EFL teacher resilience: instrument development and validation

Abstract

ABSTRACT Teacher resilience research complements studies on teacher stress and burnout and is gaining increasing attention due to its influence on teachers’ thriving in their profession. However, this construct has not yet been defined in operational terms in foreign language teaching, and its constituent components are not specified due to the absence of a robust and context-specific instrument. Therefore, the current study aimed at developing a tool for measuring the resilience of English language teachers (ELT). At the initial stage, qualitative semi-structured interviews with 14 Iranian EFL teachers complemented by a survey of the related literature on teacher resilience helped us develop an instrument with 44 Likert-type items. The English Language Teacher Resilience Instrument was then validated with a sample of 224 ELT teachers, resulting in the deletion of nine of its items. The final multidimensional 35-item instrument can measure ELT teachers’ resilience by focusing on the five factors of their internal motivations, social skills, emotional management, pedagogical skills, and contextual support.