Language Teachers’ Conceptions of Intelligence and their Roles in Teacher Care and Teacher Feedback

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to find the relationships among teachers’ conceptions of intelligence, teacher care, and teacher feedback in the realm of English Language Teaching (ELT). To this aim, three scales were developed to measure the aforementioned constructs. The participants consisted of 81 English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers and their 426 students who were learning English in private language institutes. The scales were validated by Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and the correlations among their subscales were investigated. The findings suggested that modularity, increasibility and applied ELT are associated with the nature and amount of teacher feedback and care as perceived by the students. Moreover, the results revealed that teachers’ conceptions of intelligence significantly affect how they evaluate their students (p < .05). In the end, implications were provided in the context of teaching.