System 65 (2017) 38e48

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System
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/system

Scaffolding teacher cognition: Changes in novice L2 teachers'

pedagogical knowledge base through expert mentoring
initiatives
Mohammad Nabi Karimi a, *, Monireh Norouzi b
a
Department of Foreign Languages, Kharazmi University, No. 43, Mofatteh Street, Tehran, Iran
b
English Department, Tarbiat Modares University, Chamran Expressway, Tehran, Iran

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Over the past two decades, there has been surge of interest in research on teacher
Received 11 March 2016 cognition in L2 education. Although a variety of issues concerning teacher cognition have
Received in revised form 28 November 2016 been investigated, this line of inquiry has not addressed the question of how L2 teachers'
Accepted 30 December 2016
cognitive development can be supported. To address this gap, the present study aims to
investigate how novice L2 teachers' pedagogical knowledge base might grow as a result of
expert mentoring initiatives. To this end, four novice and four experienced teachers
Keywords:
participated in the study. The four novice teachers received a mentoring program con-
Novice teachers
Expert mentoring
sisting of Video-Recorded Performance Analysis, Expert-Teacher Observation and Critical
Pedagogical knowledge base Friendship initiatives offered by the experienced teachers. Sample classroom performances
Pedagogical thought units/categories of novice teachers before and after the mentoring program were video-recorded; the
teachers were then interviewed regarding the thought units underlying their instructional
moves using stimulated recall technique. Audio-recorded recollections of their perfor-
mances were then transcribed and the underlying thought units were identified and
categorized. Comparisons of the pedagogical thought units underlying their performance
before and after the mentoring program revealed significant differences in both the total
frequency with which they produced/expressed pedagogical thought units and the relative
dominance of pedagogical thought categories.
© 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

A historical look at the evolution of research on the notion of teacher thinking in mainstream education reveals that prior
to the 1970s, this line of enquiry was primarily guided by the process-product conceptualization of teaching (Dunkin & Biddle,
1974). Couched within this paradigm, teaching was primarily viewed in the light of the outcomes it produced (Freeman,
2002). The central pursuit of teacher education research in such a context was simply “to detect those teaching behaviors
that resulted in higher pupil achievement gain scores and, subsequently, to train teachers in these desirable behaviors, either
in initial teacher education programs or by means of further professional development” (Verloop, Van Driel, & Meijer, 2001, p.
441). The assumption was that teachers would replicate, in their classroom, the behaviors assumed to be apparently
conducive to learning outcomes in the students.

* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: [email protected] (M.N. Karimi).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2016.12.015
0346-251X/© 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 M.N. Karimi, M. Norouzi / System 65 (2017) 38e48 39

This assumption has been taken up even in second language education contexts. As pointed out by Gatbonton (1999),
formerly a major share of the theoretical basis informing L2 teacher education programs came from studies on classroom
processes and classroom instruction. The focus was, in fact, mainly on what Burns, Freeman, and Edwards (2015) label the
“public activity” in teaching which includes “classroom actions, routines, interactions, and behaviors, which are publicly
accessible through observation” (p. 185). However, as pointed out by Freeman (2002) “the role of the teacher's thinking and
her mental processes in such behaviors was notably absent” (p. 2). This line of reasoning came to be questioned because it
“lost sight of the complexity and interdependency of teacher behavior as a whole” and yielded only a fragment of the whole
picture of teaching and left out important aspects of teacher functioning (Verloop et al., 2001, p. 442).
An outgrowth of the dissatisfaction with this restricted conceptualization of teaching was a focus on teacher cognition,
defined as “the unobservable cognitive dimension of teaching e what teachers know, believe and think” (Borg, 2003, p. 81).
As an overarching construct, teacher cognition is assumed to encompass three major sub-constructs e beliefs, assumptions
and knowledge (Woods, 1996) e each of which has been extensively investigated in the literature. The third of these sub-
constructs, teacher knowledge, has secured a special place in research on teacher cognition. Interest in the topic began
with Shulman’s (1987) notion of “pedagogical content knowledge” characterized as the integration of content knowledge and
pedagogical knowledge. Shulman also outlined other categories of teacher knowledge including knowledge of curriculum,
knowledge of learners, knowledge of educational contexts, knowledge of educational ends, purposes, values and their
philosophical and historical grounds, etc. which collectively represented a knowledge base a teacher draws upon while
teaching.
Research on L2 teachers' knowledge also came to be inspired by this framework. Moreover, in the 1990s and early 2000s, it
was recognized that there is a body of knowledge guiding L2 teachers' performance; therefore, research in L2 education also
made urgent calls for the (re)conceptualization of the knowledge base of L2 teachers (Freeman, 2002). The call has been made
with the aim of delineating L2 teachers' knowledge base and establishing more rigorous standards for the content specifi-
cation of L2 teacher education programs (Karimi, 2011). As part of a coherent research agenda to discover how teachers think
and work, one strand of research into L2 teacher cognition has been focused around probing L2 teachers' pedagogical
knowledge base (PKB) (e.g. Akbari & Dadvand, 2011, 2014; Gatbonton. 1999, 2008; Karimi, 2011; Mullock, 2006) defined as
“accumulated knowledge about the act of teaching, including the goals, procedures, and strategies which form the basis of
what teachers do in the classroom” (Mullock, 2006, p. 48). However, this line of research, as with most research on teacher
cognition, has not addressed the question of how cognition is developed in L2 teachers, although in Borg's (2003) words, it
should be one of the key questions in teacher cognition research.
Borg (2003) posits that several factors including teacher experiences as learners, professional preparation, contextual
factors and classroom practice are influential in shaping teacher cognitions including PKB of the teachers. Additionally,
teacher reflection has also been cited as a factor affecting improvement in teacher cognition. Teachers' accumulated expe-
riences have also been reported to play a role in introducing changes in teacher cognition (Gatbonton, 2008; Mok, 1994; Tsui,
2003). However, accumulating experience is a gradual process taking place over time. Enlisting more experienced teachers'
help to share their accumulated experience with novice teachers would be a more economical way to help them realize their
potential. This pairing of experienced and novice teachers is done through mentoring whereby a more experienced teacher
“mediates expert knowledge for novices, helping that which is tacit become more explicit” (Dennen, 2004, p. 817).
Against this background, the present study aims to investigate how novice L2 teachers' PKB grows as a result of expert
mentoring initiatives. Specifically, the study aims to address the following research questions:

1. How does mentoring affect the number of pedagogical thought units that novice L2 teachers produce?
2. How does mentoring affect the relative dominance of categories of pedagogical thought units that novice L2 teachers produce?

2. Literature review

As a result of a growing tendency towards cognitive/social views of teaching (Johnson, 2006) and a recognition that
teachers' instructional practices are guided by a body of knowledge, the study of teachers' knowledge has gained increasing
research attention (Akbari & Dadvand, 2011; Gatbonton, 2008; Karimi, 2011; Mullock, 2006; among others). Among the
categories of knowledge proposed by Shulman (1987), pedagogical content knowledge maintains a prominent position
because it identifies the distinctive bodies of knowledge for teaching. It represents the blending of content and
pedagogy into an understanding of how particular topics, problems, or issues are organized, represented and adapted
to the diverse interests and abilities of learners, and presented for instruction (p. 8).
Regarding the importance of the construct, Shulman (1986, 1987) argues that teachers' pedagogical content knowledge
must be used as a main criterion for evaluating teaching expertise. In language education, the construct has come to be
termed pedagogical knowledge base which refers to the collective thoughts, beliefs and theories underlying a language
teacher's performance (Gatbonton, 1999). Similar to Shulman, professionals in language education (e.g. Akbari & Dadvand,
2014) stress the importance of PKB as a framework for teacher recruitment. Given such potential value of PKB, the
construct has received a lot of attention from researchers and professionals in language education which have mostly tried to
quantify thought units in search of broad patterns of thoughts underlying language teacher performance.
40 M.N. Karimi, M. Norouzi / System 65 (2017) 38e48

In a study, which motivated many researchers to conduct investigations into language teachers' PKB, Gatbonton (1999)
explored the pedagogical thought patterns of seven ESL teachers using stimulated recall technique. Gatbonton detected 21
categories of pedagogical thoughts, eight of which were used more frequently. Among these eight categories, Language
Management showed the highest frequency of occurrence (20%) followed by Knowledge of Students (9%), Procedure Check
(8%), Progress Review (8%), Beliefs (7%), Noting Students' Reactions and Behavior (6%), and Decisions (6%). Although Gat-
bonton's study provides a framework for investigating teacher's PKB, it was not immune to methodological flaws (Mullock,
2006). The first problem concerned its questionable ecological validity; her data were gathered in classes created for the
purpose of research. The second problem was the “lack of information about the ranking and frequency of the six domains of
pedagogical knowledge consulted by the teachers” (Mullock, 2006, p. 50). The third problem concerned the validity and
reliability of the stimulated recall protocol used to gather the data (Mullock, 2006).
To partially replicate Gatbonton's findings in a more natural research context while maintaining the overall design of her
research, Mullock (2006) conducted a study with participants from four intact classes in real-life contexts with different
learning purposes and proficiency levels. She also recruited teachers with different TESOL teaching experiences. The results of
her study were similar to those of Gatbonton's, with Language Management and Knowledge of Students being the most
recurrent thought patterns.
In another study, Akbari and Dadvand (2011) concentrated on the differences in the pedagogical thought units of teachers
as a function of their formal teacher education. Their study participants were eight EFL teachers, four B.A. holders and four
M.A. holders. Although the same pedagogical thought categories were observed in the two groups, there were significant
differences in their frequencies. The results showed that M.A. teachers produced almost twice as many pedagogical thoughts
as B.A. teachers, with Affective showing the highest frequency difference.
In a similar study, Karimi (2011) explored the pedagogical thought categories of six teachers selected based on their
teaching license status includin two standard-licensed, two alternatively-licensed, and two non-licensed teachers. He found
considerable differences in the pedagogical thought categories across these three groups. While the most frequent peda-
gogical thought units produced by standard-licensed teachers were reported to be Language Management, Procedure Check,
Affective, Self-Reflection, Progress Review, and Beliefs, the dominant pedagogical thought categories for alternatively-
licensed teachers were Language Management, Procedure Check, Affective, and Progress Review. Language Management,
Procedure Check, Progress Review, and Note Behavior also formed the main pedagogical thought categories of non-licensed
teachers. Self-Reflection and Beliefs did not feature in the pedagogical thought categories of Alternatively Licensed and Non-
Licensed teachers.
Although studies following this line of research have focused on explaining the effects of different variables such as
experience, formal teacher education, and teaching license status on teachers' PKB, little is known about the possibility of
improving novice teacher's PKB via mentoring. Novice teachers often lack sufficient pedagogical preparation (See, 2014) and
are expected to deal with the challenges of the teaching profession on their own (Sarason, 1996). Joyce and Showers (2002)
maintain that there is a greater probability of effective implementation of trained skills on the part of teachers who receive
assistance from expert peers. Additionally, it is argued that mentoring is in fact a collaborative work among novice and
experienced teachers during which a significant level of effort goes into solving problems and reducing the gap between
theory and practice (Koballa & Bradbury, 2009).
The need to introduce mentees to both theory and practice through mentoring is acknowledged by many researchers (e.g.,
Brooks & Sikes, 1997; Gray, 2001; Kirkham, 1992). Brooks and Sikes (1997), for instance, maintain that mentoring is a means
for supporting student teachers in developing their professional learning and knowledge base through which teachers make
“explicit to their students links between theory and practice” (p. 2). Gray (2001) also points out the impossibility of separating
theory from practice and argues that it is the mentor's responsibility to be a model of both theory and practice and to blend
them in the minds of mentees, and consequently improve their practical knowledge base.
This line of research is consistent with theories of situated cognition, which maintain that “knowledge entails lived
practices, not just accumulated information, and the processes of learning are negotiated with people in what they do,
through experiences in the social practices associated with particular activities” (Johnson, 2006, p. 237). Dennen (2004) also
considers situated learning as a main component of cognitive apprenticeship, of which mentoring is a form, and argues that
“teaching and learning through cognitive apprenticeship requires making tacit processes visible to learners so they can
observe and then practice them” (p. 814). She, then, cites articulation as one of the strategies that can be used in cognitive
apprenticeship.
Teacher training programs such as the mentoring program in the present study can provide teachers with a professional
language to rename their teaching practices and accordingly “think and act in different ways” (Freeman, 1993, p. 485).
Freeman (1993) argues that the process of articulating teaching experience enables teachers to realize their conceptions of
classroom practices. It is also endorsed by Hayward, Dimarco, Blackmer, Canali, Wong, and O'Brien (2001) who maintain that
mentoring benefits both mentors and mentees through the process of reflection and articulation. This is in line with
Freeman's (1993) assertion that participating in in-service teacher education programs facilitates articulation by equipping
teachers with a professional language by which to express their tacitly held explanations, assumptions and beliefs.
Despite the pedagogical value of mentoring (Gray, 2001; See, 2014) and the recognition of numerous difficulties novice
teachers experience as a result of inadequacies in their knowledge base (Romano, 2008), there has been limited research to
date examining the likely contributions of mentoring to enhancing PKB. This dearth of research motivated the present study
which, as stated above, aims to investigate whether mentoring offered by experienced teachers to novice teachers assists
 M.N. Karimi, M. Norouzi / System 65 (2017) 38e48 41

them in reconstructing their teaching practices, and in particular, whether it affects the number and dominance of peda-
gogical thought categories produced by novice teachers.

3. Methodology

3.1. Participants

The participants of this study consisted of four novice teachers with an experience range of four months to thirteen
months. Their ages ranged between twenty-four to thirty years. Teachers A and B had B.A degree in English Translation, and
teachers C and D had B.A degree in English Literature. This study also included three female and one male experienced
teachers who acted as mentors. Their teaching experience varied between eight to fifteen years, and they all had M.A degree
in TEFL. Their ages ranged between twenty-eight to forty years. Both groups taught general English courses (Top Notch books
by Saslow & Ascher, 2011) in a private language institute in central Iran. There were twelve to fifteen male students with ages
between seventeen to twenty-eight years in all classes.

3.2. The mentoring program

A mentoring program laid the foundation for the present study. The theoretical framework for the mentoring program
drew on the notions of “critical friendship” (Farrell, 2001) and “cognitive modeling” (Jonassen, 1999). A number of researchers
(e.g. Lieberman & Miller, 1992; Little, 1990; McLaughlin & Talbert, 1993) assert that practicing critical friendship in a novice
teacher learning community involves critical reflection which can lead to “transformation of practices in schooling”
(Achinstein & Meyer, 1997, p. 3). Such an initiative enables novice teachers to get to know their beliefs about pedagogy,
understand their actions in classrooms in relation to these beliefs, and identify gaps between beliefs and practices (Achinstein
& Meyer, 1997).
Jonassen (1999) believes that learners can receive support from experienced performers through two types of modeling:
“behavioral modeling of the overt performance and cognitive modeling of the covert cognitive processes” (p. 231). While
behavioral modeling is concerned with how to perform activities, cognitive modeling mainly deals with articulation of
reasoning (reflection-in-action) (Jonassen, 1999). Jonassen (1999) proposes that modeling should aim to make the covert
overt. In other words, performers must model both covert and overt performance. The process of making tacit explicit can be
facilitated by analyzing both performers and learners' actions and decisions, providing feedback and advice on learners'
classroom actions, and encouraging reflection and articulation (Jonassen, 1999) through using professional language
(Freeman, 1991).
In this study, mentoring refers to “a hierarchical relationship between senior and junior teachers” (Conley, Eugenia, &
Scull, 1995, p. 7). The view taken here is that experienced teachers “are those with many years of teaching behind them,
with 'many' interpreted in various studies as at least four to five years and novice teachers are those who are still undergoing
training, who have just completed their training, or who have just commenced teaching and still have very little (e.g. less than
two years) experience behind them” (Gatbonton, 2008, p. 162). Taking all these issues into account, a mentoring program was
designed consisting of three major components.

3.2.1. Video recorded performance analysis

Five sessions of the experienced teachers' classroom performance were video-recorded, each lasting one hour and forty-
five minutes (a total of 20 video-recorded sessions amounting to 2900 min of video-recorded classroom performance by
experienced teachers). After each session, a meeting was held between the novice teachers, the experienced teacher whose
class was video recorded the same day, and one of the researchers. Dennen (2004) suggests that verbal descriptions provided
by mentors can make explicit the expert knowledge underlying expert performance. Similarly, Freeman (1991) argues that
the common discourse available in teacher education programs, the language used by experienced teachers, serves a
cognitive function which helps novice teachers to perceive their own thoughts about teaching. Therefore, during the follow-
up recollection interview, one of the researchers played the film to all the attendees and asked the experienced teacher to
verbalize the thoughts underlying his/her moves while teaching. The analysis of each session of video-recorded performance
took two hours and thirty minutes. What follows is an example of one of experienced teacher's articulation of her teaching
practices indicating that the program might have provided novice teachers with the professional language.
As pre-task activity, I wrote a question on the board. Then, I asked the students to form groups and discuss the question
in their groups. I wanted to engage all the students. While monitoring them, I noticed that some of the students were
not participating. Thus, I asked them more interesting questions to motivate them. This way I activated their relevant
schema. Now it was the time to teach the reading part.
The aim of this phase of the mentoring program was to provide learners with models of experienced teachers' perfor-
mance (Jonassen, 1999). In other words, it aimed to familiarize novice teachers with different instructional moves and the
thoughts underlying them by making the tacit explicit through the experienced teachers' articulation of their cognitions and
therefore familiarizing novice teachers with professional language (Freeman, 1993).
42 M.N. Karimi, M. Norouzi / System 65 (2017) 38e48

3.2.2. Novice teachers' observation of experienced teachers' classes

Following the recalling sessions, each novice teacher was asked to observe one of the experienced teachers' classes for two
sessions. This phase of the mentoring program provided novice teachers with cognitive modeling (Jonassen, 1999). Cooper
(1999) argues that participation in a process of observing an expert’s performance, reflecting on it and trying to replicate
it is more likely to lead to application of the learned knowledge in a different context. This is in line with Jonassen's (1999)
view about learning through modeling which rests on the assumption that “learners will attempt to perform like the model,
first through crude imitation, advancing through articulating and habituating performance, to the creation of skilled, original
performances” (p. 232).
Taking all issues into account and following Freeman's (1993) suggestion, novice teachers were encouraged to critically
reflect on experienced teachers' instructional moves and try to understand their thinking. Afterwards, the experienced
teacher, in a briefing session, clarified and critiqued her/his actions and elaborated on the thoughts underlying the actions.
She/he also addressed the issues brought up by the novice teacher and offered feedback to resolve novice teachers'
uncertainties.
This phase of the mentoring program aimed at consolidating novice teachers' understanding and knowledge of instruc-
tional moves and the thoughts underlying experienced teachers' performance, enabling them to reflect critically on how the
information they received about the instructional moves and the underlying thoughts would influence their own teaching
practices. It also intended to help novice teachers develop an understanding of the shared discourse by letting them
participate in the new discourse and experience it (Freeman, 1993). Following Freeman's (1993) suggestion, any teacher
training program “should demonstrate the professional Discourse in practice” (498). Therefore, providing novice teachers
with models of teaching is in fact an act of engaging them in the discourse of the new professional language in various ways
which should not be mistaken for mere transferring of instructional moves or behavioral modeling (Jonassen, 1999).

3.2.3. Critical friendship initiative

In this phase of the study, experienced teachers were encouraged to act as critical friends (Furlong, Maynard, Miles, &
Wilkin, 1994). To this end, dyadic teams were formed by pairing a novice teacher with an experienced one to support the
development of a pedagogical relationship (Gray, 2001). Each experienced teacher was then required to observe his/her
novice counterpart's class for one session and take detailed notes of novice teachers' instructional moves for the purpose of a
post-observation analysis. Thus, each experienced teacher arranged a further meeting with the novice teacher right after his/
her observation of the class. During this interview, which was held in a friendly climate, on the one hand, the experienced
teachers supported the novice teachers by adopting strategies such as questioning (Dennen, 2004) to help them articulate
their classroom practices and the reasons behind them using the professional language they had acquired in the previous
phases of the mentoring program. Thus, the novice teachers critically reflected on their instructional moves, clarified,
elaborated on, evaluated, and justified the beliefs underlying them. The following passage shows how one of the novice
teachers used the professional language to articulate her practices.
I believe that developing rapport with students works better. That is why when the student refused to correct his
mistake, I tried to maintain the positive atmosphere of the classroom. At that moment, I thought peer correction was
the best strategy.
On the other hand, experienced teachers critiqued novice teachers' actions and thinking and provided feedback. Moreover,
in case of failure in effective implementation of pedagogical knowledge, the novice teachers consulted the experienced
teachers and the experienced teacher suggested alternatives and finally they collaboratively found ways around the issue.
As acknowledged by Freeman (1993), renaming teaching experience might lead to formation of new conceptions and the
reconstruction of teaching practices through articulation. Therefore, the third phase focused on bridging the gap between
practice and belief through assisting novice teachers in articulating their classroom practices, changing their teaching
practices, and consequently improving their PKB.

3.3. Data collection and procedure

In order to obtain data on the PKB of teachers, Stimulated Recall Technique was used. Despite the criticisms from Clark and
Peterson (1986) and also Davis (1995) regarding its reliability and validity (as cited in Mullock, 2006), Stimulated Recall
Technique is “one of the few tools we have available for probing pedagogical knowledge” (Mullock, 2006, p. 52). Therefore, in
an attempt to increase the reliability of the technique, the researchers followed Gass and Mackey's (2000) suggestions as to
conducting interviews with participants immediately after each class and asking a third party to analyze parts of the
transcripts.
The first set of data was collected before the implementation of the mentoring program. First, each novice teacher's class
was videotaped for one hour and forty-five minutes. Then, immediately after the class, interviews were conducted with each
of the novice teachers. They were shown the videos and were asked to verbalize what they were thinking about while
teaching. To infer the pedagogical thought categories of teachers more accurately, interviews were also audiotaped and
transcribed. The process of transcription, segmenting, labelling, and categorizing was done by one of the researchers su-
pervised by a trained colleague and areas of doubt were resolved by consensus.
 M.N. Karimi, M. Norouzi / System 65 (2017) 38e48 43

The second body of data was gathered after the mentoring program. Each novice teacher's class was filmed for one session
and then stimulated recall technique was used to explore his/her pedagogical thought categories. In order to avoid any kind of
issues in reporting teachers' instructional moves and also the possible interference in the performance of the teachers due to
the presence of the researcher, films of the classes were taken by cameras set on tripods in the back corner of the classrooms
and adjusted to record only teachers' practices.

3.4. Data analysis

Following Gatbonton (1999), Mullock (2006), and Karimi (2011), the transcripts of the verbal reports were analyzed based
on a quantitative-qualitative method. In the qualitative phase of the study, first, the transcripts were segmented into minor
thoughts called pedagogical thought units and labeled, then based on the overlapping themes they were categorized into
major pedagogical thought categories described by Gatbonton (1999). The following extract provides a clear example of the
segmentation, labeling, and categorization process:
Teacher A: She didn't understand the meaning of the word (1), but because she was a shy student (2), and I knew that she
couldn't answer (3) and her classmates were more proficient than her (4), I asked her classmates to give me a synonym of the
word (5).
After segmenting, identifying, and labeling the pedagogical thought units, one of the researchers organized them into
particular pedagogical thought categories. For instance, the researcher segmented the above extract from the transcribed
verbal recollections into five chunks and labeled them based on their content. Then, it was found that the third and the fourth
chunks had the same underlying themes showing teacher's familiarity with students' abilities. Therefore, she placed them in
one pedagogical thought unit set labeled Know S-Ability. She also placed the second chunk describing personality in a
pedagogical thought unit labeled Know S-Personality. Later, she combined all the three thought units into a pedagogical
thought category representing “Knowledge of the Students”. Following the same process, the researcher labeled the first and
the fifth chunks as two separate thought units belonging to “Problem Check” and “Language Management” categories,
respectively.
However, the process of analyzing the transcripts was not trouble-free. After segmenting the extracts, the researchers
realized that some chunks could not be labeled as pedagogical thought units to be categorized under relevant pedagogical
thought categories. Therefore, following the study by Akbari and Dadvand (2011), the researchers included only those
thought units that were “clearly instructional” (Gatbonton, 1999, p. 39) and pedagogically significant based on Gatbonton's
(1999) descriptions of pedagogical knowledge categories and excluded irrelevant comments such as the following from the
analysis.
Teacher A: In the afternoons, I feel sleepy that's why I always open windows in my classes.
In order to increase the reliability of the stimulated recall technique, as suggested by Gass and Mackey (2000), the re-
searchers made an attempt to examine interrater reliability, too. Therefore, an independent third party experienced in this
respect was also involved in analyzing the transcripts of the verbal recollections of one of the novice teachers. The results of
this phase of analysis yielded a consistency of 89%. As mentioned earlier, discrepancies were resolved by consensus.
The quantitative phase of study involved counting the frequency of each pedagogical though unit and category and
comparing them.

4. Results

As pointed out earlier, the present study aimed to investigate how novice EFL teachers' PKB might grow as a result of a
mentoring program. To begin to present the results of the study, the frequency, rank, and percentage of the produced
pedagogical thought units by novice teachers before and after the mentoring program are presented in Tables 1 and 2 (See
Appendixes A and B).
The first research question concerned a comparison of the total number of pedagogical thought units produced by novice
teachers in pre-test and post-test (Table 3). While teachers produced a total of 628 pedagogical thought units before the
mentoring program (an average of 1.49 thoughts per minute), the reported pedagogical thought categories after the program
was 1306 (a mean of 3.10 thoughts per minute). However, in order to see whether these differences were statistically sig-
nificant, paired samples t-test was used and to ensure the suitability of the parametric test, normality of the data, and ho-
mogeneity of variance were checked. Comparisons of the total number of thought categories prior to and after the program
confirmed a significant difference (t (3) ¼ 11.269, p < 0.05).

Table 3
The edited table of paired samples T-test for the total number of pedagogical thought categories in pre-test and post-test.

t value Mean SD Eta squared Sig.

Total Frequencies 11.269 169 30 0.97 0.001
44 M.N. Karimi, M. Norouzi / System 65 (2017) 38e48

Table 4
Dominant pedagogical thought categories in pre-test and post-test.

Pre-test Post-test

Categories Rank Categories Rank

Noting Student Behavior 129 (21%) 1 Language Management 253 (19%) 1
Language Management 109 (17%) 2 Procedure Check 144 (11%) 2
Procedure Check 82 (18%) 3 Noting Student Behavior 137 (10%) 3
Progress Check 55 (9%) 4 Problem Check 125 (10%) 4
Comprehensibility 51 (8%) 5 Progress Check 116 (9%) 5
Problem Check 51 (8%) 6 Knowledge of Students 102 (8%) 6
Probe Prior Knowledge 43 (7%) 7 Comprehensibility 88 (7%) 7
Time Check 42 (7%) 8

Note: The percentages have been rounded off.

Note: The superscript numbers indicate the rank of the thought categories.

The second research question aimed to investigate the relative dominance of the novice teachers' thought categories
before and after the program. To identify the dominant thought categories, the frequency of 6% of the total number of
pedagogical thought units was adopted as a criterion of dominance (Gatbonton, 1999; 2008). As Table 4 indicates, the
dominant thought categories for novice teachers in pre-test were Noting Student Behaviour (21%), Language Management
(17%), Procedure Check (18%), Progress Check (9%), Comprehensibility (8%), Problem Check (8%), Probe Prior Knowledge (7%),
and Time Check (7%). However, the most frequent pedagogical thought categories in post-test were Language Management
(19%), Procedure Check (11%), Noting Student Behavior (10%), Problem Check (10%), Progress Check (9%), Knowledge of
Students (8%), and Comprehensibility (7%).
A comparative analysis of the frequencies of the dominant thought categories in both pre-test and post-test was carried
out, using a series of t-tests with Holm-Bonferroni corrected Alpha levels. As reported in Table 5, statistically significant
differences were observed in Language Management (t (3) ¼ 8.085, p < 0.01), Problem Check (t (3) ¼ 9.155, p < 0.008),
Progress Check (t (3) ¼ 5.316, p < 0.016), Procedure Check (t (3) ¼ 8.386, p < 0.01), and Comprehensibility (t (3) ¼ 9.773, p <
0.007). A closer look at the list of dominant categories showed that while the reported frequency for Language Management
was not the highest in pre-test, it ranked first for all teachers in the post-test. Changes in the rank of Language Management
(the management of language produced by students and the input they receive) from the second to the first category suggests
that it is likely that the mentoring program helped novice teachers develop a sense of responsibility and appreciate their roles
“either consciously or unconsciously, as that of a students’ language facilitator” (Akbari & Dadvand, 2011, p. 52). It is inter-
esting to know that this category ranked first among the list of dominant thought categories in all previous studies inves-
tigating experienced teachers' PKB (e.g. Akbari & Dadvand, 2011, Gatbonton, 1999; 2008 (in the experienced group, though);
Mullock, 2006).
Ranking first in pre-test, Noting Student Behaviour, though statistically insignificant, relegated to the third category in the
post-test. More notable changes were observed in Time Check, Probe Prior Knowledge, and Knowledge of Students. Absent in
the list of dominant categories in pre-test, Knowledge of Students was the sixth category in post-test with a significant
difference compared with the pre-test (t (3) ¼ 7.464, p < 0.012). More interestingly, while Probe Prior Knowledge (though
statistically insignificant) and Time Check (t (3) ¼ 10.967, p < 0.007) were the seventh and eighth categories in pre-test, they
were not among dominant categories in post-test.
One thought category with the highest frequency difference between pre-test and post-test was Knowledge of Students.
This category relates to teachers' comments on what they know about the students. The sharp contrast between pre-test and
post-test in terms of Knowledge of Students can be attributed to both the likely effect of the mentoring program on
broadening novice teachers' views regarding the necessity of noting students' personalities and learning styles, and also the
time of administrating pre-test and post-test. Since pre-test and post-test were carried out in the sixth and fifteenth sessions
respectively, teachers' knowledge of the students might have increased over time.
There were also significant differences between pre-test and post-test in the frequencies of Problem Check and Procedure
Check. Problem Check refers to the problems interfering with the lesson flow and students' problems with the lesson, e.g.

Table 5
The edited table of paired samples t-test.

Number categories t value Mean SD Eta Squared Holm-Bonferroni Corrected a Sig.

1 Language Management 8.085 37.250 9.215 0.94 0.01 0.004
2 Knowledge of Students 7.464 20.750 5.560 0.95 0.012 0.005
3 Problem Check 9.155 18.500 4.041 0.96 0.008 0.003
4 Procedure Check 8.386 15.500 3.697 0.95 0.01 0.004
5 Progress Check 5.316 15.250 5.737 0.90 0.016 0.013
6 Comprehensibility 9.773 9.250 1.893 0.96 0.007 0.002
7 Time Check 10.967 5.250 0.957 0.97 0.007 0.002
8 Probe Prior Knowledge 2.049 1.750 1.708 0.025 0.133
9 Noting Student Behavior 0.590 2.000 6.782 0.05 0.597
 M.N. Karimi, M. Norouzi / System 65 (2017) 38e48 45

noting and expecting students' difficulties, and Procedure Check has to do with ensuring that the lesson progresses well from
the beginning to the end, e.g., starting the lesson, giving, explaining and demonstrating procedures. In spite of their high
frequencies before the mentoring program due largely to the policy of the institute on managing classes, the significant
differences in the frequencies of the two aforementioned pedagogical thought units after the treatment shows that guidelines
offered by the experienced teachers might have helped them realize the importance of following the rules of the institute and
have also provided them with sufficient pedagogical knowledge to apply the rules in their classes.

5. Discussion

As discussed above, teachers produced almost twice as many pedagogical thought units in their post-program perfor-
mance as they did before the program. Although additional data are required to substantiate this claim, this increase in novice
teachers' pedagogical thought units suggests an increased fluency with which they articulated their thoughts. The critical
friendship initiative provided opportunities for novice teachers to articulate their thoughts freely. In examining changes in
teachers' ways of thinking about teaching, Freeman (1996) talks of articulation as a means through which teachers come to
gain access to their cognitions about teaching. The opportunities to articulate one's cognitions can help make the tacit explicit.
As stated earlier, the first two phases of the mentoring program aimed to sensitize novice teachers to various instructional
moves and expanded their knowledge of the thoughts underlying different pedagogical practices through a shared profes-
sional discourse (Freeman, 1991) with the mentors.
A comparison across the findings of the present study and those of studies conducted within this line of inquiry (Akbari &
Dadvand, 2011; Gatbonton, 1999, 2008; Mullock, 2006) reveals interesting insights. As the first point of comparison, the
novice teachers' dominant pedagogical categories before the mentoring program accounted for 86 percent of their overall
reported thought categories; however, after the mentoring program the value (74%) approximately approached the total
percentage of dominant thought categories reported in other studies who recruited more experienced participants (e.g.
Gatbonton (1999): 73% and 70%; Gatbonton (2008): Experienced Teachers: 76% and Novice Teachers: 80%; Akbari & Dadvand:
75% for MA Teachers; and Mullock (2006): 70%). This might show that the mentor teachers have been able to induce the effect
of their experience into novice teachers' thought units. A higher percentage of dominant thought categories reveals that
novice teachers might remain more preoccupied with these categories and lose sight of the less dominant thought categories
in their performance.
A look at the novice teachers' list of dominant thought categories reveals that Noting Student Behavior occupies the highest
rank which replicates Gatbonton's (2008) finding. She also found that the inexperienced teachers' list of dominant thought
categories was headed by Noting Student Behavior. As explained by Gatbonton (2008) “this preoccupation with student
behavior and reactions is consistent with the findings in general education that beginning teachers are usually more concerned
with such issues” (p. 174). Novice teachers tend to be more sensitive to students' behavior and negative reactions (Akyel, 1997)
mainly due to the fact that they “feel less secure about themselves as teachers” (Gatbonton, 2008, p. 174). The relegation of this
category to the third place, more akin to that reported in other studies (e.g. Akbari & Dadvand, 2011; Gatbonton, 1999; Mullock,
2006) which recruited more experienced participants, shows that the mentoring program might have played a role in orienting
novice teachers towards a more ‘experienced’ cognitive functioning. The absence of thought categories such as Progress Review
and Knowledge of Students prior to the mentoring program and their appearance among the list of dominant thought cate-
gories after the mentoring program might also point to the role of the mentoring initiatives in raising the novice teachers'
awareness about students and their learning. These two thought categories featured in the list of dominant thought categories
of all experienced teachers in previous studies (e.g. Akbari & Dadvand, 2011; Gatbonton, 1999; Mullock, 2006).
On the whole, these similarities between the thought categories of novice teachers after the mentoring program and those
of experienced teachers in previous studies might point to novice teachers' transition to a more ‘experienced’ cognitive
functioning. However, to make sure of this transition, a comparison is needed to be made with unmentored teachers. It is
likely that the mentors have been able to induce the effect of their experienced cognitive performance into novice teachers'
thought processes through providing them with an example of a desired cognitive performance (Jonassen, 1999). In fact, these
similarities could point to the role of the mentoring program in familiarizing novice teachers with different instructional
moves and thoughts underlying them and in achieving the ultimate goal of improving novice teachers' PKB through artic-
ulation in the mentoring program. An alternative explanation could be that novice teachers have become adept at making the
tacit explicit. To put it differently, it is possible that novice teachers have already had the conceptions even before the
mentoring program and the mentoring initiatives just paved the way for the easier articulation of these underlying thoughts.
Although Freeman (1993) argues for the possibility of both the existence of conceptions on a tacit level and the formation of
conceptions as a result of participating in teacher training programs, he suggests that both processes could also take place
“simultaneously and interactively” (p. 494).

6. Conclusion

The notion of “teacher cognition” and “teachers' PKB” have attracted adequate research interest (Akbari & Dadvand, 2011,
2014; Gatbonton, 2008; Karimi, 2011; Mullock, 2006). This study is another attempt to investigate the possibility of intro-
ducing changes in the cognitive and mental lives of teachers with the specific aim of improving PKB of novice teachers
through a mentoring program.
46 M.N. Karimi, M. Norouzi / System 65 (2017) 38e48

The results of this study provide initial hints as to the assumption that that if adequate time is allocated to mentoring
programs focused around articulation of cognitions by experienced teachers, which calls for a need for a shared professional
language (Freeman, 1991), these programs have the potential to help novice teachers gain access to “the covert cognitive
processes” (Jonassen, 1999, p. 231) underlying their performance. They also have the potential to broaden teachers' per-
ceptions of their own instructional moves and the beliefs underlying them (Achinstein & Meyer, 1997). Furthermore, in a call
to investigate the hypothesis that teacher training may speed up the acquisition of knowledge and cognitions underlying
active teaching, Gatbonton (2008) warns against the teachers' expectation to wait for accumulation of such knowledge
through experience. The results of the present study provide indirect indications for the positive effect of expert mentoring as
an effective continuation of pre-service teacher training programs as a supplement to experience.
The social/cognitive conceptualization of teaching emphasizes the emergence/growth of teacher cognition/learning
through experiences in social contexts; participation and context are, thus, assumed to be critical to teachers' acquisition and
development of cognition (Johnson, 2006). In this view, learning is defined as “the progressive movement from external,
socially mediated activity to internal mediational control by individual learners, which results in the transformation of both
the self and the activity” (Johnson, 2006, p. 238) which stresses the need to view teacher education as a dynamic social
activity by making use of on-the-job mentoring programs, as suggested by the present study.
Caution must, however, be exercised in interpreting the results of the study due to the following reasons. First, although
the researchers followed Gass and Mackey's (2000) suggestions to increase the reliability of stimulated recall technique, due
to “the difficulty of uncovering covert mental processes in teaching” (Mullock, 2006, p. 52), the inherent subjectivity in
stimulated recall technique (Clark & Peterson, 1986), and difficulty with segmenting, coding, and categorizing thought cat-
egories, replication studies are required to substantiate the findings of the present study. Second, due to feasibility concerns,
only four novice teachers were selected to participate in the study. Third, as argued by Freeman (1993), the obtained dif-
ferences in novice teachers' thought categories could be simply due to a change in the way they renamed their teaching
experiences. In other words, novice teachers' thought categories might have existed “a priori, but on a tacit level” (Freeman,
1993, p. 494) and are not created as a result of participating in the mentoring program. Therefore, since it is difficult to draw a
direct link “among ways of talking, thinking, and behaving” (Freeman, 1993, p. 486), the effect of mentoring program cannot
be clear, and it cannot be firmly concluded that the mentoring program caused the difference and this study lacked data
clearly showing this effect. Fourth, to partially uncover the uncertainties about the alternative interpretation that the ob-
tained differences were due to the effectiveness of mentoring program in reconstructing novice teachers' teaching practices,
additional follow-up interviews could be conducted with novice teachers to investigate their perceptions of the program and
the influence it had on their classroom practices.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank all the teachers who participated in the study.

Appendix A. Pedagogical thought categories of novice teachers in pre-test

Table 1
Frequency, ranking, and percentage of reported thought categories in pre-test.

Pre-test

Categories Teacher A TeacherB Teacher C Teacher D Total

1. Language Management 33 (18%)2 20 (18%)2 23 (15%)2 28 (19%)2 109 (17%)2
2. Procedure Check 29 (16%)3 15 (11%) 3 23 (15%)2 15 (10%)3 82 (18%)3
3. Knowledge of Students 5 (3%) 9 4 (3%) 9 6 (4%) 9 4 (3%)9 19 (3%) 9
4. Noting Student Behavior 35 (19%)1 30 (21%) 1 29 (19%) 1 35 (24%)1 129 (21%) 1
5. Progress Check 14 (8%) 6 12 (8%)4 17 (11%) 4 12 (8%)4 55 (9%) 4
6. Self-Reflection 0 (0%) 17 0 (0%) 17 0 (0%) 15 0 (0%)16 0 (0%) 20
7. Affective 3 (2%) 10 1 (1%) 13 2 (1%) 11 2 (1%)10 8 (1%) 12
8. Time Check 9 (5%) 8 10 (7%) 8 11 (7%) 7 12 (8%)4 42 (7%) 8
9. Level Check 2 (1%) 14 0 (0%) 17 0 (0%) 15 1 (1%)14 3 (0%) 15
10. Problem Check 19 (10%) 4 11 (8%) 7 12 (8%) 6 9 (6%) 8 51 (8%) 6
11. Materials Comment 3 (2%) 10 1 (1%) 13 0 (0%) 15 0 (0%)16 4 (1%) 14
12. Comprehensibility 15 (8%) 5 12 (8%)4 14 (9%) 5 10 (7%)6 51 (8%) 5
13. Group/Pair Work 3 (2%) 10 2 (1%)11 3 (2%) 10 2 (1%)10 10 (2%) 10
14. Content 0 (0%) 17 2 (1%)11 0 (0%) 15 0 (0%)16 2 (0%) 17
15. Beliefs 1 (1%) 16 0 (0%) 17 0 (0%) 15 1 (1%)14 2 (0%) 16
16. Past Experience 0 (0%) 17 1 (1%) 13 0 (0%) 15 0 (0%)16 1 (0%) 18
17. Decision 0 (0%) 17 0 (0%) 17 1 (1%) 13 0 (0%)16 9 (1%) 11
18. Name Check 2 (1%) 14 3 (2%) 10 2 (1%) 11 2 (1%)10 9 (1%) 12
 M.N. Karimi, M. Norouzi / System 65 (2017) 38e48 47

Table 1 (continued )

Pre-test

Categories Teacher A TeacherB Teacher C Teacher D Total

19. Planned Acts 3 (2%) 10 1 (1%) 13
1 (1%) 13 2 (1%)10 7 (1%) 13
20. Probe Prior Knowledge 10 (5%) 7 0 (0%) 17
11 (7%) 7 10 (7%)6 43 (7%) 7
21. Institution Comment 0 (0%) 17 0 (0%) 17
0 (0%) 15 0 (0%)16 0 (0%) 20
22. Self-critique 0 (0%) 17 0 (0%) 17
0 (0%) 15 0 (0%)16 0 (0%) 20
23. Curriculum Fit 0 (0%) 17 0 (0%) 17
0 (0%) 15 0 (0%)16 0 (0%) 20
Total 186 142 155 145 628
Thoughts per minute 1.77 1.35 1.48 1.38 5.98

Note: The percentages have been rounded off.

Note: The superscript numbers indicate the rank of the thought categories.

Appendix B. Pedagogical thought categories of novice teachers in post-test

Table 2
Frequency, ranking, and percentage of reported thought categories in post-test.

Post-test

Categories Teacher A Teacher B Teacher C Teacher D Total

1. Language Management 65 (21%)1 54 (17%)1 74 (21%)1 60 (19%)1 253 (19%)1
2. Procedure Check 40 (13%)3 31 (10%) 3 38 (11%)2 35 (11%)2 144 (11%)2
3. Knowledge of Students 18 (6%) 7 30 (9%) 4 29 (8%) 5 25 (8%)6 102 (8%) 6
4. Noting Student Behavior 45 (14%)2 35 (11%) 2 27 (8%) 6 30 (9%)4 137 (10%) 3
5. Progress Check 22 (7%) 6 28 (9%)6 32 (9%) 4 34 (11%)3 116 (9%) 5
6. Self-Reflection 3 (1%) 15 4 (1%) 16 10 (3%) 11 4 (1%)15 21 (2%) 15
7. Affective 13 (4%) 8 10 (3%) 10 19 (5%) 8 14 (4%)8 56 (4%) 8
8. Time Check 3 (1%) 15 6 (2%) 13 5 (1%) 14 7 (2%)13 21 (2%)14
9. Level Check 4 (1%) 12 4 (1%) 16 3 (1%) 18 3 (1%) 18 14 (1%) 17
10. Problem Check 32 (10%) 4 29 (9%) 5 34 (10%) 3 30 (9%)4 125 (10%) 4
11. Materials Comment 2 (1%) 18 4 (1%) 16 3 (1%) 18 4 (1%)15 13 (1%) 19
12. Comprehensibility 24 (8%) 5 24 (8%)7 22 (6%) 7 18 (6%)7 88 (7%) 7
13. Group/Pair Work 6 (2%) 11 8 (3%)11 5 (1%) 14 8 (3%)12 27 (2%) 11
14. Content 1 (0%) 20 2 (1%)20 4 (1%) 16 2 (1%)20 9 (1%) 20
15. Beliefs 3 (1%) 15 5 (2%) 14 8 (2%) 12 9 (3%)11 25 (2%) 12
16. Past Experience 4 (1%) 12 5 (2%) 14 8 (2%) 12 5 (2%)14 22 (2%) 13
17. Decision 2 (1%) 18 8 (3%) 11 4 (1%) 16 4 (1%)15 18 (1%) 16
18. Name Check 1 (0%) 20 2 (1%) 20 1 (0%)21 1 (0%)21 5 (0%)21
19. Planned Acts 4 (1%) 12 3 (1%) 19 3 (1%) 18 3 (1%) 18 13 (1%) 18
20. Probe Prior Knowledge 12 (4%) 9 13 (4%) 8 15 (4%)9 10 (3%)10 50 (4%) 9
21. Institution Comment 0 (0%) 22 0 (0%) 22 0 (0%) 22 0 (0%) 22 0 (0%) 22
22. Self-critique 10 (3%) 10 13 (4%) 8 11 (3%) 10 13 (4%)9 47 (4%) 10
23. Curriculum Fit 0 (0%) 22 0 (0%) 22 0 (0%) 22 0 (0%) 22 0 (0%) 22
Total 314 318 355 319 1306
Thoughts per minute 2.99 3.03 3.38 3.04 12.44
Thoughts per minute 2.6 3.6 2.7 2.9 2.9

Note: The percentages have been rounded off.

Note: The superscript numbers indicate the rank of the thought categories.

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