academic identities and varied emotional responses among academic staff and to engage them in dialogue about their changed work roles. The study also suggests reconnecting teaching and research in such ways that lecturers do not have to experience identity conflicts and/or adopt survival coping strategies.