Purpose

Reflective practice can greatly improve teachers' professional development, and various studies have demonstrated that teachers' knowledge sharing has a positive impact on their reflection. Accordingly, the present study was conducted to examine the effect of knowledge sharing in a popular online forum – WhatsApp – on English as foreign language (EFL) teachers' reflective practice. It was also aimed to probe the challenges the teachers faced to share information in their daily practice.

Design/methodology/approach

The experimental study was pretest and posttest. To do so, 60 available EFL teachers were chosen as the participants. They were randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. Both groups received the English language teaching (ELT) reflection inventory as the pretest and posttest. In addition, to find the difficulties EFL teachers encounter to share information in their daily practice, a week after the treatment, a semi-structured interview with 21 volunteer EFL teachers from the experimental group was carried out. As the treatment, the online discussion among the teachers regarding their daily practice took around 1 h and lasted two weeks.

Findings

The result of the posttest revealed that the experimental group outperformed the control group in their reflective practice. The results of the interview revealed that among other factors, the EFL teachers' lack of awareness regarding the importance of knowledge sharing, sticking to conventional methods of teaching and considering authorities' views as more trustworthy were the barriers which impede their knowledge sharing.

Social implications

The findings could inspire reconsideration of the role social media plays in Iranian EFL teacher education and its role in contributing to teachers' professional development as well as their social interaction with colleagues. The results also call for taking measures to eliminate barriers to EFL teachers' knowledge sharing, which are partly rooted in the socio-educational context.

Originality/value

Some studies have argued that knowledge sharing may contribute to the promotion of EFL teachers' reflectivity. There are also studies that have reported that teachers' involvement in sharing of knowledge does not have a significant effect on their reflective practice. Accordingly, contradictory results have been reported regarding the effectiveness of knowledge sharing in promoting teachers' reflection. In addition, exploring the impact of knowledge sharing on EFL teachers' reflectivity via WhatsApp deserves more attention.

中文翻译：

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通过 WhatsApp 分享知识：它是否促进了 EFL 教师的反思实践？

目的

反思性实践可以极大地促进教师的专业发展，各种研究表明，教师的知识共享对他们的反思有积极的影响。因此，本研究旨在检验流行的在线论坛（WhatsApp）中的知识共享对英语作为外语（EFL）教师反思实践的影响。它还旨在探讨教师在日常实践中分享信息所面临的挑战。

设计/方法/方法

实验研究是前测和后测。为此，我们选择了 60 位可用的 EFL 教师作为参与者。他们被随机分配到实验组和对照组。两组都接受了英语语言教学（ELT）反思量表作为前测和后测。此外，针对外语教师在日常实践中分享信息时遇到的困难，在治疗一周后，对实验组的21名外语教师志愿者进行了半结构化访谈。作为治疗，教师之间关于他们日常练习的在线讨论持续了大约 1 小时，持续了两周。

发现

后测结果显示，实验组在反思实践中的表现优于对照组。访谈结果显示，除其他因素外，英语教师缺乏对知识共享重要性的认识、坚持传统的教学方法以及认为当局的观点更值得信赖是阻碍他们知识共享的障碍。

社会影响

这些发现可能会激发人们重新考虑社交媒体在伊朗 EFL 教师教育中所起的作用，以及它在促进教师专业发展以及他们与同事的社交互动中的作用。结果还要求采取措施消除 EFL 教师知识共享的障碍，这些障碍部分植根于社会教育背景。

原创性/价值

一些研究认为，知识共享可能有助于提高外语教师的反思能力。也有研究报告称，教师参与知识分享并不会对其反思性实践产生显着影响。因此，关于知识共享对促进教师反思的有效性的报道相互矛盾。此外，通过 WhatsApp 探讨知识共享对 EFL 教师反思能力的影响值得更多关注。