Measuring EFL Teachers’ Phronesis: Development and Validation of a New Inventory

Rahmatollahi, Maryam; Famil Khalili, Gholamhassan; Hashamdar, Mohammad

doi:10.22080/iselt.2026.32443.1213

Measuring EFL Teachers’ Phronesis: Development and Validation of a New Inventory

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Department of Teaching English and Translation, Ka.C., Islamic Azad University, Karaj, Iran

10.22080/iselt.2026.32443.1213

Abstract

Research has already established the significance of phronesis in promoting the educational system. However, more needs to be done to ascertain how the construct can be measured reliably. To this end, an in-depth review of the related literature was conducted, and semi-structured interviews were performed with 21 teachers to explore and extract the underlying components. A 57-item Likert scale inventory was developed through content analysis of the interviews and thematic network analysis of the literature. The instrument is among the first of its kind to operationalize phronesis specifically within the pedagogical demands of language teaching. The inventory was then administered to 257 in-service teachers selected through convenience sampling. The statistical analyses reduced the items to 32 and revealed adequate reliability. Moreover, structural equation modeling further confirmed the validity of the instrument. The first-order model with four factors, including moral agency, commitment, practical reasoning, and professional support, together with the second-order model, which was built upon the first, both indicated acceptable psychometric properties. The results, thus, demonstrated that phronesis is a unified, yet multidimensional construct. The findings provide teacher educators and teaching practitioners with a practical tool for assessing and reflecting on teachers’ phronesis and identifying areas for further professional development.

Keywords

Main Subjects

Copyright © 2027 The Author(s). Published by the Faculty of Persian Literature and Foreign Languages at the University of Mazandaran. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) license.

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