The Effect of Teacher Training Universities on Iranian English Teachers’ English Proficiency, Their Attitude towards Their Job and Their Students’ Academic Satisfaction

This study attempted to investigate the effect of TTUs (teacher training universities) on Iranian English teachers’ English proficiency, their attitude towards their profession and their students’ academic satisfaction. To achieve this objective a population of 40 English teachers were selected from 35 secondary and high schools of Arak, Iran.20 teachers were trained in TTUs and 20 graduated from non-TTUs. An English proficiency test, selected from PET’s standard English tests (Cambridge Preliminary English Tests, 2008) and a five scale likert-type attitude questionnaire including 22 items that measured Iranian English teachers’ attitude towards their profession were administered to the teachers. The test evaluated reading and writing skills. The population of the students comprised 900 students with the age range of 13-17 from the same secondary and high schools of Arak, Iran. 450 students’ English teachers were trained in TTUs and 450 students’English teachers graduated from non-TTUs. A five factor likert-type questionnaire consisting of 15 items relating to students’ satisfaction of their English teachers was administered to the students. Both questionnaires used the scales: very low, low, moderate, high, and no idea. The questionnaires were prepared by the investigator. To validate them, they were reviewed by the supervisor and some expert teachers. A pilot study was also done to confirm their validity and reliability.Cronbach’s alpha test was used to calculate the values of reliability of both questionnaires, indicating the value of 4900 for the questionnaire of attitude and 0.94 for the questionnaire of students’ satisfaction. Descriptive and inferential analyses were used for analyzing the hypotheses. After determining the normality of the distribution of the data through Kolmogorov-smirnov test, an independent t-test was used for the first and second hypotheses and Mann- whitny u test for the third hypothesis. The level of significance was greater than 0.05 for all the hypotheses and there were not significant differences between the two groups of students and the two groups of teachers. Therefore, the hypotheses were rejected. The findings revealed that teacher training universities did not have a significant effect on Iranian English teachers’ English proficiency, their attitude towards teaching profession and their students’ academic satisfaction.

کلیدواژه ها:

TTU ، teacher training ، language proficiency ، attitude ، academic satisfaction