Introduction

Education is a key factor to developing countries, which allows them to avoid poverty, create progress and improve the lifestyle. Since their beginning, universities have been dedicated to teach, to administrate and to work on research activities. Before 1990, the most developed activity was teaching. The administrative models of universities in Latin American countries were transformed into an academic evaluation model. In Mexico, programs were developed to improve the number of scientific products and raise teachers’ salary for those who conducted research (^{Pérez & Guzmán, 2015}). These programs changed the focus or main aim from teaching to research activities.

In addition to this change related to the activities, teaching has been modified by the competencies approach, which is closer to teachers needs and demands an interdisciplinary organization of contents. The challenge is to modify the teachers’ culture (^{Gairín, 2011}). Even if Mexican curricular programs have been designed according to the international standard competencies approach, they have not been completely implemented. One of the reasons is that this approach requires resources that institutions do not have and training teachers who seem to be reluctant to this change. The competencies approach has not been welcomed and the transition has been slow in all the educational levels.

Mexican universities need professors who conduct research and encourage students to research in the undergraduate programs. Unfortunately, Mexican universities authorize several options to obtain a degree. Students fulfill the curricular program, but need to write a dissertation to obtain the degree. Other options are that the degree is given if they have those considered the maximum grades; they also have the opportunity to take a proficiency-achievement exam; write an activity journal made throughout their social service (internship) period or start a Master’s Degree and obtain the BA title within this second completion. Even with all these options given, only a low number of students can obtain their degree and therefore raise the statistics of these programs. These options help raising numbers, but affect the students’ attitude towards research and their willingness to write a dissertation.

Programs are not considered efficient if the number of students that obtain a degree is considerably low compared to those who complete the curricular program. One of the consequences of this problem is that college students do not have the necessary knowledge for those roles demanded by the job market. In this global society, only the best trained people will have the best opportunities to succeed. Students that are not able to write a dissertation and conduct research in their field, question the quality of the program and its social needs. Students who obtain a degree by writing a dissertation have better opportunities, job offers, scholarships and salaries (Ochoa, 2011).

Professors in Latin American universities have experienced what has been named the “All But Research Syndrome” (ABR), which refers to the teachers who have refused to modify their academic activities and conduct research. For the students who refuse to write a dissertation, the term applied has been “All But Dissertation” (ABD). The objective of the study conducted was to measure the attitude that students of a Bachelors’ Degree in ESL Teaching have towards research. This was a purposeful sampling with students of the last semester who had already taken the courses related to research. They were near to graduation and were questioned about their intention to write a dissertation, the reasons to choose another modality, their opinions about the teachers and about the institutional conditions.

Before this study, a similar one was conducted in the online BD in ELT of the same institution. This was a correlational study and it was found that a deeper insight from students was necessary to understand the reasons why they do not consider writing a dissertation. It was concluded that students have low attitude towards research and they consider that the teachers and the institution do not encourage them to conduct research (^{Obermeier, 2017}). The present study was conducted to provide a deeper insight of the phenomenon and evaluate if this situation prevails in the indoors program of the same institution.

Method

This is a convergent mixed method study with a questionnaire variant that included two open-ended questions and several Likert scale questions to measure the variables related to attitudes towards research. According to ^{Hernández, Fernández and Baptista (2014)}, a mixed method study is suitable to a problem that has not been deeply studied. A convergent mixed method study is used to compare results of the two approaches to obtain deeper understanding of a problem and validate one set of data with the another (^{Creswell & Plano Clark, 2018}). This approach helped to understand the reasons why students in the cohort will choose to write or not a dissertation and their attitudes towards research. The qualitative answers provided emergent themes to validate the survey findings. The two different strands of data were collected in a single phase and the results were merged to look for convergence, contradictions and relationships.

The three research questions of the study were: what are the students’ reasons for not writing a dissertation? how do students feel about research, teachers and the institutional conditions? to what extend are willingness to write a dissertation and attitude towards related research? The hypothesis was that students in the indoors program would have a more positive attitude towards research and more willingness for writing a dissertation than the online students, as a result of the closer contact with role models and the immersion in the institutional conditions.

The first two questions of the instrument were about the modalities preferred to graduate and the reasons that influenced their decision about writing a dissertation. The Likert scale questions measured four variables: attitudes towards research; usefulness of research in their professional life; anxiety or difficulty related towards research. Questions with a semantic differential were included to detect unconscious attitudes. Other questions to know the students’ opinions on their teachers and the institutional conditions were included. A non-probabilistic, convenient sample was used. It was formed by 12 of the 15 students in the last semester of the BA program, which represents an 80% response rate. The Cronbach’s Coefficient was 82% so there is reliability in the results.

The results of the first two open-ended questions informed that 61.11% of the students would not consider writing a dissertation and only 38.89% has considered it as an option to obtain the degree. Regarding the reasons for not writing a dissertation, students answers gave an insight about how they perceive writing a dissertation. Two students mentioned that they do not have the time needed to write such a long work. Two students mentioned that they can obtain the degree because of their good grades. Two other students have considered to get a Master’s Degree. One of the students mentioned that writing a dissertation implies having high expenses and economy was the main reason for not considering it as an option. One student mentioned that conducting research is complicated and did not feel able to conduct it. Another student mentioned a factor not considered before conducting this study: the complexity of the task and the time needed for revisions and the administrative process after writing the dissertation.

The rest of the questionnaire had 28 questions: 7 about their feelings and opinions towards research; 9 questions with a semantic differential; 8 questions about the institutional conditions and 4 about their teachers. The information was analyzed with tables of frequencies and quartiles to classify attitudes in low, medium or high. It was found out that 78% of the students consider that research methodology should be taught to all of the students. 45% do not want to study this subject because they considered it difficult and complex. 11% enjoys doing this type of assignments and 16% considers it interesting. 78% think it will be useful for their professional life, but only 8% are interested in doing research in the future. Even if 93% considers it valuable, only the 44% is considering to conduct research in their professional life.

The scale to measure attitude towards research was obtained with the answers to the Likert scale questions and the results are presented in Table 1. The minimum was 45 and the maximum was 70 in a 100 scale. The quartiles are presented in table 3: 33% has a low attitude, 42% has a medium attitude and 25% has a high attitude towards research.

Regarding the opinion about the institutional conditions, 55% is satisfied or completely satisfied with the academic and scientific level of the program. Only the 27% of the students know about the existence of research groups and 8% has participated in academic or scientific events. 8% considers that there is a good ambience to conduct research and 22% considers that scientific development is encouraged, but there are no scholarships or economical prizes to encourage students who conduct research. About the options authorized by the institution to obtain a degree, 16% consider them as an opportunity for not writing a dissertation.

The 69% of the students informed that teachers do not use their own research products in the subjects they teach and only 21% consider that teachers are well trained to conduct research. 71% considers that teachers do not offer them adequate tutoring while doing research related tasks and 57% has not participated in their teachers’ research projects.

Discussion

According to Bandura’s socio cognitive theory, the context influences the development of self-concept and at the same time, this context is influenced by people’s activities. Based on the results of the study, the institutional conditions do not encourage research activities. Another assumption from the data is that professors are not modelling activities related to research because they lack the necessary skills. The context that does not encourage research and the lack of this activities suggest that teachers as well as students have a low self-efficacy towards research. This low self-efficacy feeling about being able to perform is accentuated with the aspects mentioned by students: time needed, expenses, complexity and administrative processes.

Bandura also considers the reciprocal determinism, the person, the environment and the personal behavioural interact and have influence on each other. This is a three-way interaction that should be understood in order to understand human psychological functioning and behavior. People exposed to high performance standards reinforce themselves for superior performance. This is why teachers should be researchers so they can be good role models for students. This author states that if standards are too high, they can be a source of personal distress and that working on goals too difficult or distant can be disappointing. In general, a dissertation can be perceived as a long and difficult task and only those who have good models and are settle in a god context can accomplish it (^{Olson & Hergenhahn, 2013}).

After doing the literature review, it is obvious that the influence of the context and of the teachers/models have not encouraged the development of a high self-efficiency in the students. In this study a numeric value was assigned to evaluate the students’ self-efficacy, the opinion they have about their teachers and about the institutional context. Several actions are needed to improve the institutional conditions so they encourage research, train teachers to be researchers so they become better models and involve students in projects to change their perceptions of research.

A model can be a person or anything that conveys information, they can be more effective when they are respected, competent, high status and powerful. Teachers can be highly influential models and this is the reason why the opinion of students about teachers was measured in this study. They can model skills, problem-solving strategies, ethical codes, performance standards and creativity. Bandura’s theory is called socio cognitive because it emphasizes that most of the information is gained through the interactions with other people.

It is evident that students that do not obtain a degree by writing a dissertation is a problem that affects educative institutions. This problem affects graduate and postgraduate students in Mexico and in other Latin American countries. There is evidence that interventions to solve or prevent the ABD syndrome have had positive results. In a 100 scale, the 70% is barely satisfactory. Students in the institution have a low attitude towards research. They recognize its importance, the need to conduct research in their professional life and their desire to take more methodology courses. On the other hand, students acknowledge that research methodology is complex and that it demands specific skills.

As this problem has been found in other contexts, interventions have been performed. ^{Cisternas (2013)} conducted a case study about teachers’ training. This author states that the quality standards of a researcher are formed by three factors: academic degree, experience as researcher and publications in indexed journals. Professors should be researchers as these two roles are closely related. These two activities combined allow to observe problems from a different perspective. Some scenarios trouble the teacher, but encourage and inspire the researcher. In the literature reviewed, experiences from teachers who have implemented courses to motivate students to write a dissertation were found. These courses were given several years ago until these days. Some of them were focused on teaching writing or developing skills in online programs. All these courses reported positive outcomes, except for one in which students were not committed and the institution did not give the appropriate support.

In the language teaching area, ^{Reyes and Hernández (2014)} identified the academic production of language teachers. They found that only a few of these professors have a Doctoral Degree and they are the ones who conduct research. Most teachers only have a Master’s Degree, and their programs were focused on teaching, not research. This explains why there is not sufficient research in the area. In addition, the language teaching field has been focused on teaching and its evolution has been slow because tutoring and teaching consume most of the time to the teachers in the area.

Institutions evidently need researchers and need to provide the adequate conditions. Contrary to the expectations, there are few researchers in Latin America and the number of students who write a dissertation is also low. In Venezuela, ^{Valarino and Yáber (2002)} designed several interventions to improve students’ writing, which reduced their blockings and improved their production, and developed their writing and researching skills. These authors also considered that blocking is a self-defense system to reduce the tension towards a long task. It is also another way to handle negative feelings, fear to criticism, to failure or need of perfection. All these feelings are also triggered by research and many researchers are not patient enough to write a report, have bad habits for working, lack of inspiration to write, deficient writing skills or reject the idea of writing.

Gheller de Reif (2002) also designed a strategy in Venezuela to avoid the ABD syndrome and made an action research study. This strategy helped students to decide and choose a topic for their dissertation. The author had some difficulties like lack of compromise from the students, no support at all from the institutional authorities, difficulties to find a chair person. In 2006, García-Calvo dictated an online workshop for students writing dissertations and had positive outcomes, like minimizing isolation, contacting ABD students, diminish procrastination, offer solutions to time management problems and teach strategies to avoid the writer’s block.

In 2008, in Argentina, Carlino implemented the peer evaluation technique to motivate students to write a dissertation, which requires methodological skills not previously developed. It also demands perseverance to failure, tolerance to ambiguity and developing unknown writing patterns. In Colombia, ^{Landazábal, Páez and Pineda (2013)} dictated a course to train researchers online. They classified the skills to perform scientific activities as higher (problem solving, developing theories and creativity), intermediate (offering solutions, implementing the project, doing proceedings, transforming the object of study and exercising ethics) and basic (observation, experimentation, surveying, exploration, description, stating objectives, making hypothesis, comparisons, searching information, analysis, synthetizing information, selecting and applying methodologies, planning, evaluating, writing, team work and oral presentations).

In Paraguay, a country where scientific research has not been developed significantly, a program to train researchers was developed. ^{Spinzl, Sosa, González and Aquino (2015)} mentioned that the conditions for academic production are limited, that there is a need of trained researchers and that Paraguay has the lowest punctuations in research. Even if the course contents are related to methodology contents, there is a separation between them. In this intervention, activities that do not encourage research were identified, they make recommendations and highlight the importance of the student-chair academic and emotional relationship.

Conclusions

The low attitude of students in the institution of the study is understandable considering the institutional conditions and the opinions they behold of their teachers. It was demonstrated that they do not know the research groups and their activities, as they do not participate in research projects and neither do they consider that the conditions to conduct research are adequate. Students also pointed out that teachers do not present their academic publications in class, which could be due to the fact that they do not conduct research and neither do they publish. They also consider that teachers do not adequately tutor them in these activities or invite them to participate in their projects. It would be suitable to conduct a future research to detect if the problem is presented only in the school of the study or if the other schools and colleges of the same university have this same problem. The data gathered in this research would help to design an intervention to improve the institutional conditions so they encourage professors and students to conduct research.

It would also be recommended to establish criteria to encourage professors to train themselves as researchers and publish, specially professors who teach methodology subjects. If this criterion were established, the institution would have researchers training researchers as the literature consulted suggests. This is a serious problem that affects institutions, pertinence of educative programs and former students. A student who does not obtain a degree can have personal problems derived from this situation and do not have access to several job opportunities. The society is also affected because universities should be training highly trained experts. The objective of the educational program of this study is to train language teachers who will have to conduct research in their professional life in order to get tenure track, promotions and laboral benefits. Professors are preparing people for the future, unfortunately, schools and faculty are under pressure to preserve the traditional system, which is unable to innovate and do not encourage students towards this direction.