Teacher education
Mojtaba Maghsoudi; Ali Mansouri Nejad
Abstract
Since Csikszentmihalyi's seminal work in 1975, the concept of flow has been extensively explored within the field of psychology. However, its application within foreign language teaching, particularly in the realm of digital language instruction, remains relatively under-researched. To address this gap, ...
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Since Csikszentmihalyi's seminal work in 1975, the concept of flow has been extensively explored within the field of psychology. However, its application within foreign language teaching, particularly in the realm of digital language instruction, remains relatively under-researched. To address this gap, this study examined the flow experience of 58 teacher educators tasked with teaching English reading skills in a virtual environment (Learning Management System - LMS) during the Covid-19 pandemic. This study employed a comprehensive flow model encompassing antecedents, experience, and consequences to: 1) examine the relationships between flow antecedents, flow experience, and flow consequences; and 2) investigate potential differences among teacher educators based on gender, academic degree, and teaching experience. Quantitative data analysis including correlation, One-way ANOVA, Independent-samples t-test, complemented by face-to-face interviews, uncovered noteworthy insights: Firstly, moderate to low correlations were found between the three stages of flow experienced by teacher educators in the computer-mediated environment. Secondly, male teacher educators displayed a moderately higher level of flow antecedents and flow experience compared to their female counterparts within the virtual setting. Nevertheless, the educators' academic degree and teaching experience exhibited a significant impact on the consequences of flow. These findings highlight the importance of improving teacher educators' technological proficiency within training programs by incorporating specific flow stimuli, such as clear tasks, appropriate task difficulty, relevant content, and the development of technology skills.
Abolfazl Khodamoradi; Mojtaba Maghsoudi
Abstract
This study was carried out to develop a new scale for measuring TEFL prospective teachers’ attitudes toward the teaching profession to be used as an instrument in the admission procedure of Iranian Teacher education Universities. The participants were two groups of junior and senior prospective ...
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This study was carried out to develop a new scale for measuring TEFL prospective teachers’ attitudes toward the teaching profession to be used as an instrument in the admission procedure of Iranian Teacher education Universities. The participants were two groups of junior and senior prospective teachers (n= 54 & n=186) majoring in Teaching English as a Foreign Language at Farhangian University in Iran. After reviewing the literature and interviewing 54 participants, the initial draft of the scale containing 38 items using a 5-point Likert type was developed. After revising the draft based on the experts’ comments and the feedback from a group of participants, the new version with 32 items was completed by 186 participants and their responses were submitted for statistical analyses. As a result of the exploratory factor analyses, the scale was reduced to 22 items across four factors, entitled economic factor, social factor, professional factor, and teacher competency factor. The reliability coefficients were found to be 0.70 for the whole scale, and 0.67, 0.69, 0.76 and 0.73 for the subscales, respectively. The results of confirmatory factor analyses indicated that the four-factor solution possessed good data-model fit across all indices, χ2 (203, N = 186) = 356.38, p < 0.000, χ2/df = 1.76, GFI = 0.95, NNFI = 0.92, CFI = 0.93 SRMR = 0.05, RMSEA = 0.064. The results demonstrated that the scale was valid and reliable to measure professional attitudes of TEFL prospective teachers.
Abolfazl Khodamoradi; Mojtaba Maghsoudi; Seyed Hassan Talebi
Abstract
Classroom is an environment where teachers and students as inhabitants of different worlds are supposed to experience some sort of daily give-and-take. Such inherent discrepancies between these two groups of interlocutors might be among the untouched areas of research. Therefore, this study aimed to ...
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Classroom is an environment where teachers and students as inhabitants of different worlds are supposed to experience some sort of daily give-and-take. Such inherent discrepancies between these two groups of interlocutors might be among the untouched areas of research. Therefore, this study aimed to explore the cords and discords between first-year student teachers’ and their educators’ perceptions of educator interpersonal behavior. The sample of the study included 4 EFL educators and 102 student teachers majoring in TEFL at two branches of Iranian Teacher Education University. Data were collected with the Australian version of the Questionnaire on Teacher Interaction (QTI) that was validated and modified into four formats for measuring the participants’ perceptions of the actual educators and an ideal educator interpersonal behavior. The results indicated that although both groups perceived an ideal educator interpersonal behavior in the same way, the educators generally overestimated their cooperative behaviors (Leadership and Students responsibility) but underestimate their oppositional ones (Uncertain) in comparison to what their student teachers perceived. The results also indicated that male and female student teachers perceived some cooperative behaviors in the educators from the opposite gender more significantly. Based on the findings, it can be concluded that there are some perceptual mismatches between student teachers’ and educators’ perceptions of actual educator interpersonal behavior. Therefore, the findings imply that educators should take some measures to locate these perceptual mismatches and eliminate them gradually.
