محیا علائی

Although the concept of favoritism has received attention in various areas of study such as management, business, and medical settings, this line of research has scarcely been explored in teacher education and especially in L2 acquisition context. The current study aimed to design and validate a scale that could explore English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers’ perceptions of academic favoritism. After developing the 40-item Academic Favoritism Questionnaire (AFQ), it was administered to the target participants of the study, and the required data were collected from 154 Iranian EFL teachers selected through non-random convenience sampling. The results of exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses revealed eight underlying components of the model: damaging collaborative learning, educational inequality, teachers’ biased attitudes, teacher-student conflicts, learning barriers, unfair students’ treatments, negative learners’ experience, and unhealthy academic atmosphere. The study findings may shed light on this obscure topic in the field of education. The study provides important implications for different education stakeholders including researchers, teacher educators, supervisors, EFL teachers, and L2 learners as the findings could increase their awareness of favoritism and its likely influence on their professional practices and environment.