Autonomy, Agency, and Anxiety: A Qualitative Survey Study of Moroccan EFL Teachers’ Perceptions of Inquiry-Based Learning

Abstract

Inquiry-Based Learning (IBL) is becoming a key focus in global and Moroccan education policies as a crucial approach to promote critical thinking and autonomy. Despite the Moroccan curricular guidelines' endorsement of inquiry-based pedagogies to trigger a shift in educational paradigms towards student-centeredness, the enactment of IBL is often tempered by systemic and psychological pressures. The present qualitative inquiry explores Moroccan EFL teachers' perspectives on the benefits, classroom practices, and difficulties of IBL through a qualitative survey, distributed to teachers in public and private secondary schools. We undertook a thematic analysis using the "Triple A" (Autonomy, Agency, and Anxiety) framework. The results show a strong pedagogical embrace of IBL, with 61.1% of respondents citing enhanced ownership and motivation as its main affordance, paralleling national studies that highlight IBL's value in cultivating 21st-century skills. Yet, findings reveal a persistent "rhetoric-reality gap", with teachers using agency to transform IBL into "problem-solving tasks" to align with institutional demands. Barriers include curriculum load and time (58.3%), pedagogic anxiety about classroom management, and a "linguistic threshold" on the balance between accuracy and fluency. The research highlights the gap between reform goals and classroom practice, suggesting that the successful and enduring implementation of IBL in Morocco requires institutional backing, resource provisioning, and culturally sensitive professional development beyond the efforts of individual teachers.