An Investigation of Iranian High School English Language Teachers' Perceptions of Pedagogical Competence

Effective pedagogical practice promotes the achievement of students and builds up confidence of the teachers in teaching. The major cause for the gap in pedagogical practices can be attributed to the lack of pedagogical competence. The present study employed a mixed method research approach to examine Iranian high school English Language teachers’ perception of pedagogical competence in two phases. A 53-item questionnaire of pedagogical competence was, first, administered to 365 high school English teachers of 415 teachers practicing teaching in Guilan Province, Iran, through probability sampling method (stage cluster sampling). The teachers’ age, gender, fields of study, university degrees, and years of teaching were taken into account. Second, to complement the findings of the questionnaire, a semi-structured interview based on the seven constructs was conducted to 84 high school English teachers selected through stage cluster sampling in Guilan's high schools. The results of MANOVA and interview analyses revealed that teachers with different demographic features generally had positive perceptions of pedagogical competence despite some opposing views they had on pedagogical competence regarding their age and experience. The findings would be practically used by teachers, schools, and education administration.