Exploring the Association between Iranian EFL Teachers’ Self-resilience and Psychological Distress: A Mixed-methods Study

The present study sought to scrutinize the relationship between Iranian EFL teachers’ self-resilience and psychological distress. Also, through semi-structured interviews, the study tried to explore the prominent causes of psychological distress among EFL teachers. To this end, a total of 102 EFL teachers (including 55 males and 47 females) from various language institutes in Shiraz were selected through a convenience sampling procedure method to participate in the current study. To measure self-resilience of EFL teachers the Connor-David son Resilience scale (2003) was utilized. In addition, the modified version of Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (K10, Kessler, 1996) was employed to gauge teachers’ psychological distress. The findings from Pearson product-moment correlation exhibited a significant negative correlation between teachers’ self-resiliency and their psychological distress. Moreover, the results from interviews revealed that job insecurity, underpayment, and heavy workload are tended to be the most influential factors which lead to teachers’ physiological distress in the educational context. The pedagogical implications of the study help EFL teachers foster their self-resilience and consequently diminish the effects of psychological distress in their teaching profession