Developing and Validating an English Language Teacher Commitment Questionnaire (ELTCQ) in Iran High Schools

Abstract

The notion of teacher commitment has grabbed much attention in the mainstream, and L2 teacher education as teaching has become more complex by recent sociocultural changes in educational practices. Consequently, several instruments have been developed to operationalize the construct. The instruments developed so far have addressed the construct generically. To be sure, this line of inquiry is still untouched in the ELT profession. The present exploratory mixed methods study attempted to develop a questionnaire to measure English language teachers’ commitment. In doing so, an initial 61-item questionnaire was developed conducting a comprehensive literature review and using interviews with domain experts and English language teachers. Then the trial instrument was administered to a sample of 352 teachers for Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA), reducing the instrument to 32 items. The subsequent Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) obtained from another sample of 577 individuals substantiated a seven-factor model as a robust and valid tool for measuring English language teacher commitment. The seven-factor model of teacher commitment included cognitive language teaching ability, language classroom environment, job satisfaction, opportunities for professional development, language teaching planning and support, language teaching self-image and beliefs, and language teaching exhaustion. ELTCQ can be used for measuring English teachers’ commitment. Researchers, administrators, and teacher trainers can use the questionnaire to improve the quality of in-service courses and examine teacher qualities for future professional predictions.

Keywords

• confirmatory factor analysis
• english language teacher commitment instrument
• english language teacher commitment model
• exploratory factor analysis
• teacher commitment