A Comparative Study on the Professional Identity of Current and Prospective Teachers: Iranian English Language Teachers' Perspectives

The main purpose of this study was to probe whether or not there is a statistically significant difference between the prospective teachers' perceptions of professional identity and current teachers' self-perceptions. To meet the end, the researchers applied the Teachers' Professional Identity Questionnaire, by Hasegawa and Kudomi, which contains 48 items on a four-point Likert system. This questionnaire was distributed among 440 Iranian professionals who had majored in one of the majors related to English language. After collecting the data, the researchers tapped them into SPSS software and analyzed them statistically. A Mann-Whitney test on the scores of the two groups of participants highlighted a statistically significant difference. Hence, data analysis indicated that there is a statistically significant difference between the prospective teachers' perceptions of professional identity and the current teacher's self-perceptions.