Cognitive Flexibility among Iranian EFL Teachers: The Predictive Roles of <span lang="EN">Intercultural Competence and Work Engagement

Although cognitive flexibility (CF) has attracted increasing attention in language teacher education, limited research has examined its association with intercultural competence (ICC) and work engagement (WE), particularly among Iranian English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers. The present study investigated the relationships among CF, ICC, and WE and examined the extent to which ICC and WE statistically predicted teachers’ CF. A cross-sectional correlational design was employed with ۲۹۳ Iranian EFL teachers. Data were collected using the Cognitive Flexibility Scale (CFS), the Intercultural Competence Questionnaire, and the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES-۹). Descriptive statistics, Pearson product-moment correlations, and standard multiple regression were used for data analysis. The findings indicated significant positive associations among all three variables. ICC and WE both made significant unique contributions to CF and jointly accounted for ۲۳.۶% of the variance in CF, with WE showing the larger standardized coefficient. These findings indicate that teachers’ reported CF is statistically associated with both intercultural and motivational dimensions of professional functioning. The study contributes to research on language teacher cognition by bringing cognitive, intercultural, and motivational dimensions into a common empirical framework.

کلیدواژه ها:

CF ، ICC ، Iranian EFL teachers ، WE ، teacher professional development