Factors Underlying Characteristics of Effective English Language Teachers: Validity and Sample Effect

This study replicated another research project to find out what factors underlie the Characteristics of Effective English Language Teachers (CEELT) when a large and more representative and homogeneous sample is selected. The CEELT questionnaire compiled by Moafian and Pishghadam (2008) was administered to 1469 Iranian learners of English as a foreign language at various private and public schools in Mashhad، Iran to test three hypotheses addressing the strength of relationship among the characteristics، the number of extracted factors and their cross loadings. The 47 characteristics revealed high correlations among themselves and loaded as well as cross loaded on only five rotated factors when the Principal Axis Factoring was applied to the participants’ responses، i. e.، rapport، fairness، qualification، facilitation and examination. The results have several research implications. First، reporting correlation coefficients and the KMO statistic of sampling adequacy is necessary. Secondly، samples consisting of at least 1000 participants should be selected، preferably with a ratio of 30 cases for each item. And finally، cross loading variable must be reported because these cross loadings necessitate adopting a holistic view towards teaching languages and establishing significant relationships between teacher characteristics and learner abilities such as language achievement and proficiency.