E-learning-oriented assessment and collaborative reflection for situated learning in language teacher education

Abstract

Online teacher education programs can be more situated by engaging student teachers in Internet-based collaborative reflection (ICR) and e-learning-oriented assessment (ELOA) via Web 2.0 technology. Thus, this study explored how the role of English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) student teachers’ ICR practices and ELOA can enhance student teachers’ situated online teacher education. In this qualitative study, 15 Iranian EFL student teachers were chosen purposively within a transcendental phenomenology to conduct ICR on ELOA practices during situated learning in online teacher education. The results showed that implementing ICR on ELOA tended to enhance student-centered teacher education; collaborative and reflective teacher development; social, professional, cognitive, and emotional growth; and the connection of teaching, learning, and assessment within online teacher education. More specifically, ELOA practices allowed for meaningful tasks and authentic activities based on practical experience, triggered continuous feedback on EFL student teachers’ performance via technology, directed online learning and teaching, and enhanced a performance-based and learning-oriented assessment process. Pedagogical implications for the design of student teacher programs are discussed.

Introduction

Effective, online teacher education relies on the intersection of critical reflection and experiential praxis. Student teachers learn to teach by reflecting on experiences of teaching and translating theory to practice (Farrell, 2015). Online teacher education also needs to move from receiving passive knowledge from an expert to reflecting on practices experientially. The increasing online teacher education programs, therefore, have required teacher educators to consider how to engage student teachers in critical reflection and experiential learning effectively in online spaces. As Archer (2010) noted, online teacher education should form an online community of practice (CoP) for student teachers to enhance their reflective, cognitive, social, and affective presences. This can lead to greater practical knowledge construction, supportive scaffolding, collective identity, and facilitated interpersonal relationships. More recent research (e.g., Karlberg-Granlund & Pastuhov, 2024) shows that student teachers should receive continuous support from peers and teacher educators and achieve goals collaboratively. Student teachers may also promote their learning atmosphere and engagement by adopting an experiential online teacher education program and establishing a mutual connection with others (Hockly, 2015).

Online situated learning provides authentic, real-world activities and contexts, multiple roles and responsibilities, and experts’ models during online learning spaces (Herrington & Oliver, 2000). One way to foster online situated learning in online teacher education can be via enhancing the quality of e-assessment practices by involving and including EFL student teachers in their learning-oriented assessment practices reflectively and collaboratively (Banitalebi & Ghiasvand, 2023). To achieve such objectives, Iranian EFL teachers need to conduct reflection and collaboration on their learning-oriented assessment practices to enhance their experiential and situated learning through Web 2.0 interface. Another essential component of experiential and online situated learning contexts can be the e-assessment that drives teaching and learning. Within online teacher education, situated learning can generate knowledge from systematic reflections and real-world collaborations on e-assessment practices and link the theory and practice of teaching in online teacher education (McNeil, 2018). Situated learning can also be promoted by Internet-based collaborative knowledge generation, online reflective practice, and authentic task-based e-learning-oriented assessment (Arefian, 2023a, 2023b). Online teacher education programs can be more authentic and situated by engaging Iranian student teachers in collaborative reflection and e-learning-oriented assessment (ELOA).

Since Iranian EFL teachers need to engage language learners in authentic tasks, assessment, and teaching during online language learning practices (Dashtestani, 2014), enhancing ELOA practices during online teacher education may build the experiential foundations for prospective teachers to know how to enhance EFL learners’ situated learning through ELOA practices. However, few studies have examined the significance of ELOA in enhancing situated learning in online teacher education. To enhance situated learning in online teacher education with ELOA practices, Iranian EFL student teachers may be able to conduct Internet-based collaborative reflection (ICR) on their ELOA practices with others through the Internet to redirect, redo, and reform their practices independently and collectively.

As a new mode of reflective practice within an online and technology-based learning environment, ICR can be performed through planning, acting, observing, and reflecting collaboratively with peers and others via virtual social media applications, online platforms, and weblogs, among others. Basically, Iranian EFL student teachers can plan their teaching, implement their actions, observe their performance, reflect on their experiences collaboratively with other peers, link theory and practice, and learn from novel experiences in an online CoP (Cole et al., 2018). Thus, ICR may be a suitable way to foster the online situated learning environment in which actions, reflections, and collaborations are the key constituents of teachers’ online situated learning. Additionally, recent years have witnessed a growing interest in a new method of assessment in the classroom known as learning-oriented assessment (Carless et al., 2006). This approach prioritizes the learning aspect of classroom assessment and places considerable emphasis on actively involving students in the assessment and feedback process (for a full treatment of this approach, see Chong & Reiers, 2023). Specifically, because Iran is a country with top-down educational assessment system, it needs to enhance an active and online situated teacher education with more learning-oriented online assessment practices. Accordingly, Iranian EFL student teachers need to learn how to implement ELOA and ICR during their first teaching practices for enhancing the quality of online education.

More recent studies suggest (e.g., Taghizadeh & Ejtehadi, 2023) that ICR tends to exert a positive influence on the assessment knowledge and practices of EFL student teachers, so it is encouraging to study how ICR is capable of directing and enhancing student teachers’ ELOA practices while focusing on developing more online situated teacher education programs. As such, this study probed into how the implementation of ICR on ELOA practices might develop EFL student teachers’ online situated teacher education. We, therefore, used the following two research questions to examine the role of ICR in online situated education.

• 1. What is the role of ICR in Iranian EFL student teachers’ ELOA in their online situated learning?

• 2. What are the benefits and challenges student teachers may gain and face during collaborative reflection on ELOA practices in online situated learning?

Literature review

Situated learning in online teacher education

Online teacher education programs and courses emphasized the importance of gaining knowledge regarding subject matter, methodology, principles, and techniques of teaching EFL through technological tools in an isolated context with little constructive and interactive feedback and support (Heirdsfield et al., 2007). However, these days, due to the significance of various concepts in education, such as personalized, situated, constructive, and cooperative learning, teacher educators need to vigorously try to make student teachers more agent and active in their process of online learning. Student teachers are perceived as “active, thinking decision-makers whose actions are influenced by the observable cognitive and affective dimension of teaching” (Borg, 2011, p. 2018). Within an online teacher education, one common way to improve student teachers’ responsibility and ownership can be reflective practice so that they can analyze their teaching experiences, reflect on and solve their problems, take wise actions, enhance their noticing and awareness of various instructional factors, and adapt their established practices to an online remote setting (Farrell, 2022; Gkonou & Miller, 2020).

With more attention given to the concept of constructivism, teacher educators can create an active online learning environment for student teachers during their online teacher education. Student teachers, therefore, can gain practical skills analytically, implement learning tasks collaboratively, access indefinite materials freely, and enhance knowledge of their practice reflectively and collaboratively in an experience-based digital context through the emergence of Web 2.0 applications of information and communication technology (ICT) (De Neve & Devos, 2016). Due to the emergence of various online learning environments, online teacher education programs offer new opportunities for student teachers to learn online with their peers collaboratively through social media applications, experience co-teaching and co-learning with others, build an online CoP, learn from their practical online contexts reflectively, connect with others socially, and observe, plan, and act reflectively (Son, 2004). These features are the key components of having an online situated learning experience based on cognitive and social constructivism, concerning cognitive and sociocultural learning influences (Arefian, 2022; Nunan, 2012; Piaget, 1955; Vygotsky, 1978). Kaufman (2004) observed that EFL student teachers should promote “active engagement and autonomy, construction of knowledge through inquiry and reflection as well as involvement in the interdisciplinary investigation, collaborative endeavors, fieldwork opportunities for experiential learning, and self-observation and evaluation” (p. 311) during online teacher education. Following Kaufman’s observation, teacher education tends to be nonlinear, flexible, dynamic, practical, and exploratory. As such, it is most likely to engage student teachers in self-discovery, collaborative, and autonomous learning via online learning tools, such as Facebook, Skype, Google Meet, and Adobe Connect, among others (Son, 2004).

During situated learning in online teacher education, student teachers find an equal chance to take part in online teacher education activities, share their ideas and experience with others reflectively, interact with others actively during online and offline discussion, build rapport through online chats, and learn from practical and authentic experiences reflectively (McNeil, 2018). Teacher education helps student teachers enhance their higher-order thinking skills, receive meaningful and immediate feedback, foster a student-centered learning environment, enhance chat- or video-based communication (Ko & Rossen, 2017), and contribute to meaningful, active, and authentic learning by means of synchronous communication (O’Donnell, 2006). Herrington and Oliver (2000) argued that situated learning should be characterized by authentic contexts and activities, experienced members’ modeling, multiple role adoption, social construction, reflective practices, expression of tacit knowledge, scaffolding practices, and authentic assessment for learning purposes by engaging in collaborative tasks. More significantly, EFL student teachers can implement authentic learning-oriented assessment to enhance their situated learning during online teacher education programs (Banitalebi & Ghiasvand, 2023). However, scarce research has been conducted to probe how online teacher education can be more situated through doing ICR on ELOA (Ma et al., 2021).

E-learning-oriented assessment practices

Previously, assessment in higher education was used mainly for summative and formative purposes to check university students’ understanding, quality of teaching, and feedback (Knight, 2002). Summative assessment is conducted to gather evidence from students’ knowledge and understanding through reliable tests at the end of the course and see how and to what extent students have achieved the objectives (Harlen, 2006). On the contrary, formative assessment can enhance students’ learning, increase process-based learning, foster students’ autonomy and strategic learning, and build shared criteria and self-assessment practices through e-portfolios (Hargreaves, 2013). Recently, more attention has been paid to the importance of enhancing online assessment practices in online higher education programs (Topuz et al., 2022). However, during online assessment and evaluation practices, students may demonstrate dishonest performance on summative exams through copying content from other resources, show low commitment and motivation for formative assessment practices, and possess insufficient technological infrastructure (Ko & Rossen, 2017). Therefore, these problems with online assessment practices in higher education and teacher education programs should be considered (Montenegro-Rueda et al., 2021). In order to solve the problems of online assessment practices in online teacher education with a more student-centered and learning-oriented assessment practice, student teachers should experience an assessment procedure to enhance their knowledge and practice continuously, reflectively, and collaboratively through online tasks, involvement, and feedback, which can be realized through e-learning-oriented assessment (ELOA).

In ELOA, learning-oriented assessment practices are highlighted to enhance the quality of online learning and teaching (Carless et al., 2006). The goal of ELOA is to prepare student teachers academically and professionally, enhance their strategic and self-regulation learning, foster their interactive and reflective learning-oriented assessment practices, and increase their critical and higher-order thinking skills during online teacher education (Nicol & Milligan, 2006). Three crucial components of the ELOA framework include e-assessment tasks as learning tasks, e-feedback as feedforward, and student teachers’ participation in e-assessment (see Fig. 1, Rodríguez-Gómez et al.,2009). Firstly, e-assessment tasks as learning tasks are referred to the application of online tools, namely blogs, social media apps, wikis, e-portfolios, and others, to increase meaningful, real-world, authentic learning and assessment opportunities through completing interactive and purposeful assessment tasks in a situated online-learning environment. Thus, online tasks that mirror the real-world situations prepare student teachers for the real teaching contexts with the knowledge, skills, and expertise. The second element is e-feedback as feedforward, which underscores the role of active, continuous, and purposeful online feedback on competence and performance to engage student teachers reflectively, socially, and professionally by monitoring their performance and doing self-assessment to become self-regulated or employing collaborative and concerted e-feedback with the help of Web 2.0 to reshape and reform their future learning practices (Boud & Molloy, 2013). Thirdly, student teachers can enhance their participation in e-assessment practices with self- and peer-assessment to reflect on and evaluate their own and peers’ performance (Segers & Dochy, 2001). Such practices can develop reflective and collective learning, increase autonomy, implement strategic learning, foster sustainable development, increase responsibility and agency, and evaluate their own and others’ performance and experiences based on standards (Nicol & Milligan, 2006).

Fig. 1

Conceptual framework for e-learning-oriented assessment (ELOA) (adapted from Rodríguez-Gómez et al., 2009, p. 516)

ELOA has the potential to enhance situated learning during online teacher education programs and inform student teachers about how assessment practices can be used for more learning purposes. However, research is limited in how EFL student teachers can receive benefits from ELOA practices (Carless, 2015). Also, Internet-based collaborative reflection, which can be used as a way to involve student teachers to reflect on and discuss about ELOA practices through Internet Web 2.0, is an approach towards creating a more situated-based online teacher education. Only a few studies have been conducted in Iran related to learning-oriented assessment from the EFL teachers’ and students’ perspectives (Derakhshan & Ghiasvand, 2022; Jalilzadeh & Coombe, 2023; Navaie, 2018). After investigating 40 Iranian EFL teachers through a qualitative study, Derakhshan and Ghiasvand (2022) showed that LOA is effective in fostering classroom interaction, collaborative learning, and engagement, including assessment, teaching, and learning, and observing students’ achievement. ELOA can be significant for education and teacher education of Iran due to the current emphasis on the use of technology, formative and learning-oriented assessment, constructivism, and online assessment, so the present study was conducted to investigate Iranian EFL student teachers’ ELOA practices to fill this gap.

Internet-based collaborative reflection (ICR)

Reflective practice is a systematic procedure to solve problems within a specific situation (Tanış & Dikilitaş, 2018; Wyatt & Ončevska Ager, 2016). It can help student teachers gather evidence, think and analyze their practices reflectively and consciously, and take intended actions to enhance their practical knowledge of teaching (Arefian & Meihami, 2023; Freeman, 2016). Accordingly, Farrell (2012) stated that reflective practice “enables teachers to stop, look, and discover where they are at that moment and then decide where they want to go (professionally) in the future” (p. 7). Provided with numerous advantages of reflective practice, EFL student teachers can identify their strengths and weaknesses, transform their practice, and personalize theories and theorize practice. Moreover, they can promote autonomy and agency, satisfy personal and collective needs, hone sharper noticing skills, reach self-awareness, and increase innovativeness and criticality (Arefian & Nami, 2023; Farrell, 2022). Considering the significance of social interaction and collaborative efforts in constructing knowledge and skill in a community of practice (CoP), collaborative reflective practice has gained prominence, grounded in Vygotskyan sociocultural theory (Alvarado Gutiérrez et al., 2019).

Collaborative reflection creates favorable conditions for student teachers to move from individual, independent learning to social, collective learning. Using collaborative reflection, student teachers link previous experiences with the new ones through discussion, facilitate their interpersonal understanding, and take more collective agency to develop professionally (Lieberman & Miller, 2001). Practically, student teachers need to plan their teaching, observe their actions, and reflect on their experiences collaboratively with other peers in a CoP (Cole et al., 2018). Previous research (e.g., Taghizadeh & Ejtehadi, 2023) has shown that ICR fosters the assessment literacy and practices of EFL student teachers. However, this study aims to fill the research gap by exploring the role of ICR in enhancing ELOA, which in turn may lead to the improvement of online situated teacher education among EFL student teachers during online teacher education.

Methodology

Participants and setting

This study implemented a qualitative approach to gather contextualized data from the participants’ practical and first-hand experiences (EFL student teachers’ ICR on their ELOA practices) and reach data saturation through different data collection tools (observations, group discussions, narratives, and interviews). Also, we sought student teachers’ opinions and experiences to identify their behavior patterns (categories and themes concerning ICR and ELOA practices) and explore the specific context (online situated teacher education) (Nelson, 2017). To conduct the qualitative study, we selected 15 Iranian EFL student teachers (10 males and 5 females), aged between 19 and 22, from Farhangian Teacher Training University in Iran. They were all bachelor of arts (BA) students teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL), and all had some years of teaching experience at private language institutes (1 to 3 years). Previous research has confirmed that novice teachers tend to possess fewer than 5 years of teaching experience (Rahimi & Zhang, 2015). We, therefore, built on this line of argumentation and selected the participants whose teaching experiences ranged from 1 to 3 years. After their graduation, they will be full-time teachers at state schools to teach English. Student teachers study TEFL for 4 years, each year including two semesters totaling eight semesters. EFL student teachers take courses related to pedagogy, language teaching methodologies, psychology of learning, technology in learning, teaching practicum, assessment and evaluation, L2 research, second language acquisition, and curriculum development, among others.

The study built on homogeneous sampling (Suri, 2011) to invite EFL student teachers from one of the branches of Farhangian Teacher Training University in Tehran, Iran, to participate in an online teacher education program for 3 months. Homogeneous sampling, as a major type of purposeful sampling procedure, was used to include a small, homogenous sample of 15 Iranian EFL student teachers to explore a particular phenomenon (exploring the role of ICR in enhancing ELOA) or subgroup of interest (EFL student teachers) (Patton, 2014). These participants were homogenous in the following ways: They were EFL student teachers, had between 1 and 3 years of teaching experience, and were student teachers of Farhangian Teacher Training University—a single research site.

Consent forms were given to student teachers to express their approval for participation. The online course was about the general areas of teaching, methodology, curriculum, teaching practice, assessment, and other areas. The student teachers agreed to participate voluntarily in the study for this duration and were informed that they could leave the study at any time, and their personal information would be kept confidential. At the beginning of the course, they had two sessions regarding the benefits, procedures, and applications of ICR, ELOA, and situated learning meaningfully, contextually, and professionally, since they needed to conduct them individually and collectively during the course of study. After that, they had online teacher education for 2 months (three sessions per week). The focus of the course was, therefore, to engage student teachers with real-world tasks, feedback as feedforward, and students as assessors during their learning and teaching practices. The student teachers learned through an online program and taught English at schools for practicum, because they had to teach English at schools for 1 day in a week. The practicum took 2 years to complete and started from the second year of BA program with the objective of using and implementing the content-related, theoretical, and pedagogical knowledge in a real classroom environment. Through the practicum, the student teachers observed other expert teachers and peers, worked under the supervision of a teacher educator, taught some parts of a book, and reflected on their teaching practice.

In this study, reflection and collaboration among teacher educators, student teachers, and mentors are performed to enhance pedagogical and practical experiences which tend to develop student teachers’ experiential learning, identity, and professionalism (Wyatt & Ončevska Ager, 2016). Also, online teacher education can be followed in some units through a learning management system (LMS) and interactive social media applications for supporting face-to-face teacher education program. Furthermore, situated learning and experience-based teacher education are a new policy to foster the effectiveness of teacher education programs that can occur through reflective, collaborative, and socio-cognitive teaching and assessment practices (Lynch et al., 2012).

Research design

This qualitative research study explored the Iranian student teachers’ experiences, practices, and perceptions of the role of doing ICR on ELOA practices to enhance online situated teacher education. Thus, a hermeneutical phenomenology (Crowther et al., 2017) was chosen to collect and interpret the shared experiences of the participants in an authentic context. Therefore, we gathered and analyzed relevant information regarding reflecting collaboratively on ELOA practices through the Internet to foster online situated teacher education, leading to shared experiences among EFL student teachers, the general essence of meaning, and perceived subjective–objective experiences (Moustakas, 1994). Phenomenology can indicate the way a specific phenomenon and the essence of the experience can be regularly assumed and observed among student teachers by gathering and analyzing data from participants’ lived experiences. Therefore, it reveals “what” participants have experienced and “how” they have done it.

Pereira (2012) has thoroughly described the constituents and processes of phenomenological research and identified that phenomenological research needs to contain the following stages (Table 1). In the last column of Table 1, we have explained in detail the steps and procedures which we followed to implement the phenomenological approach.

Table 1 Procedures of phenomenological research (adapted from Pereira, 2012, p. 17)

Data collection methods

Observations, focus-group discussion, narratives, and interviews were used as data collection methods to help us to understand how ICR could direct, change, and enrich the process of ELOA for boosting online situated teacher education programs via Skyroom and LMS. The focus-group discussion took place online in chat rooms, and, every weekend, Skype meetings with the student teachers were arranged online for 3 months. EFL student teachers reflected collaboratively with others in order to enhance their ELOA practices; share their ideas, feelings, and arguments about the benefits, applications, and procedures of ELOA practices; and discuss how they could use the formative feedback they received from ELOA to enhance their situated online learning and teaching and knowledge of language teaching. The lead researcher was an active member in directing their discussions towards doing ICR on ELOA, learning from their constructive feedback during ELOA practices, and enhancing their collaboration with others in a supportive manner. The Skype sessions were audio-recorded, and data were collected from their discussion chat room. The lead researcher participated in the discussion and shared activities throughout online ICR as a facilitator, who directed the discussion topics and interactions by asking questions, presenting comments, and providing feedback related to ELOA practices. Open-ended questions were used to trigger student teachers’ thoughts, practices, and feelings regarding ICR and ELOA practices. Some of the questions raised in the group discussion are as follows: How can ICR help you enhance ELOA? What are the advantages and disadvantages of doing ICR in promoting ELOA? In what ways can ICR and ELOA improve your online situated teacher education? Why should you conduct ICR on ELOA?

Nonparticipant observations helped monitor EFL student teachers during online Internet-based group discussions in chat rooms about their ELOA practices. The purpose was to know how EFL student teachers did collaborative reflection through the Internet to guide, direct, and learn from ELOA practices by enhancing their situated online teacher education, including knowing teaching practices, pedagogical and instructional factors, methods, and techniques, students’ learning, subject, content of teaching, and assessment practices. In this case, the student teachers were indirectly observed to see how the implementation of ICR on ELOA could foster an online situated teacher education process. The observations normally lasted approximately half an hour.

Thirdly, the EFL students were asked to write an approximately 200-word narrative during their ELOA practices. Following Clarke and Braun (2013), and Patton (2014), this word limit encourages concise, clear, targeted, and focused responses, making it easier to analyze and compare the responses, reducing the burden on participants and the researchers, and providing neater, more relevant content. Thus, student teachers narrated their ELOA procedures, challenges, and benefits to indicate whether they were more engaged in an online situated teacher education. The narratives were gathered by the lead researcher.

Lastly, semi-structured interviews were utilized to ask the student teachers questions about the role (e.g., Tell me about the role of ICR and ELOA in your online teacher education), benefits (e.g., List some benefits of doing ICR on ELOA), and challenges of ICR on ELOA (e.g., Can you identify some of the challenges of doing ICR on ELOA?). The interviews lasted approximately 20 min with 10 questions.

We used the orthographic (also known as secretarial and playscript) transcription (Howitt, 2016) to transcribe the data. As Howitt observed, this is the most commonly used transcription method in qualitative research studies because it focuses primarily on the words that are uttered, not how they are said. Unlike Jefferson transcription—mainly used in conversation analysis to record facial expressions and other spoken characteristics, the orthographic method is consistent with thematic analysis used in the study, because “thematic analysis is the analysis of what is said rather than how it is said” (Howitt, 2016, p. 163). The primary focus in the present study was not on the detail of text construction, rather on how transcripts helped explore student teachers’ lived experiences regarding the influence of ICR over ELOA. Therefore, the audio-recorded data were transcribed verbatim (word by word) to help us achieve the study’s objectives.

Data analysis

We implemented an inductive thematic data analysis to interpret findings, identify meaningful patterns, and generate categories inductively (Ary et al., 2018). Inductive analysis, a meaning-making process that researchers begin with to understand and investigate the raw data obtained from multiple sources, is a common data analysis tool to generate meanings, categories, and themes, not necessarily using a pre-established framework. As Braun and Clarke (2006) stated, “inductive analysis is, therefore, a process of coding the data without trying to fit it into a preexisting coding frame, or the researcher’s analytic preconceptions” (p. 83).

Trustworthiness (the consistency of methods and appropriateness of the procedures) was addressed through stepwise replication, inter-coder reliability, and structural corroboration (Ary et al., 2018, pp. 536–538). As for stepwise replication, both authors divided the data, analyzed them independently, and compared the results of independent analysis, as explained below. Structural corroboration was related to the triangulation of data sources and data collection methods in this study. Multiple data types including interview, observation, and narrative data were collected, combined, and used. Four different data-gathering instruments—interviews, nonparticipant observations, group discussions, and autobiographical narratives—helped us to collect various data types. As for inter-coder reliability, both authors read all data types several times, coded them independently and manually, and discussed the results of independent coding. The process involved one-to-one comparisons of the codes and categories during this stage. As such, the authors included the suitable and relevant extracts and excluded the irrelevant ones. The extracts were coded based on their meanings, categories, and intentions. The similar codes were put together under a more general category. Lastly, the themes were recognized by using similar categories, knowing patterns in the earlier categories, and creating themes based on similarities and differences. In cases of disagreement, another coder familiar with qualitative coding procedures was invited to intervene. If all the three coders agreed on a code, it was kept; otherwise, it was removed from final analysis. The rest of the discrepancies were discussed in person until full agreement was reached. The results of inter-coder reliability (following Cronbach’s alpha) was 0.96, which reflects high agreement (O’Connor, C., & Joffe, 2020).

Results

This section presents the findings of qualitative data collected through observations (O), focus-group discussions (GD), narratives (N), and interviews (I) and analyzed via inductive thematic approach. To present the findings more clearly and to make them more informative, we first introduce each research question followed by an outline of the major themes and patterns and next elaborate on individual themes, providing extracts from student teachers to support the themes.

The first research question: What is the role of ICR in Iranian EFL student teachers’ ELOA in their online situated learning?

The analysis of data types for this first research question included three major themes as follows: the implementation of ICR on ELOA to promote online situated teacher education in terms of social, reflective, and dynamic practices; the acquisition of collective agency, autonomy, and ownership; and the promotion of student–teacher centeredness through ELOA practices. In what follows, each of these central themes is fully explained, and relevant extracts are presented to substantiate the themes.

Implementing ICR on ELOA practices to foster online situated teacher education socially, reflectively, and dynamically

ELOA practices could provide meaningful, authentic, and purposeful online tasks and activities to learn academic theories and practices to facilitate the practical teacher education process emotionally, practically, and socially. As stated by student teacher 1, “the tasks (e.g., teaching activities on how to use communicative teaching approaches for grammatical points during online sessions) we had to submit on LMS could make us active and engaged in the process of learning teaching concepts in a practical way” (I). Following ELOA, student teachers received dynamic, continuous feedback on their online performance to guide, direct, and shape their learning and teaching by identifying gaps and challenges, reflecting on the incidents deliberately, finding solutions and alternatives, and acting and implementing wise strategies collectively and reflectively during online teacher education. Student teacher 13, for instance, noted that “I could know my gaps, weaknesses, and strengths by receiving feedback on LMS. I learned how to make progress positively by interacting and reflecting on my practices” (N).

EFL student teachers tended to become more cognitively, socially, professionally, and personally “engaged and included via reflecting collaboratively on ELOA practices through the internet” (O), as stated by student teacher 1. Because student teachers focused on doing real-world activities virtually, observing their online practices and those of their peers attentively, reflecting on technology-aided practices consciously, socializing with peers constructively through social media and LMS, building an online community of learning and practices, acquiring new theories and techniques, and changing actions and practices through doing ICR during ELOA practices, they formed an online CoP, learned from practical experiences, and transformed the current situation to foster ELOA practices, leading to situated online teacher education. The words of student teacher 15 are as follows: “learning to plan, practice, and reflect collaboratively together through WhatsApp and Skype enhances the process of ELOA” (GD). By implementing ICR on ELOA throughout situated teacher education, student teachers could practice reflectively and collectively, assess continuously and formatively, receive feedback from peers, become engaged in learning and assessing, and benefit from practical and real-world learning opportunities. Also, they could gain explicit and implicit knowledge of teaching, adopt multiple roles, have an equal chance of learning, and connect with others within an online CoP. Student teacher 9, for example, shared his online experience with us the following way: “I could learn situationally through this mode of learning and assessment as I was really engaged in the process socially, reflectively, and meta-cognitively” (I). Similarly, student teacher 2 remarked that they “could plan, act, observe, and reflect socially through Web 2.0 in order to enhance ELOA practices continuously, that could be directed positively in groups” (N).

Student teachers acquire collective agency, autonomy, and ownership during ICR and ELOA

Through ICR, EFL student teachers were able to reflect via different reflective approaches, collaborate with other peers and teacher educators through various modes of online interactions, and plan, practice, take actions, and develop continuously via online learning platforms and social media applications. ICR was a crucial online continuous learning tool that could support student teachers developing individually and collectively. As student teacher 3 pointed out, “I understood that I could learn from my novel experiences and peers’ practices even when I was not in class. This could make an online educational system constant and formative” (I). In addition, ELOA practices rendered EFL student teachers’ online learning more practical, experiential, authentic, and meaningful by helping them to make sense of their online teaching and learning experience, and develop their social skills, as reflected in the eighth student teacher’s narrative: “ELOA practices made e-learning and e-teaching very practical, meaningful, and authentic since we learned the theoretical concepts practically, improved socially, and engaged situationally during assessment and teaching practices that were linked together” (N).

ICR and ELOA practices promote student–teacher centeredness

Eleven student teachers remarked that ELOA could change learning from being teacher guided towards student centered by doing meaningful and experiential tasks, receiving authentic and purposeful feedback, and being actively involved in self- and peer-assessment, as shown in the following extract uttered by the 12th student teacher in the group discussion: “I realized how online learning and assessment made us active through doing meaningful tasks, receiving feedback, and implementing self-, and peer-assessment” (GD). The student-centered learning process was the one in which student teachers played a major role in constructing their knowledge and skills socially and individually, as they took collective agency in their online learning process, as explained by the seventh student teacher: “I could reflect on my on teaching practices and identify and solve problems practically. Also, I received help and guidance from my peers to foster instructional quality” (I). Accordingly, they were engaged in a process of cognitive and socio-cognitive learning dynamically and flexibly in an exploratory, collaborative, autonomous, and self-directed manner through ICR and ELOA within a virtual setting, as stated by the second student teacher: “In online learning settings, I realized that reflection and collaboration could lead to change in my knowledge of teaching micro and macro skills. Along with them, online learning-based tasks helped me to activate my knowledge through feedback, implementation, reflection, and collaboration” (N).

The second research question: What are the benefits and challenges student teachers may gain and face during collaborative reflection on ELOA practices in online situated learning?

The analysis of data types for the second research question included two major themes as follows: The benefit student teachers gained and the challenges they faced in the process of doing ICR on ELOA to enhance online situated teacher education. In the following paragraphs, we elaborate on these two major themes, providing extracts from the student teachers to confirm the themes.

Benefits of doing ICR on ELOA to enhance online situated teacher education

When EFL student teachers conducted ICR on ELOA practices to enhance online situated teacher education, they faced numerous personal, social, affective, cognitive, and professional benefits. The personal benefits included reflective, social, and professional practices, autonomy, multiple roles, experiential learning, collaborative learning, self-assessment, engagement, and identity. Student teachers became able to reflect on their novel online practices with greater noticing skill as they did ICR on ELOA. They were able to think, plan, act, analyze, and evaluate their ELOA practices collaboratively by reflecting on, observing, and enhancing their task performance, self- and peer assessment, and perceived feedback. Additionally, they could enhance their awareness cognitively and metacognitively by noticing practices, identifying strengths and weaknesses, making and planning wise decisions, and using peers’ feedback and the right strategy during an online setting. Furthermore, they practiced self-assessment, used goal-setting strategies, and directed their practices autonomously and collectively via conducting ICR on ELOA through online interactions. Student teachers, therefore, became more agentic and independent, active and collaborative, and engaged in learning and teaching through online learning platforms to conduct ICR on e-assessment tasks, self- and peer assessment, and feedback. As student teacher 5 noted, student teachers tended to be “seen as reflective and social developers who were autonomous, self-directed, and collaborative during their learning. Moreover, they could learn new knowledge individually and collectively by adopting a professional identity while doing ELOA and ICR” (O). Socially, they were able to have mutual engagement by sharing tasks, build interpersonal relationships to have rapport, and form an online community of practice to socialize constructively. Also, they formed a shared identity through reaching professional discourse and connecting socially and inter-psychologically and had modeling and scaffolding within the group works. For instance, student teacher 7 had the following to offer:

I could tackle my problems by receiving much help from my peers in online groups as they were supportive and helpful. Moreover, I believe that working together and in teams could push me forward to reach a greater quality of learning and teaching (N).

Another important advantage could be the emotional and affective feelings, since EFL student teachers enhanced some positive emotions, such as growth mindset, enthusiasm, motivation, enjoyment, engagement, flexibility, and commitment, and decreased negative emotions, including stress, fatigue, and anxiety. EFL student teachers learned how to monitor their emotions, notice their emotional matters, share their affective mood with others, and control and regulate their emotions through ICR and ELOA. To represent the cognitive advantages, EFL student teachers were more attentive, had higher-order thinking skills, and developed their monitoring, self-regulation, and planning as some metacognitive strategies. The following extract from student teacher 5 confirms these points: “ELOA and ICR engaged my cognitive, emotional, and social development. I realized things that were not figured out before, learned how to enhance my emotions, used more cognitive and emotional resources, and connected theory and practice” (GD).

Challenges of doing ICR on ELOA to enhance online situated teacher education

Doing ICR was not without any limitations, negative sides, and problems. Five student teachers stated the following challenges (ST10, ST9, ST7, ST4, and ST14). Firstly, it was mostly a student-directed process of learning, so some were demotivated or unwilling. Student teacher 4, for example, pointed out that “I wanted the teacher educators and trainers to talk about key concepts and terms; it is hard to learn on my own, and very time consuming” (N). Student teachers, in Iran, have been taught in a top-down educational system during their school time, so they are accustomed to receiving knowledge from teachers and experts. Hence, their culture of learning can be one of the impediments of a student-centered teacher education, as reflected in the following extract from student teacher 10: “we needed more help from experts and authorities during our online teacher education, since I come from a learning culture that values top-down mode of education, so working on our own and with others may be less effective from my perspective” (GD). Secondly, they had to spend considerable time and energy in implementing ICR on ELOA, so, for example, student teacher 9 observed that “the required energy, time, equipment to run ICR on ELOA can be highly demanding” (I). Thirdly, the dynamic process of ICR and ELOA was hard to systematize, so different groups may partially have worked differently without a consensus, as student teacher 7 puts it, “It was hard for us to follow the steps and procedures of ICR and ELOA strictly as the process was dynamic and cyclical” (N).

Discussion

The results showed that doing ICR on ELOA practices could enhance online situated teacher education by fostering student teachers’ autonomy, social presence, personal understanding, and student-centered online teacher education. ELOA and ICR could turn Iranian EFL student teachers into reflective and collaborative knowledge generators within an online context since they analyzed their practices systematically and performed their practices socially. They can be activated socially and cognitively as they are engaged in authentic tasks and can link theory and practice more meaningfully during online learning. By doing ICR on ELOA, as the findings showed, Iranian EFL student teachers could facilitate their real-world learning and teaching by reflecting on and socializing online learning-oriented assessment practices, attentive observation and noticing by the means of ICR, and reflective and social construction of knowledge in an online CoP to guide their online learning-oriented assessment practices. These findings confirm some of those from previous studies (e.g., Alvarado Gutiérrez et al., 2019; Mann & Walsh, 2013; McNeil, 2018), which found that the Internet-based collaboration and reflection and online learning-oriented assessment could be implemented to increase EFL novice teachers’ cognitive, social, professional, and emotional practices through performing tasks, help them receive online feedback, and be reflectively and collaboratively more active.

ELOA and ICR enhanced Iranian EFL student teachers’ collective agency and autonomy through systematic reflection, social interaction, self-made and collective decisions, cognitive and social involvement, mutual interpersonal and intrapersonal connection, collective noticing, and scaffolding support during an online learning climate. Iranian EFL student teachers became the core agents of their learning and teaching individually and socially within the online zone through interpersonal interactions, reflective practices, cooperative endeavors, and socio-emotional engagement during online learning-oriented tasks, meaningful feedback, and professional engagement without relying heavily on teacher educators. Despite the difficulties that may arise from investing energy, dedicating time, and maintaining perseverance, student teachers are able to take center stage in their learning by engaging in ELOA, reflective practice, and collaborative work during online teacher education. This can be a very important solution to enhance student teachers’ active participation in Iran, a country in which students were regarded as passive recipients of knowledge during former educational policies (e.g., Arefian, 2022).

ICR could practically enhance, direct, and manage the process of ELOA through online reflections and collaborations individually and collectively. Another important benefit of ICR and ELOA could be the promotion of a student-centered learning process for student teachers during online situated teacher education, because as the findings of the study showed, student teachers reflected on novel experiences, collaborated with peers to receive feedback, reformed established thoughts and practices, and took further actions while performing tasks, obtaining constructive feedback, and doing self- and peer-assessment tasks during ELOA practices. Since Iranian EFL student teachers did collaborative reflection, possessed collective agency, and engaged in cognitive and socio-cognitive learning, they were more autonomous, social, and flexible in constructing practical knowledge through conducting, enhancing, reforming, and developing own and peers’ performance on e-tasks within an online system. Thus, the majority of the Iranian EFL student teachers could monitor their performance to notice patterns of practice and reach constructive guidance from peers during online learning and teaching, which can motivate them to be the role models, developers, reformers, and initiators during their online teacher education process. The findings also showed that ELOA could enhance EFL student teachers’ online teacher education by allocating learning tasks and roles, fostering process-based and autonomous learning (Hargreaves, 2013), and boosting continuous reflective and collaborative involvement during task completion within an online CoP. In addition, ICR was found to enhance systematic, intentional, and situational reflection (Wyatt & Ončevska Ager, 2016) to fill gaps and weaknesses, link theory and practice, foster noticing skills, and enhance criticality and self-understanding while performing tasks with others and seeking feedback for development, which tend to be consistent with that of Freeman (2016), who also found that online reflective practices led novice student teachers to become more critical thinkers, notice learning gaps, and harbor deeper understanding of theory–practice relations.

This approach provided personal, social, emotional, cognitive, and professional development. Personally, EFL student teachers could become more autonomous as they reflected on task performance and socialized their practices within a virtual CoP. Also, they possessed experiential learning by conducting tasks, online activities, and virtual practices practically as they had reflection, collaboration, and action through a cycle of completing, participating, reflecting, assessing, and improving tasks. Moreover, student teachers perceived multiple roles through reflective and social learning with a shared identity and social engagement during online tasks. Socially, they were mutually and virtually engaged in their social practices with others during online assessment and task completion, made a strong interpersonal connection with others by building rapport cooperatively during online teamwork, and shaped an online CoP to cooperate in co-learning activities with a shared identity and adoption of an appropriate digital professional discourse via technology (Arefian, 2023a, 2023b).

EFL student teachers, therefore, learned how to work socially and collaboratively with other colleagues in a respectful manner during conducting online tasks and activities. Emotionally, EFL student teachers turned out to be growth minded as they interacted with others and listened to different opinions and world views with Web 2.0 at the time of doing CRP on ELOA practices. Also, they could enhance their enjoyment, enthusiasm, flexibility, and commitment by reaching goals, accomplishing a target, and gaining positive feedback from peers, which were key features of online teaching and learning. This can be due to the social and institutional support ICR and ELOA can offer student teachers with feedback, suggestion, direction, and adaptation, as confirmed in Arefian (2023a, 2023b) and Naylor and Nyanjom (2021). Furthermore, their negative emotions, such as fatigue, boredom, and tiredness, could be lowered while interacting with others, reflecting on regulating their emotions, and enhancing the quality of collective learning within ELOA practices, as demonstrated in Rodríguez-Gómez et al. (2016).

EFL student teachers received numerous cognitive benefits since they noticed and monitored the occurrences attentively to perceive the challenges and opportunities, enhance their higher-order thinking skills by critically examining their performance, and implement their meta-cognitive strategies by self-regulating their learning process when they participated in tasks actively. Other researchers (e.g., Fu & Hwang, 2018; Han & Fan, 2020) have also reached similar findings and concluded that ELOA and ICR could boost cognitive performance and growth through online authentic and meaningful tasks and activities in real-world online settings.

Online situated teacher education can also pave the way for those student teachers who tend to become novice and experienced teachers in the near future. In Iran, Sadeghi and Ashegh Navaie (2021) probed 105 male and female EFL instructors teaching at private institutes, universities, and public schools and stated that the majority of teachers held a positive view about the use of online methods for future professional development. Similarly, Derakhshan and Ghiasvand (2022) explored 40 EFL teachers through semi-structured interviews and found that LOA is helpful in developing EFL teachers’ classroom collaboration, interaction, reflection, and engagement. The findings of our study confirm the benefits of ELOA in enhancing an online situated teacher education through collaboration, reflection, and engagement. Khalili et al. (2024), for example, revealed that developing and implementing virtual platforms and applications for LOA practices were effective and beneficial primarily because teachers felt the need to adjust LOA to technological advancement. After exploring the opinions of four novice EFL teachers through social media, observations, and interviews, Esfandiari and Arefian (2024) found that EFL teachers experienced various personal, social, educational, and professional benefits from their computer-based language assessment practices through ICR.

Conclusion and implications

Online teacher education programs can become more situated and contextualized through student teachers’ participation and involvement in Internet-based collaborative reflection and e-learning-oriented assessment via Web 2.0 technology. Thus, this study probed the role of EFL student teachers’ ICR practices on ELOA to enhance their situated online teacher education. The results showed that EFL student teachers could conduct ICR on their ELOA practices to redirect, redo, and reform ELOA practices constructively. ELOA practices triggered continuous feedback to EFL student teachers’ performance via technology, directed online learning and teaching, and enhanced a performance-based and learning-oriented assessment process. Applying ELOA and ICR during situated online teacher education, EFL student teachers could practice reflectively, assess themselves and their peers continuously and formatively, get meaningful feedback, become involved in learning and assessing, benefit from infinite real-world learning opportunities, and develop socially, professionally, emotionally, and cognitively.

Although this study adopted a qualitative approach to collect and analyze data in a specific situation and reach data saturation within a particular setting, other studies can use quantitative and mixed-method designs to examine the degree of influence ICR can have on ELOA and reach generalizability. Moreover, an experimental research design can be used to see how ICR can affect ELOA and, consequently, situated online teacher education by comparing experimental and control groups’ performance.

Notwithstanding the limitations of the study, the findings of this study can inform student teachers of the importance of doing ICR on ELOA to enhance online situated teacher education. Student teachers can use ICR and ELOA to enhance their agency and ownerships during an online situated teacher education. EFL student teachers will become autonomous and accountable during ICR practices and experience practical, formative, and performance-based learning throughout ELOA. Student teachers become aware of the significance of continuous formative assessment practices, collaborative and reflective performance, and feedback- and learning-oriented learning to connect teaching, assessment, and learning in online teacher education programs. When student teachers tend to be autonomous, value collaborative activities, focus on online collaborative reflection to promote their assessment and teaching practices, and are open to peer and expert feedback, they are most likely to begin their teaching careers in the near future more confidently and attempt to constantly update their knowledge regarding how to best instruct, assess, and evaluate their students, manage class time, motivate students, and reflect on their ongoing class activities.