Iranian EFL Teachers’ Professional Development, Psychological Well-being and Reflection: A Mixed-methods Design

Document Type : Research article

Authors
1 Islamic Azad University, Shah-reza Branch, Isfahan, Iran
2 University of Isfahan, Isfahan, Iran.
3 Assistant Professor, Department of Foreign Languages, Amirkabir University of Technology
Abstract


The positive role of reflective teaching and well-being as means of fostering teaching quality has mainly remained at the level of speculation and there is little empirical evidence to illustrate their impact on enhancing professional development. To fill this existing gap, this study examines the contribution of reflection and psychological well-being as predictors of professional development. Adopting a mixed-methods approach, 350 English language teachers were selected randomly and participated in a survey. Following that, six teachers through purposeful sampling participated in a focus group interview to investigate the relationship among the aforementioned variables. The correlational analysis confirmed the positive relationship among these three constructs and a structural equation modeling indicated that both reflection and well-being significantly predicted professional development; however, well-being was a stronger predictor compared to reflection. The qualitative analysis of data revealed four main themes contributing to professional development among teachers. The pedagogical implications are also elaborated and discussed.

Keywords

Subjects


Abednia, A., Hovassapian, A., Teimournezhad, S., & Ghanbari, N. (2013). Reflective journal writing: Exploring in-service EFL teachers' perceptions. System, 41, 503-514.
Adams, L. T. (2014). Teacher and policy alignment: A phenomenological study highlighting high school teachers' professional development experiences. Issues in Teacher Education, 23(2), 117-138.
Adekola, O. A. (2007). Language, literacy and learning in primary schools. The World Bank.
Akbari, R., Behzadpoor, F., & Dadvand, B. (2010). Development of English language teaching reflection inventory. System, 38, 211-227.
Atay, D. (2007). Beginning teacher self-efficacy and the practicum in an EFL context. Teacher Development, 11, 203-219.
Baleghizadeh, S., & Javidanmehr, Z. (2014). Exploring EFL teachers' reflectivity and their sense of self-efficacy. e-International Journal of Educational Research, 5, 19-38.
Benesch, S. (2018). Emotions as agency: Feeling rules, emotion labor, and English language teachers’ decision-making. System, 79, 60-69.
Bennett, E. E. (2012). A four-part model of informal learning: Extending Schugurensky's conceptual model. Retrieved from http://www.adulterc.org/Proceedings/2012/papers/bennett.pdf.
Bentea, C. C. (2015). Relationships between personality characteristics and attitude towards work in school teachers. Procedia e Social and Behavioral Sciences, 180, 1562-1568.
Bielak, J., & Mystkowska-Wiertelak, A. (2020a). Investigating language learners’ emotion-regulation strategies with the help of the vignette methodology. System, 90, 102-115.
Borg, S. (2011). Language teacher education. Routledge.
Buri c, I., & Macuka, I. (2018). Self-efficacy, emotions and work engagement among teachers: A two wave cross-lagged analysis. Journal of Happiness Studies, 19(7), 1917-1933.
Butt, R., & Retallick, J. (2002). Professional well-being and learning: A study of administrator-teacher workplace relationships. Journal of Educational Enquiry, 3(1), 17-34.
Çankir, B., & Sahin, S. (2018). Psychological well-being and job performance: The mediating role of work engagement. Hitit University Journal of Social Sciences Institute, 11(3), 2549-2560.
Cavazos, L., Linan-Thompson, S., & Ortiz, A. (2018). Job-embedded professional development for teachers of English learners: Preventing literacy difficulties through effective core instruction. Teacher Education and Special Education, 1-12.
Coburn, J. (2016). The professional development of English language teachers: Investigating the design and impact of a national in-service EFL teacher education course. Retrieved from https://brage.bibsys.no/xmlui/bitstream/handle/11250/2420139/FINAL%20James%20Coburn%20dissertation.pdf.
Crandall, J., & Christison, M. (2016). Teacher education and professional development in TESOL: Global perspectives. Routledge.
Dagenais-Desmarais, V., & Savoie, A. (2012). What is psychological well-being, really? A grassroots approach from the organizational sciences. Journal of Happiness Studies: An Interdisciplinary Forum on Subjective Well-Being, 13(4), 659-684.
Dehghan, F. (2022). Teachers’ perceptions of professionalism: a top-down or a bottom-up decision-making process? Journal of Professional Development in Education, 48(4), 705-714,
De Vries, S., Jansen, E. P. W. A., & Van De Grift, W. J. C. M. (2013). Profiling Teachers' Continuing Professional Development and the Relation with Their Beliefs about Learning and Teaching. Teaching and Teacher Education, 33, 78-89.
Dewaele, J. M., Chen, X., Padilla, A. M., & Lake, J. (2019). The flowering of positive psychology in foreign language teaching and acquisition research. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, 21-28.
Dewey, J. (1933). How to think: A re-statement of the relation of reflective thinking to the education context. Heath & Co.
Farrell, T. S. C. (2019). Reflection as action in ELT. Alexandria, VA: TESOL International Publications.
Farrell, T. S. C. (2016). The practice of encouraging TESOL teachers to engage in reflective practice: An appraisal of recent research contributions. Language Teaching Research, 20, 223-247.
Farrell, T. S. C. (2008). Reflective language teaching: From research to practice. Continuum Press.
Fredrickson, B. L. (2001). The role of positive emotions in positive psychology: The broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions. American Psychologist, 56(3), 218-226.
Fredrickson, B. L. (2009). Positivity. Crown.
Freire, T., & Tavares, D. (2011). Influence of self-esteem and emotion regulation in subjective and psychological well-being of adolescents: Contributions to clinical psychology. Revista de Psiquiatria Clínica, 38(5), 184-188.
Garg, P., & Rastogi, R. (2009). Effect of psychological wellbeing on organizational commitment of employees. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 8(2), 42-51.
Golombek, P., & Doran, M. (2014). Unifying cognition, emotion, and activity in language teacher professional development. Teaching and Teacher Education, 39, 102-111.
Gozzoli, C., Frascaroli, D., & D’Angelo, C. (2015). Teachers’ wellbeing/malaise: Which resources and efforts at individual, group and organizational levels? Procedia e Social and Behavioral Sciences, 191, 2241-2245.
Gregersen, T., Mercer, S., MacIntyre, P., Talbot, K., & Banga, C. A. (2020). Understanding language teacher wellbeing: An ESM study of daily stressors and uplifts. Language Teaching Research, 98, 115-234.
Griffith, P. L., Ruan, J., Stepp, J., & Kimmel, S. (2014). The design and implementation of effective professional development in elementary and early childhood settings. In S. Kragler, L. Martin, K. L. Bauserman, & D. J. Quatroche (Eds.), The handbook of professional development, RK-12: Successful models and practices (pp. 189-204). New York, NY: Guildford Publishing.
Griffiths, V. (2000). The reflective dimension in teacher education. International Journal of Educational Research, 33, 539-555.
Guskey, T. R. (2000). Evaluating professional development. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press
Hu, L. T., & Bentler, P. (1995). Evaluating model fit. In R. H. Hoyle (Ed.), Structural equation modeling: Concepts, issues, and applications (p. 76-99). Sage.
Ilgan, A., Ozu-Cengiz, O., Ata, A., & Akram, M. (2015). The relationship between teachers’ psychological well-being and their quality of school work life. The Journal of Happiness & Well-Being, 3(2), 159-181.
Jay, J. K., & Johnson, K. L. (2002). Capturing complexity: A typology of reflective practice for teacher education. Teaching and Teacher Education, 18, 73-85.
Joo, B. K., Zigarmi, D., Nimon, K., & Shuck, B. (2017). Work cognition and psychological well-being: The role of cognitive engagement as a partial mediator. The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 53(4), 446-469.
Kalina, C., & Powell, K. C. (2009). Cognitive and social constructivism: Developing tools for an effective classroom. Education, 130(2), 241-250.
Kidger, J., Brockman, R., Tilling, K., Campbell, R., Ford, T., Araya, R., & Gunnell, D. (2016). Teachers’ wellbeing and depressive symptoms, and associated risk factors: A large cross-sectional study in English secondary schools. Journal of Affective Disorders, 192, 76-82.
King, J., & Ng, K.-Y. S. (2018). Teacher emotions and the emotional labour of second language teaching. In S. Mercer, & A. Kostoulas (Eds.), Multilingual matters Language teacher psychology (pp. 141-157). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Lee, I. (2007). Preparing pre-service English teachers for reflective practice. ELT Journal, 61, 321-329.
Lopez, S. J., & Gallagher, M. W. (2009). A case for positive psychology. In C. R. Snyder, & S. J. Lopez (Eds.), Oxford handbook of positive psychology (pp. 3-6). Oxford University Press.
MacIntyre, P., Gregersen, T., & Mercer, S. (Eds.). (2016). Positive psychology in SLA. Multilingual Matters.
MacIntyre, P. D., Gregersen, T., & Mercer, S. (2020). Language teachers’ coping strategies during the Covid-19 conversion to online teaching: Correlations with stress, wellbeing and negative emotions. System, 102-129.
MacIntyre, P., Ross, J., Talbot, K., Mercer, S., Gregersen, T., & Ann Banga, C. (2019). Stressors, personality and wellbeing among language teachers. System, 82,
26-38.
Mercer, S., Jin, J., Babic, S., Mairitsch, A., Lanvers, U., & King, J. (2020, March). The wellbeing of early-career stage language teachers: An ecological perspective. In The 2020 conference of the American association for applied linguistics (AAAL).
Murphy, J. M. (2014). Reflective teaching: Principles and practices. In M. Celce-Murcia, D. M. Brinton, & M. A. Snow (Eds.), Teaching English as a second or foreign language (pp. 613-629). Boston, MA: National Geographic Learning/Cengage Learning.
O’Reilly, M., & Parker, N. (2013). Unsatisfactory saturation: A critical exploration of the notion of saturated sample sizes in qualitative research. Qualitative Research, 13(2), 190-197.
Pena, M., Rey, L., & Extremera, N. (2012). Life satisfaction and engagement in elementary and primary educators: Differences in emotional intelligence and gender. Revista de Psicodidactica, 17 (2), 341-360.
Phan, N. T., & Locke, T. (2014). Sources of self-efficacy of Vietnamese EFL teachers: A qualitative study. Teaching and Teacher Education, 52, 73-82.
Rodriguez, A. G., & McKay, S. (2010). Professional development for experienced teachers working with adult English language learners. Retrieved from https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED540598.pdf.
Roffey, S. (2012). Pupil wellbeing-teacher wellbeing: Two sides of the same coin? Educational and Child Psychology, 29(4), 8-15.
Ryff, C. D. (1989). Happiness is everything, or is it? Explorations on the meaning of psychological well-being. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57(6), 1069-1081.
Ryff, C. D. (1995). Psychological well-being in adult life. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 4(4), 99-104.
Schon, D. A. (1991). The reflective turn: Case studies in and on educational practice. Teachers College Press.
Seligman, M. E. P., & Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2000). Positive psychology: An introduction. American Psychologist, 55(1), 5-14.
Shuck, B., & Reio, T. G., Jr. (2014). Employee engagement and well-being: A moderation model and implications for practice. Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies, 21(1), 43-58.
Skaalvik, E. M., & Skaalvik, S. (2014). Teacher self-efficacy and perceived autonomy: Relations with teacher engagement, job satisfaction, and emotional exhaustion. Psychological Reports, 114(1), 68-77.
Tadic, M., Bakker, A. B., & Oerlemans, W. G. M. (2013). Work happiness among teachers: A day reconstruction study on the role of self-concordance. Journal of School Psychology, 51(6), 735-750.
Talbot, K., & Mercer, S. (2018). Exploring university ESL/EFL teachers’ emotional well-being and emotional regulation in the United States, Japan and Austria. Chinese Journal of Applied Linguistics, 41(4), 410-432.
Tashakkori, A., & Teddlie, C. (2003). Issues and dilemmas in teaching research methods courses in social and behavioural sciences: US perspective. International journal of social research methodology, 6(1), 61–77.
Turner, N., Barling, J., & Zacharatos, A. (2002). Positive psychology at work. In C. R. Snyder, & S. J. Lopez (Eds.), Handbook of positive psychology (pp. 715-728). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Van de Schoot, R., Lugtig, P., & Hox, J. (2012). A checklist for testing measurement invariance. European Journal of Developmental Psychology, 9(4), 486-492.
Vesely, A. K., Saklofske, D. H., & Nordstokke, D. W. (2014). EI training and pre-service teacher wellbeing. Personality and Individual Differences, 65, 81-85.
Wallace, M. J. (1991). Training foreign language teachers: A reflective approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
White, E. (2010). Helping to promote psychological well-being at work: The role of work engagement, work stress and psychological detachment using the job demands-resources model. The Plymouth Student Scientist, 4(2), 155-180.
Winchester, T. M., & Winchester, M. K. (2014). A longitudinal investigation of the impact of faculty reflective practices on students' evaluations of teaching. British Journal of Educational Technology, 45, 112-124.
Wong, Y. H., & Zhang, L. F. (2014). Perceived school culture, personality types, and wellbeing among kindergarten teachers in Hong Kong. Australasian Journal of Early Childhood, 39(2), 100-108.
Wood, F. H., & Killian, J. E. (1998). Job-embedded learning makes the difference in school improvement. Journal of Staff Development, 19(1), 52-54.
Xanthopoulou, D., Bakker, A. B., Demerouti, E., & Schaufeli, W. B. (2012). A diary study on the happy worker: How job resources relate to positive emotions and personal resources. European Journal of Work & Organizational Psychology, 21(4), 489-517.
Yong, W., Hutagalung, F. D., Hidayat, R., & Zulnaidi, H. (2020). A comparison study of Chinese and Indonesia EFL teachers’ well-Being. Psychology and Education, 57(4), 233-238.
Zhu, Y., Liu, C., Guo, B., Zhao, L., & Lou, F. (2015). The impact of emotional intelligence on work engagement of registered nurses: The mediating role of organizational justice. Journal of Clinical Nursing, 24(15-16), 2115-2124.

Articles in Press, Accepted Manuscript
Available Online from 13 July 2025