Psychology Research and Behavior Management (May 2023)
Towards the Contributing Factors for the Inconsistency Between English as a Foreign Language (EFL) Teachers’ Equity-Oriented Cognition and Practices
Abstract
Feifei Chen,1,2 Rohaya Abdullah2 1Department of College English, Zhejiang Yuexiu University, Shaoxing, Zhejiang, People’s Republic of China; 2School of Educational Studies, Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), Penang, MalaysiaCorrespondence: Feifei Chen, Zhejiang Yuexiu University, Shaoxing, Zhejiang, People’s Republic of China, Tel +8013957567140, Email [email protected] and Aims: Though EFL teachers now generally hold an equity-oriented mindset, they are often blamed for not implementing equitable practices in the actual teaching. The contributing factors causing cognition-practice inconsistency should be recognized and highlighted to ensure equitable teaching. Therefore, by taking an interpretative qualitative approach, this study explored in-depth the contributing factors that caused the mismatch between EFL teachers’ equity-oriented cognition and practices.Methods: We adopted classroom observation and stimulated recall interviews with 10 university teachers to examine the contributing factors that lead to cognition-practice inconsistency.Results: Our results showed two experiential factors (unpleasant schooling experiences and limited effective training) and five contextual factors (unfavorable student factors, inharmonious classroom climate, toxic school contexts, equity-deficient education system, and negative social cultures) mediated the relationship between teachers’ equity-oriented cognition and practices.Conclusion: The findings shed light on an association between influential factors and teachers’ equity-oriented cognition-practice mismatch. Moreover, an equity-oriented teaching framework was thus proposed to help eliminate the constraining effect of these factors.Keywords: educational equity, English as a Foreign Language, EFL, contributing factors, cognition-practice inconsistency
