Reflective Thinking and Reflective Teaching among Iranian EFL Teachers: Do Gender and Teaching Experience Make a Difference?

The present study investigated the relationship between reflective teaching and reflective thinking of Iranian EFL teachers regarding gender and teaching experience. To this end, 233 teachers were surveyed using English Language Teaching Reflection Inventory (Akbari, Behzadpoor, & Dadvand, 2010), and Teachers’ Reflective Thinking Questionnaire (Choy & Oo, 2012). The results of Pearson product moment correlation indicated there was a significant positive correlation between reflective teaching and reflective thinking of Iranian EFL teachers. The results of Independent Samples t-tests revealed significant differences between male and female Iranian EFL teachers in terms of both reflective teaching and reflective thinking. The results of one-way ANOVA and Tukey post-hoc analysis respectively indicated that teaching experience significantly differentiated Iranian EFL teachers concerning reflective teaching, i.e. high-experienced teachers significantly outperformed mid-experienced teachers who, in turn, outperformed their low-experienced counterparts in this regard.