How do complexity understandings underlie the phenomena or processes that are being researched? How does complexity inform the research approach? How do researchers conduct empirical investigation from a complexity perspective, for example, looking at dynamics, timescales, co-adaptation, emergence? What data collection tools and analysis methods are appropriate? How can we represent findings in ways that sufficiently express the complexity of lived experience, while ensuring representations are conceptually accessible to more than just a few complexity enthusiasts? And, importantly, how does all of this complexity perspective-taking add anything new and useful to our understandings of language learner and teacher psychology? Through contributors detailing and discussing their experiences of conducting complexity research, chapters present practical illustrations of how complexity research can be done, with convincing evidence of why a complexity perspective is useful to investigating and conceptualizing the psychology of language learners and teachers.
In Chapter 2, Peter MacIntyre, Sarah Mercer and Tammy Gregersen offer us their reflections on researching dynamics in language learning psychology. We as editors were very grateful for this contribution, not least because it includes a very handy glossary of terms associated with complexity research, which makes it essential reading for those wishing to learn more about the complexity theory itself. They discuss some useful terms which will appear again and again in the volume, such as timescales, attractor states, self-organization and fractals. What is more, they do so in accessible language and provide a blueprint really for those seeking to apply the complexity lens to their own enquiries.
For Chapter 3, Richard Sampson shares his research on emotions, using timescales to understand how emotions change and develop, and how they possibly influence learning and teaching at various levels. His presentation of multiple threading for learners’ feelings offers not only a fascinating way to understand the myriad of emotions that students reported feeling in the classroom, but it is also a lovely vision of complexity in its own right (according to Richard P).
In Chapter 4, Rebecca Oxford and Christina Gkonou continue the discussion of emotions, and tell us how they developed the Managing Your Emotions survey tool. While a survey might not seem overly complex, they argue that this new, scenario-based method which encourages narrative responses can take into account the ecologies of learning and teaching and focus the complexity lens on affective strategies.
Chapter 5 by Tomoko Yashima is an extended report of her work with Willingness to Communicate (WTC). As Tomoko was one of the original symposiasts at the PLL3 conference, we were delighted that she accepted our invitation to contribute this chapter, especially as her work so artfully demonstrates the use of both qualitative and quantitative data for gaining situated and nuanced understandings from the classroom.
We could not resist following up Tomoko’s paper on WTC with a wonderful paper by Lesley Smith and Jim King, which focuses on the complex issue of silence in the classroom. We thought this juxtaposition was very interesting as it shows the range of complexity research. Their thorough examination of silence also skilfully utilizes both qualitative and quantitative data to gain a more holistic picture of why students do not contribute to foreign language classes in Japanese universities.
We are very happy to feature the fourth and final member of our original symposium, Joe Falout, in Chapter 7. Joe brings the concept of motivational resonance to learner self-concepts, and applies a complexity perspective from outside of SLA. What is intriguing about Joe’s chapter is the way that he provides a narrative of his researching lifetime, rather than homing in on any one particular study. Although not explicitly doing so at the times specific research was carried out, his experiences all speak to complexity.
For Chapter 8, Sal Consoli provides us with an up-close and personal account of his own teaching and research with pre-sessional courses in a UK university, working from an ecological perspective that employs Exploratory Practice to gain contextually situated insights into learner motivation. He draws on Bordieuan sociological ideas to situate his learners’ personal motivations, following Ushioda’s (2009) person-in-context relational view of motivation, and shares some samples of Potentially Exploitable Pedagogic Activities, which give us an insight into his classroom and his learners’ lives and experiences.
In Chapter 9, Kedi Simpson and Heath Rose argue that a complexity approach offers a more ‘ecologically rich’ foundation for research. In rejecting the reductionist approaches which attempt to compartmentalize the ‘messy’ complex nature of real-world classroom research, they invite a complexity perspective which draws on a wonderful horticultural metaphor to help situate aspects of learner psychology in a listening class with children learning French. As such this is an invaluable chapter as it brings another contextual dimension to the volume and helps broaden the discussion.
Chapter 10 sees Takumi Aoyama and Takenori Yamamoto demonstrating the Trajectory Equifinality Approach. This is an approach that can be used to retrospectively explore the psychology of L2 learners and teachers, and delve into both the redundancy and diversity of life experiences evolving to similar points of interest. We are delighted that these authors were able to join us, as it allows a methodology which has been chiefly developed in Japan (and hence written about in Japanese) to be brought to an English-speaking audience.
Ryo Nitta and Yoshiyuki Nakata then share their use of a retrodictive research approach to understanding class climate in Chapter 11. Once again exemplifying the skilled combination of quantitative and qualitative tools, they highlight differences between the English class climates that developed in two separate groups at a Japanese senior-high school. A key insight from their study is the value of collaboration between the local teacher and the researchers, through which they were able to understand their data in a more contextualized fashion.
Chapter 12 by Christine Muir again demonstrates the utility of collaboration between teachers-as-co-researchers and academics. Drawing on recent research into directed motivational currents (DMCs), she extends this construct by investigating the emergence of group-level DMCs during project work in an Australian setting. Her chapter aims to demonstrate to practitioner-researchers the suitability of formative experiments as one situated way of exploring the emergence and management of group-level motivation.
In Chapter 13, Richard Pinner shows how he used autoethnography and social network analysis to question assumptions about his learners, providing us with a short narrative of two very different students with surprising characteristics in common. There are unfortunately those who believe research done by teachers ought to simply focus on teaching ‘tips and tricks’ (see Sampson, in preparation). Richard P’s chapter is a fine (according to Richard S) example of the valuable, deeper understandings of practitioners, their learners and their contexts of practice that can emerge through looking back at a ‘completed’ teacher-researcher study.
Alastair Henry brings together a collection of contradictory selves in Chapter 14. Drawing on the theory of the dialogical self, under-researched in L2 settings, he presents research from Sweden looking at teacher identity. His studies uncovered the ways in which student-teacher understandings of teacher identity evolved through a teaching practicum, impacted in large part by the presence or not of their mentor-teacher in the classroom with them. His fascinating demonstration of the use of both introspective and dialogical data suggests a constructive approach to exploring mediated and less-mediated psychological processes.
In Chapter 15, Anne Feryok provides