EFL Teachers’ Perceptions of Academic Favoritism: A Questionnaire Development and Validation Study

Although the concept of favoritism has received attention in various areas of study such as management, business, and medical settings, this line of research has scarcely been explored in teacher education and especially in L۲ acquisition context. The current study aimed to design and validate a scale that could explore English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers’ perceptions of academic favoritism. After developing the ۴۰-item Academic Favoritism Questionnaire (AFQ), it was administered to the target participants of the study, and the required data were collected from ۱۵۴ Iranian EFL teachers selected through non-random convenience sampling. The results of exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses revealed eight underlying components of the model: damaging collaborative learning, educational inequality, teachers’ biased attitudes, teacher-student conflicts, learning barriers, unfair students’ treatments, negative learners’ experience, and unhealthy academic atmosphere. The study findings may shed light on this obscure topic in the field of education. The study provides important implications for different education stakeholders including researchers, teacher educators, supervisors, EFL teachers, and L۲ learners as the findings could increase their awareness of favoritism and its likely influence on their professional practices and environment.

Keywords:

Academic favoritism , EFL teachers , exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis , questionnaire development , teacher perceptions