کیومرث رضوی پور

Central to the spirit of reflective teaching is the ability to focus critically on one’s own beliefs, cognitions, and concerns. Numerous proposals have been developed for implementing reflective practices in pre-service teacher education contexts with the aim of producing highly competent reflective teachers. However, it is imperative to identify the candidates’ beliefs and knowledge base before any interventions could be introduced to effectively trigger a response. This study utilized a reflection oriented model to explore pre-service language teachers’ concerns about language learning/teaching. Interview techniques facilitated such an in-depth exploration among a conveniently sampled 13 candidates studying at a teacher college in Iran. The content analysis of the interviews revealed that affective factors, classroom management, language-related fears, and tensions between their beliefs and practices were the candidates’ major concerns. On the whole, candidates’ preexisting learning experiences seemed to cast a shadow over their cognitions and concerns. Implications regarding reflective practicums in teacher education programs are discussed.

Grammatical competence constitutes an important component of communicative ability, the acquisition of which takes sustained effort, resilience, and planning, otherwise known as the capacity for self-regulated learning. It follows that assessing the self-regulatory capacity in grammar learning (SRCgram) is of prime importance. This paper reports on the development and validation of a scale for measuring SRCgram. Focus group interviews were conducted with 26 participants and a pool of 52 items was created and piloted. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were then conducted to examine the psychometric properties of the instrument. Preliminary fit indices, internal structure fit of the model, and overall model fit provided evidence for the validity of the scale.  In addition, the SRCgram scale appeared to be unidimensional and of satisfactory reliability. Thus, SRCgram scale can be proposed as a diagnostic and self-assessment tool to be used by EFL teachers and learners to diagnose, assess, and foster self-regulation in grammar learning.

Test washback is held to be complicated and multifaceted in that a host of cultural, social, individual, test, and institutional factors are involved in shaping it. Thus far, the majority of washback studies have had as their focus the role of teachers in test washback or washback to teachers. How educational environments or institutions might function in isolation or in interaction with other factors in shaping washback to the learners and test takers has not received adequate research attention. The current study examined the mediatory role of academic institutions in washback to learners' perceptions of test content and test preparation. To this aim, 86 senior English students from two universities, one a top tier and the other a low tier one, completed two questionnaires: one on test takers' preparation practices including test analysis, test taking skills, drilling target skills, and socio-affective strategies; and the other on test takers' construal of test demands and uses as well as their expectation of success on the test.  The data analyzed through partial least squares structural equation modeling revealed that a washback model based on expectancy-value theory explains a moderate amount of variance in test preparation. Further, for test takers from the low tier university, favorable perceptions of test content were associated with more value placed on test taking. However, Multi-group analysis pointed to group-invariance of the model across the two institutions, indicating a lack of strong evidence for the mediatory role of educational environments in washback to test takers’ perceptions and preparation.

Of the many dilemmas facing the assessment of literary competence, one is the extent to which language should constitute part of the target construct intended to be measured. Some argue for the construct-irrelevance of language and hence recommend that it be eliminated or minimized in favor of an exclusive focus on literary competence. In practice, this does not seem to be the case, as language proficiency considerations seem to creep into assessment, clouding assessment outcomes. The current study sought to examine students' perceptions of the degree to which knowledge of language constitutes part of the construct of literary competence in two departments of English and Persian literature. To this end, a total of seventy students in two poetry courses, one in the English department and the other in the Persian, responded to a questionnaire designed to gauge their perceptions of the extent to which language competence constitutes a component of the literary competence. Data were analyzed through one sample and independent samples t-tests. It was found that language competence is somehow construct-irrelevant in testing literary competence. Interestingly, measurement-invariance was observed regarding Persian and EFL students’ stance on the construct-irrelevance of language in tests of literary achievement and competence.

Pre-service teacher cognition literature abounds with the concept of change as well as proposals regarding desirable conceptual changes to be undertaken so that teacher candidates can set out their path of professional development with right beliefs. Yet, such changes would seem less likely to occur if the trainees’ thoughts, beliefs, and cognitions are not identified in the first place. This study was an attempt to identify the cognitions of EFL pre-service teachers and trace possible changes expressed by the candidates. Through a convenient sample of 64 pre-service teachers studying at three teacher training colleges in Iran, this mixed -methods exploration utilized a teacher cognition questionnaire and interview techniques. Results of the cognition questionnaire indicated that many of the candidates’ cognitions were still in need of adjustments. Also, the content analysis of the interviews revealed that the candidates’ attempts during the practicum revolved mostly around challenging debilitating beliefs, developing a sense of professional agency, managing stress, and resolving tensions between contradicting beliefs. Findings suggest that the trainees’ prior experiences as language learners exerted a very influential effect on their cognitions and also their attempts to refine those cognitions.