Research on the Path of Improving the Scientific Research Ability of Foreign Language Teachers in Higher Vocational Colleges: Literature Review and Policy Enlightenment

Abstract

The issuance of the Three-year Action Plan for Vocational Education, Teaching and Scientific Research (2025-2027) in 2025 (hereinafter referred to as the Plan) marks that China’s vocational education, teaching and scientific research has entered a new strategic stage of building a strong country serving education, and puts forward higher requirements for foreign language teachers’ scientific research ability in higher vocational colleges. This study adopts the narrative literature review method to systematically sort out the conceptual evolution, influencing factors and promotion paths of foreign language teachers’ scientific research ability along the academic history, and on this basis, combined with the practical difficulties of higher vocational teachers, refine the policy enlightenment applicable to higher vocational foreign language teachers. The findings are as follows: firstly, the concept of foreign language teachers’ scientific research ability has undergone three stages: general skills, practical reflection and policy response; Secondly, the development of scientific research ability is influenced by three factors: individual motivation and experience, organizational atmosphere and support, and institutional evaluation and incentive; Thirdly, the promotion path presents four generations of progressive characteristics: training and research, community building, system incentive and policy docking. However, most of the above studies focus on foreign language teachers in undergraduate colleges, and the discussion on foreign language teachers in higher vocational colleges is relatively scarce. Foreign language teachers in higher vocational colleges face practical difficulties such as heavy teaching tasks, weak scientific research foundation and insufficient institutional support. The Plan puts the ability of policy response at the core, and endows teachers with complex ability requirements such as research on integration of production and education, digital research and international research. The tension between high expectations of policies and practical difficulties constitutes the core challenge of policy implementation in the next three years. On the basis of pointing out the shortcomings of existing research, this paper puts forward the future research direction in order to provide academic reference for policy implementation and scientific research development of foreign language teachers in higher vocational colleges.