Iranian teachers` perceptions on teacher expertise

Abstract

This study investigated Iranian teachers` perception on teacher expertise. The participants of this research were 60 Iranian high school teachers with at least 5 years of teaching experience, 30 males and 30 females. As the schools in Iran are separated based on the gender of the students and learners, this study compared the perception of male and female Iranian teachers on teacher expertise in order to recognize the effect of gender on the perception of teacher expertise. Thus, mixed methods consisting of qualitative and quantitative were selected for this research. A Likert scale questionnaire comprised of 60 questions distributed among the respondents. The questionnaire was designed based on the various themes of teacher expertise, such as teacher experience, student knowledge, curriculum knowledge, teacher beliefs and teacher-parent interaction. In order to increase the validity of questionnaire, all of the questions related to a theme were disarranged randomly and then shifted to the first position in the data analysis part. Additionally, in order to enhance understanding of teachers` perceptions on teacher expertise, a semi-structured interview was used for high school teachers; 5 males and 5 females. Besides, two independent t-tests were run to investigate whether there was a statistically significant difference between the responses of females and males about teacher expertise. The results indicated that although female teachers had higher scores in some themes of teacher expertise such as student knowledge or pedagogical knowledge, this difference was not significant. Thus, the gender has a little effect on teacher expertise of Iranian high school teachers.