Mingqiong
Pan (corresponding author)
Wujiang
Shengze High School, Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, China
Robert
Kirkpatrick
Gulf
University for Science and Technology, Kuwait
Received:
19/4/2023 / Accepted: 13/10/2023
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.30827/portalin.vi2023c.29633
ISSN
paper edition: 1697-7467, ISSN digital edition: 2695-8244
Abstract: Due to the great importance of
professional identity in teachers’ development and success, researchers’
attention has recently been confined to the tensions that may challenge
teachers’ identities. Despite the importance of these tensions in the EFL context,
only a few studies have addressed them by employing qualitative research
methods. The present study aims to investigate the professional identity
tensions of EFL teachers by a psychometric scale. Therefore, an instrument was
developed and validated for measuring Chinese EFL teachers’ professional
identity tensions from the Dissonance Theory perspective by adopting the
Professional Identity Tension Scale (PITS). To this end, based on the convenience
sampling method, 452 Chinese EFL teachers from senior high schools
participated in the study. Exploratory and SEM analyses were performed to
identify and confirm the weight of the influencing factors respectively. The
final instrument is a 5-point Likert-type itemincluding
30 items measuring six different tensions related to professional identity. The
findings were an indication of the applicability of PITS in the EFL context
with six contributive factors. Implications of the study and suggestions for
further research are discussed.
Keywords:professional identity, identity
tension, dissonance theory, teachers’ identity, EFL teachers
Una investigación sobre la tensión de la identidad profesional de los profesores de EFL de la escuela secundaria en China desde la perspectiva de la teoría de la disonancia
Resumen: Debido a la importancia de la identidad profesional en el desarrollo y el éxito de los docentes, los investigadores se han centrado recientemente en las tensiones que pueden desafiar la identidad docente. Aunque estas tensiones son muy importantes en el entorno de EFL, solo unos pocos estudios han resuelto estos problemas a través de métodos de investigación cualitativos. El objetivo de este estudio es investigar la tensión de identidad profesional de los profesores de EFL mediante una escala psicométrica. Por lo tanto, se utilizó la escala de tensión de identidad profesional (PITS) para desarrollar y verificar una herramienta para medir la tensión de identidad profesional de los profesores chinos de inglés desde una perspectiva de la teoría de la disonancia. Con este fin, 452 profesores chinos de EFL de la escuela secundaria participaron en el estudio basado en el método de muestreo de conveniencia. Se realizaron análisis exploratorios y SEM para determinar y confirmar el peso de los factores de influencia, respectivamente. La última herramienta fue una escala Likert de 5 puntos que incluyó 30 elementos para medir seis tensiones diferentes relacionadas con la identidad profesional. Los resultados del estudio muestran que la aplicabilidad de los PITS en el entorno de EFL tiene seis factores contribuyentes. Se discutieron las implicaciones del estudio y las sugerencias para futuras investigaciones.
Palabras clave: Identidad profesional, tensión de identidad, teoría de la disonancia, identidad docente, profesores de EFL
1. INTRODUCTION
Teachers’ professional
identity has received momentum in recent years (Derakhshan et al., 2023a, b;
Mehdizadeh et al., 2023) and professional identity tensions have attracted
researchers’ attention concerning their manner of interacting with students and
teachers’ views of their status in the educational context (e.g., Anspal et
al., 2018, Kudaibergenov & Lee, 2022; Nickel & Crosby, 2021, Pérez
Gracia et al., 2022). This interest is more relevant to preservice teachers
since one of the central aspects of teacher education is to focus on the self
indicating the influence of who I am on who I want to be in the future
(González-Calvo, et al., 2020). When an inconsistency is felt between the
present self and the assumed future self, professional identity tension is
observed.
According to Warner (2016),
professional identity tensions pertain to a sense of lack of consonance between
supposed presumptions and expectations and the real involvement in fieldwork.
Güngör (2017) argues that if teachers do not properly manage their professional
identity tensions, their performance will be limited regarding their learning
and occupational enthusiasm. In addition, these conflicts and anxieties can
bring about negative emotions such as exhaustion and insecurity (Pillen et al.,
2013). Previous research shows that knowledge and experience of professional
identity tensions are inseparably bound up by the developmental procedure of
being a teacher (Derakhshan & Nazari, 2022). Professional identity tension
encourages them to reevaluate their changing and developmental role and reflect
on issues like their identity and occupation by answering questions such as
“Who am I?” and “What is my professional role?” (Warner, 2016). These
reflections, attitudes, and internalizations, recently, have been studied from
the dissonance theory perspective.
The cognitive dissonance
theory was introduced by Festinger (1957). According to this theory, dissonance
occurs when individuals are faced with facts that conflict with their values,
ideas, and beliefs. These individuals try to find a method to resolve the
observed contradiction to lessen their discomfort and irritation. The theory
can be applied to all social contexts that involve decision-making,
problem-solving processes, and the formation and changes of human attitudes.
One of these contexts is education, particularly EFL education which EFL
teachers face different cultures and situations conflicting with their values
and beliefs.
Until now, the conducted
studies in the literature have considered mostly beginning teachers in fields
other than the EFL context by applying qualitative methods of inquiry such as
interviews and narratives (e.g., Eslamdoost et al., 2019; Parks 2015). Only a
few studies have been done on identifying professional identity tensions using
quantitative methods (Hanna et al., 2019; Hanna et al., 2020; Hanna et al.,
2022; He, et al., 2022; Pillen et al., 2013). Bearing in mind the inherent
dynamicity of the EFL teaching process, and the nature of second/foreign
language teaching as one of the most emotional professions (Wang, et al.,
2022), it is likely that language teachers come across unanticipated events
which conflict with their beliefs, emotions, and personality causing serious
tensions. To our knowledge, no research has been done on professional identity
tensions in the EFL context particularly using quantitative methods and
questionnaires to identify EFL teachers’ identity tensions. For example, Yang
et al., (2021) investigated the professional tensions of Chinese EFL using
qualitative methods of study, i.e., narratives and interviews.
In line with the studies on
this new area of the teaching profession, and to disclose the possible
professional identity tensions among EFL teachers, the present research tried
to adopt a psychometric scale (Hanna et al., 2019), i.e., Professional Identity
Tension Scale (PITS) for measuring and defining the influencing factors in
professional identity tensions of EFL teachers. In this study, the features and
factors of professional tensions were broken down based on the dissonance
theory framework. This application of PITS in the Chinese context can be a new
and constructive step for more research, whereby insight can be gained into the
cognitive dissonances experienced by teachers while becoming EFL teachers.
Accordingly, this study attempted to develop and examine the applicability of
the Professional Identity Tension Scale (PITS) in the Chinese EFL context and
to explore what factors can play a role in the Chinese EFL teachers’
professional identity tensions. Therefore, the following research questions have
been proposed:
1. Is the Professional
Identity Tension Scale (PITS) applicable in the Chinese EFL context?
2. What factors influence
the Chinese EFL teachers’ professional identity tensions?
2. REVIEW OF
LITERATURE
2.1 Professional
identity
As a long-standing topic,
identity has gained great debate in higher education studies. The three
distinguished complementary perspectives for identity include psychological,
social, and post-structural ones (Kreber, 2010). Kaplan and Garner (2017) consider
the psychological stance especially important due to its particular identity
contents such as beliefs, values, and self-awareness. The sociocultural
perspective relates to the contextualized nature of identity and the
contribution of structural features to one’s overall identity (Gee, 2000).
Finally, the post-structuralist stance, emphasizing individuals’ manifold and
changeable identities and orientations, favors the ‘notion subjectivities’
(Yang et al., 2021). According to this stance, identity is continually
transforming and consequently, the academics and teachers’ identities cannot be
analyzed in association with experience.
Kaplan and Garner (2017)
theorize identity as a complicated dynamic structure that is in a strong
connection with an individual’s self-conception, goals, beliefs, and perception
of activities supposed to be done in one’s role. From an integrative perspective,
the attributed nature to the identity as well as its development provides the
possibility of considering teacher identity as a part of academics. Therefore,
teachers’ professional identity can be studied by adopting a holistic
perspective (Trautwein, 2018). This kind of integration in sub-identities can
result in well-being, high commitment, and personal coherence, while the
absence of integration will prompt negative feelings, declined motivation, and
personal dilemmas (Garner & Kaplan, 2019).
Taking an action-oriented
approach to conceptualizing identity, Wenger (1998) proposes five major
dimensions for identity. The first one is negotiated experiences which refers
to the question of ‘Who are we?’ in terms of the way we experience and perceive
ourselves through involvement in social activities. The second dimension is
identity as community membership which concerns describing ourselves by
indicating forms of capacity that a special community demands, whereby one can
be considered as that community’ membership. Identity as learning trajectory,
the third aspect, involves answering the questions of ‘Where have we been?’ and
‘Where are we going?’ The other dimension is Identity as the nexus of
multimembership. It is how we define ourselves by combining our different forms
of identity to form a whole one. Finally, Wenger’s last dimension is identity
as a relation between the local and the global which is the interplay between
the local and global. To put it in a nutshell, Wenger’s identity construction
theory, which is an identity-in-practice one, suggests a powerful framework to
study the formation of teachers’ professional identity through lived
involvement with the possibility of including different tensions regarding the
encountered inconsistencies between teachers’ values and expectations and
results in dissonances.
2.2 Dissonance
theory
There is extensive
literature on dissonance theory; however, we consider it in brief. According to
this theory, cognitive dissonance is experienced when an individual completes
an activity that contradicts his/her cognitive elements including personal
ideas, beliefs or values, and emotions (Cooper, 2007). The caused mental
discomfort leads to a displeasing state of psychological tension (Festinger,
1957). The resulting state, inherently, generates some behavioral or mental
activities to avoid or decrease the unpleasant state. In other words, this
state is unpleasant and drive-like motivating individuals to change their
conditions to decrease their dissonance experience. The caused dissonant state
remains for a short period or a few minutes; however, its effect can continue
for a couple of weeks and can return by bringing back the inconsistency
(Draycott & Dabbs, 1998). In addition, dissonance or conflict can also
happen between distinctive internal factors like emotions or personal beliefs.
Going under cognitive dissonance is regarded as a personal and subjective
process due to its dependence on the attached meaning by an individual to the
experienced mental discomfort. The process of assigning meaning is also
affected by an elaborate combination of personal and environmental factors (Hanna
et al., 2019). According to Simon et al. (1995), the dissonance can be reduced
by changing the dissonant element i.e., changing the attitude, increasing the
weight of a consonant element, and subtracting the inconsistent one, and
finally, by trivialization, i.e., reduction of the significance of the
dissonant element.
2.3 Professional
identity tensions
Tensions in identity can be
seen while teachers are engaging in the integration of different aspects of
their job to be able to act effectively in the dynamic atmosphere of their
workplace with distinctive expectations (Siekkinen et al., 2020). Van Winkel et
al. (2018) argue that complex and flexible identities such as teachers’
identities are liable to come apart and conflict with each other. Anspal et al.
(2018) identified three identity tensions including ‘role expectations vs.
university training’, ‘conception of self vs. professional role’, and ‘multiple
professional role expectations. Most researchers have explained professional
identity tensions in teachers concerning internal conflicts (e.g.; Delaney,
2015; Warner, 2016). Accordingly, professional identity tensions are described
in terms of cognitive dissonances due to the constant accompaniment of
unpleasant and irritating emotions.
Cognitive dissonance
considers internal struggles as a type of dissonance between the teacher as a
professional and the expectations of the teacher as a person (Hanna et al.,
2019). Depending on its weight and density, the experience of professional identity
tension inherently needs to be resolved, reduced, or avoided. According to the
dissonance theory, the attributed weight to the experienced identity tension is
highly under the influence of environmental factors such as cultural
influences, educational demands, and personal factors including teachers’
motivation, self-esteem, and self-efficacy (Hanna et al., 2019).
Previous studies have made
out different professional identity tensions influencing new teachers (Pillen
et al., 2013a). For example, Alsup (2006) recognized three identity tensions
including the tensions between being a student at the university and being a
teacher at the school, tension caused by the difference between what is
indoctrinated in teacher education programs about teaching and what is
experienced in the real context of teaching, and finally, the tension between
personal beliefs and skills and professional role expectation. Gee (2000)
believes that these tensions can be caused by a mismatch of several factors
like institution, nature, and society guiding a particular identity
perspective. Although experiencing tensions has been considered essential for
professional identity development in beginning teachers (Alsup, 2006), some
tensions may be too complicated to be managed and adapt. These types of complex
and unresolved tensions can lead to quitting the teaching profession
(Smagorinsky, et al., 2004). The broadly considered tensions in the literature
are related to competence gaps, experienced conflicts by student teachers,
contradictions, and worries. In other words, conflicts, tensions, and gaps all
play roles in the development of teacher identity (Schatz-Oppenheimer &
Dvir, 2014). Despite recent extensive studies on teacher identity, research on
the tensions relevant to teachers’ professional identity is a relatively new
area, particularly in the EFL context.
2.4 Professional
identity of EFL teachers
Today, studying EFL
teachers’ identities has attracted growing attention (Zhang, 2017). The
literature uncovered three main areas regarding the basic characteristics of
teacher identity. The first one concerns the multifaceted nature of
professional identity. The second is related to the relationship between social
(e.g., professional context) and personal dimensions (e.g., emotions) in the
process of identity formation. The last one refers to the connection between
structure and agency in identity formation (Beijaard et al., 2013). As with
other identity formations, teacher identity is also constructed through a
dynamic process by the mediation of different explicit and implicit mandates
including social, cultural, and political mandates in societies and schools
(Datnow et al., 2002). Studying the manner of English language teachers
regarding their pedagogical adaptations, Scotland (2014, p. 41) points out that
“individual sites of agency” intervene between institutional contexts and
teachers’ identities. Reviewing the literature over the past two decades, we
witnessed that research on teacher identity has focused on the factors
influencing teachers’ professional identity formation including sociocultural
factors (Shabani, 2016), the culture of the local classroom, institutional
culture, teachers’ previous experiences as well as the textbooks (Powell,
1994). Kelchtermans (2005, p.997) argues that the strong reaction of teachers
when their “professional identity and moral integrity, as part of being a ‘proper
teacher” goes under question.
Drawing attention to the
nature of EFL teaching laden with political, cultural, and social factors,
Pennycook (1994) highlights their critical role in the construction and shaping
of EFL teachers’ identity; although their effects and operation, depending on
the context, vary and need more investigation. In a similar vein, Richards
(2006) argues that EFL teaching is a productive field for the investigation of
identity tensions and conflicts and their reconstruction. EFL teachers like
other teachers are subject to tensions and dissonance due to the policies and
mandates relating to language education and the culture of the context.
However, these tensions and the caused dilemmas and how EFL teachers counter
and respond to the positions have not been investigated particularly in
countries with a centralized education system like China. To address this gap
and take the first steps in examining the EFL teachers’ professional identity
tensions using a psychometric instrument, the present study aims to apply the
Professional Identity Tensions Scale (PITS) for the first time in the EFL
context in China. This scale firstly was designed by Pillen et al. (2013), and
then developed and used by Hanna et al. (2019) to measure the identity tensions
of student teachers.
3. METHODOLOGY
3.1 Design of the
study
Given the aim of the
present study and the proposed research questions, a cross-sectional
quantitative design was adopted. A 5-point Likert-type item was used to gather
the required data.
3.2 Participants
Following a non-random
sampling, i.e., the convenience sampling method, a total of 452 Chinese EFL
teachers from 4 senior high schools in Jiangsu province participated in the
current study. In the present study, the convenience sampling method was adopted
due to easiness of access to the participants. Of all filled questionnaires,
450 valid cases were obtained after gleaning the initial data. Amongst all
those valid participants, 98 male teachers (21.78%) and 352 female teachers
(78.22%) answered the questionnaires. Their age ranged from 22 to 65, with
their average age being 41.79 and an SD of 2.013. Most of the teachers taught
bachelor’s and master’s students, covering 83.78% and 18.44% respectively.
Those Chinese EFL teachers had various education levels, with a bachelor’s
degree (N=131, 28.9 %), a Master’s degree (N=302, 67 %), and
a Ph.D. degree (N=17, 3%) respectively. All of the teachers have had
teaching experience, ranging from 1 to 30 years with a mean of 12 years and an
SD of 2.27. From the gleaned data, 200 cases were
randomly selected for the EFA and the remaining 250 were used for CFA.
Table 1. Summary of participants’ demographic
information
|
Demographic Information Category |
N |
% |
|
Gender |
||
|
Male |
97 |
21.78 |
|
Female |
352 |
78.22 |
|
Total |
450 |
100 |
|
Level of Education |
||
|
Bachelor of Arts |
131 |
28.9 |
|
Master of Arts |
302 |
67 |
|
Ph.D. |
17 |
3 |
|
Total |
450 |
100 |
|
Age Range 22-65 |
Mean 41.79 |
SD 2.013 |
|
Teaching Experience (year) |
Mean |
SD |
|
1-30 |
12 |
2.27 |
3.3 Instruments
To understand the current
status of college EFL teachers’ identity tensions in China, a five-point scale
including Likert-type items was used. The original Professional Identity
Tension Scale (PITS) was developed by Hanna et al., (2019) on the basis of the
questionnaire designed by Pillen et al. (2013). In the present study, depending
on the Chinese EFL context, the content of some statements was altered. It has
also been translated into the Chinese language. In order to achieve validity,
the translated scale was double-checked by two experts, and additionally,
backward translation was carried out to ensure not including ambiguous points.
It is mentionable that the name of the factors was chosen on the basis of the
original model and also some of them were changed considering the included
items and the context of the study. In the main scale, the factors were
identified by using a sentence, however, in the present study, to be more
convenient in referring to factors, we used phrases. The final questionnaire
contained 41 statements including 11 items on demographic information and the
remaining 30 items were on the identity tensions of English teachers (Appendix
A). The participants were demanded to choose between strongly agree, slightly
agree, neutral, slightly disagree, and strongly agree (1=Strongly disagree to
7=Strongly agree).
3.4 Data collection
procedure
The data collection started
on 7th, February 2022, and ended on 25th, March 2022. Before that, to pass the
ethical consideration, the agreement of the affiliation and consent of the
participants were taken. The participants, Chinese EFL teachers, were informed
of the research purpose and they were assured that their information and the
obtained data would be kept confidential and used only for research purposes.
They were also assured that they could withdraw their participation at any time
without providing any reasons. The e-version questionnaires were distributed
across different WeChat groups (a popular communication App in China) and
emails in order to obtain a large sample of participants.
3.5 Data analysis
procedure
In order to analyze data,
firstly, Cronbach’s coefficient was used to check the reliability of the
questionnaire. In the next step, the normality and linearity of data were
examined. Then, to find highly interconnected variables, 200 cases of collected
data were randomly submitted to Exploratory Factor Analysis and 250 cases
remained for Confirmatory Factor analysis. The whole analysis was performed
using SPSS24.
4. RESULTS
4.1 Scale
reliabilities
First, Cronbach’s
coefficient was used to check the reliability of the thirty items. A generally
accepted rule is that α
of 0.6-0.7 indicates an acceptable level of reliability, and 0.8 or greater is
a very good level. However, values higher than 0.95 are not necessarily good,
since they might indicate redundancy (Hulin et al., 2001)
|
Table 2. Reliability statistics |
|
|
Cronbach's Alpha |
N of Items |
|
.886 |
30 |
As Table 2 presents,
Cronbach's alpha is .88, which indicates an excellent level of internal
consistency for the scale with this specific sample.
The main assumptions of
normality, linearity, and homoscedasticity were assumed. None of the 30 items
was substantially skewed (< |2|) or kurtosis (< |7|). Furthermore, the
data did not consist of missing values. An explanatory factor analysis (EFA)
was administered on the 30 items. The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) value was 0.88,
indicating ‘meritorious’ sampling adequacy and Barlett’s test of Sphericity was
significant (X2 (435) = 6829.11, p < .05), indicating the
variance-covariance matrix was appropriate for an EFA (Field, 2013).
EFA was used to find groups
of variables that are highly intercorrelated. Each such group probably
represents an underlying common factor. There are different mathematical
approaches to accomplishing this, but the most common one is Principal
Components Analysis (PCA). The questionnaire held among 452 teachers included
30 questions on the EFL teachers' Professional Identity Tension Scale (PITS).
It is assumed that this measures a smaller number of underlying factors but
there is no evidence of a model. Therefore, the following minor research
questions are proposed for this analysis:
l How many factors are
measured by the 30 questions?
l Which questions measure
similar factors?
With 30 input variables,
PCA initially extracts 7 factors (or components). Each component has a quality
score called an Eigenvalue. Only components with high Eigenvalues are likely to
represent a real underlying factor (Appendix Table B1).
A common rule of thumb is
to select components whose Eigenvalue is at least 1(Field, 2013). Applying this
simple rule to the preceding table answers the first minor research question:
the 30 variables seem to measure 7 underlying factors. This is because only the
first 7 components have an Eigenvalue of at least 1. The other components that
have low-quality scores are not assumed to represent real traits underlying the
30 questions. Such components are considered “scree” as shown by the line in
Figure A in the Appendix.
The Eigenvalues or quality
scores are visualized in the scree plot. The first 7 components have
Eigenvalues over 1. These are considered strong factors. After that, components
8 and onwards- the Eigenvalues drop off dramatically. The sharp drop between components
1-7 and components 8-30 strongly suggests that 7 factors underlie our
questions.
The 30 variables probably
measure 7 underlying factors, but it is not clear which items measure each
factor. The rotated component matrix shows the Pearson correlations between the
items and the components (Table 3) and Figure 1 presents the first structural
model of the underlying relationship between items and factors. These
correlations are called factor loadings:
Table 3. Rotated Component Matrix
Figure1.The first SEM model of Chinese EFL teachers’ professional
identity tensions
It is ideally assumed each
input variable measures precisely one factor, but that is not the case here.
For instance, Q26 and Q37 measure (correlate with) components 6 and 7. If a
variable has more than 1 substantial factor loading, they are called cross-loading.
As mentioned above in the
initial PCA analysis 7 factors were extracted, however, in the confirmatory
analysis, it is recognized that the role of factor 6 is not significant since
it showed a cross-loading with factor 7. Therefore, the SEM analysis admitted
the role of 6 factors or tensions. Figure 2 shows the finalized structural
model of the underlying relationship between items and factors (To see the
comprehensive report of standardized and unstandardized values see Tables B2
and B3 Appendix
Figure 2.The final full SEM model of Chinese EFL teachers’ professional
identity tensions
After applying the
modifications, the model’s goodness of fit was examined. According to Hu and
Bentler (1999), in order for the model to have a goodness of fit, a number of
criteria have to be met. These criteria, alongside the values obtained from the
data, are reported in Table 4.
Table 4. Model fit indices
|
Criteria |
Threshold |
Evaluation |
|||
|
Terrible |
Acceptable |
Excellent |
|||
|
CMIN/df |
2.518 |
> 5 |
> 3 |
> 1 |
Excellent |
|
RMSEA |
.053 |
> 0.08 |
< 0.08 |
< 0.06 |
Excellent |
|
CFI |
.939 |
< 0.9 |
> 0.9 |
> 0.95 |
Acceptable |
|
TLI |
.929 |
< 0.9 |
> 0.9 |
> 0.95 |
Acceptable |
|
SRMR |
.044 |
> 0.1 |
> 0.08 |
< 0.08 |
Excellent |
The results reported in
Table 4 indicate acceptable to excellent goodness of fit. Next, the composite
reliability (CR) and discriminant validity for each factor were examined (Table
5). As reported, all of the variables had CR values above 0.7, which reveals
acceptable reliability. Moreover, the square root of average variance extracted
(AVE) (the bold values in the table) was above the inter-correlations of the
factors, indicating discriminant validity, according to Fornell and Larcker
(1981).
Table 5. Composite reliability and discriminant
validity
|
Factors 1 |
CR |
AVE |
Fornell Larcker Criterion |
|||||
|
F1 |
F2 |
F3 |
F4 |
F5 |
F7 |
|||
|
F1 |
0.769 |
0.476 |
0.689 |
|||||
|
F2 |
0.787 |
0.481 |
0.109** |
0.693 |
||||
|
F3 |
0.884 |
0.631 |
0.141** |
0.085* |
0.794 |
|||
|
F4 |
0.808 |
0.500 |
0.114** |
0.05* |
0.254** |
0.707 |
||
|
F5 |
0.856 |
0.577 |
0.194** |
0.123** |
0.135** |
0.116** |
0.759 |
|
|
F7 |
0.943 |
0.856 |
0.166** |
0.115** |
0.166** |
0.178** |
0.181** |
0.925 |
|
1 F1: Self-Efficacy; F2: Job
Satisfaction; F3: Care from the Institute; F4: Agreement with Doing Research;
F5: Feeling Competent and Skillful; F7: Satisfaction with Reform * Significant correlation
at p < .05 ** Significant
correlation at p < .01 |
||||||||
5. DISCUSSION
The current study was
conducted to develop and validate PITS in the field of EFL context overall and
China in particular and to explore what factors play a role in the formation of
EFL teachers’ professional identity tensions. As with the scale development
methods, several steps were followed to validate and assess the psychometric
quality of the PTIS among Chinese EFL teachers. In general, the satisfying
reliability of the scale and its factor structure seemingly provided an initial
verification for the psychometric quality of PITS. In the present research, we
assessed the necessary validities. Particularly, we examined the content and
face validity by asking experts to check the developed and translated versions
regarding any problem in their rendering, spelling, and content, and then, we
administered them to a small number of teachers similar to our sample to be
assured of the scale’s usefulness. In addition, by employing factor analysis,
the factorial validity was assessed to see to what extent the final derived
factors are consistent with the factors we defined in the initial theoretical
framework.
Regarding the development
and applicability of PITS for measuring EFL teachers’ professional identity
tensions, the findings showed that the developed PITS scale for measuring
Chinese EFL teachers’ professional identity tensions is grounded on the dissonance
perspective and is appropriate and applicable to EFL contexts. As with the PTIS
in the study of Hanna et al. (2019), this scale can be used for measuring
different professional identity tensions of individuals including EFL teachers
who may experience in a teaching context.
In the second step, we used
exploratory factor analysis to answer the first proposed minor question and
recognize the influencing factors in EFL teachers’ professional identity
tensions, then employed Principal Components Analysis (PCA) to identify the underlying
items resulting in six factors that refer to distinctive EFL teachers’
professional identity tensions being in connection moderately or weakly. The
structural model showed the relationship between the factors and subfactors.
This is an indication of the relation existing among the tensions in spite of
their separate origins. The identified tensions are dissonances related to EFL
teachers’ self-efficacy, job satisfaction, care from the institute, agreement
with doing research, feeling competent and skillful, and satisfaction with
reform. These tensions reflect a special activity of an EFL teacher including
support in terms of instruction, classroom, and emotion. The identified
tensions are dissonances related to EFL teachers’ self-efficacy, job satisfaction,
care from the institute, agreement with doing research, feeling competent and
skillful, and satisfaction with reform. These tensions reflect a special
activity of an EFL teacher including support in terms of instruction,
classroom, and emotion. The findings are consistent with the findings of Liu et
al., (2022). According to their studies, being unfamiliar with the technology
and online teaching process caused dissonances for EFL teachers, and as a
result, destructive negative emotions i.e., anxiety unfolded. Therefore, it can
be summed up that as teachers are trained and provided with the necessary
skills to perform in online classes and cope with the challenges related to
using technology and online class engagement, their anxiety is alleviated. In
addition, their confidence, technological self-efficacy, and teaching quality
are enhanced.
Of the six recognized
constructs in this study, some are consistent with Pillen et al.’s (2013)
instrument and some with Hanna et al.’s PITS (2019). A theoretical
justification for the incongruity in the number of detected tensions might be
ascribed to the contextual characteristics of EFL teachers which are
characterized by their own challenges being different from other workplaces.
All of these difficulties cause special tensions. The focus of the present
research was on the Chinese EEL teachers who are working under different
conditions influenced by cultural issues from the mother language and target
language. Therefore, some items that were irrelevant for EFL teachers were
removed. Furthermore, the identified tensions by Pillen et al. (2013) were not explored
and confirmed by factor analysis. One of the tensions in the PITS of Hanna et
al. (2019) was ‘teaching in urban classrooms’ being unrelated to our
participants in the present study.
In the present study, an
item pool of 40 new items was formed depending on the characteristics of EFL
contexts. Applying factor analysis in the pilot study and content validation
facilitated the decision-making process on keeping the final 30 items matching
six EFL teachers’ professional identity tensions. As mentioned before, in our
theoretical framework we included seven factors. However, the confirmatory
analysis and SEM model showed that the effect of one of the factors is not
significant. This factor is related to the pressure of doing research and being
updated. The reason for this finding is found by Yang et al. (2021) in a
narrative study of Chinese EFL teachers’ tensions regarding doing research.
According to that study, teachers can cope with this type of tension by
integrating two sub-identities, teacher and researcher. As Xu (2014) argues, if
teachers are both intrinsically and extrinsically driven to conduct research,
they are likely to integrate daily practices of teaching with research. If academics
perceive research as a promising strategy for professional growth and
beneficial for better teaching practices, they are apt to be driven internally
and accept doing research as an integral part of their job and solve the
tension.
6. CONCLUSION
Language teacher identity is
a crucial construct reflecting teachers’ notion of “how to be”, “how to act”
and “how to understand” the work and their place in society as well as being a
pedagogical resource for teaching practices. (Sachs, 2005, p. 15). EFL teachers
need to understand their own social group’s culture as well as other social
groups’ cultures leading to dissonance when these cultures differ from each
other, particularly when they are diametrically opposed. To cope with this
challenge, teachers need a skill or ability to acquire and make sense of and
relate other cultures to their own culture which requires skills of interaction
with others, listening, and evaluating (Porto, 2019). According to Baker and
Fang (2021), teaching intercultural communicative competence poses a
considerable challenge for many EFL teachers due to some cognitive, affective,
and instructional factors. Looking from the dissonance theory perspective, to
overcome these challenges, as Kegan (1994, p. 227) points out, changing
teaching practice requires teachers to develop a new world by passing a “whole
way to understand themselves, their world, and the relationship between two”.
Hence, understanding the role of teacher identity in mediating EFL teachers is
critical (Gong et al., 2018).
As findings by Gong et al.,
(2021) showed EFL teacher identity is a dynamic construct including various
sub-identities and aspects. Sachs (2005) believes that this dynamic construct
is negotiated and made through experience. Dissonance theory holds that the
challenges related to identity can be reduced by altering the dissonance
element or changing the attitude. As the characteristics of the EFL context
cannot be changed or removed, it is the EFL attitudes that should be altered.
Having a fixed and stable body of cultural, and instructional facts can
increase dissonance, therefore teacher trainers should help teachers to become
more familiar with their identities in the EFL context, be flexible, and
promote their skills and strategies for re/building dynamic professional
identities. This requires teacher educators to be familiar with the context and
have the capacity to recognize tensions among different identity aspects and
the impact of those tensions.
The present study offers a
quantitative scale i.e., PITS for assessing EFL teachers’ identity tensions
experienced in the workplace. The findings imply that the PITS can be employed
by teaching practitioners and researchers in the teacher education field.
Teacher education institutions can benefit from this scale to understand the
identity tensions the teachers go through and make teachers aware of the dual
responsibilities of an EFL teacher, helping them to develop and promote both
sub-identities. By providing awareness of the difference between what teachers’
thoughts and being and what they are expected to be and to do, the educational
institutes can help teachers, particularly the new teachers to cope with the
tensions caused by their professional identity. Up to now, professional
identity tensions have mostly concentrated on primary teachers in fields other
than the EFL context. Applying the PITS of EFL teachers, which was developed
specifically for EFL education contexts, might assist EFL teacher education
programmers in adjusting their training program to EFL teachers’ needs.
The present study, as with
other studies, suffered from limitations. One of them was related to the online
data collection procedure which may affect the answers of the participants.
Another limitation is related to the participants and generalizations. The
present study has been done in the Chinese EFL context. Also, we collected data
from EFL teachers in the big cities.
Future research can
replicate the present study by collecting data on paper and in person and
repeating the analysis to check the difference. It is proposed that the
developed scale be employed in another country with a different educational
culture. In addition, future research can use it for EFL teachers in the urban
context to investigate urban-related tensions. Finally, the present scale is in
its infancy and the response quality of the PITS of EFL teachers needs to be
enhanced through further research.
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Appendix A
|
Table A1. English teachers' professional identity
tension items in our primary theoretical framework |
Appendix B
Table B1
Figure A. Scree plot from the explanatory factor
analysis
|
Table B2. Unstandardized and standardized loadings of
the final model |
|
Table B3. Covariances for the final model |