Arefian and Esfandiari ﻿Language Testing in Asia
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https://doi.org/10.1186/s40468-024-00305-0

Language Testing in Asia

Open Access

RESEARCH

E‑learning‑oriented assessment
and collaborative reflection for situated learningin language teacher education
Mohammad Hossein Arefian1 and Rajab Esfandiari1*   *Correspondence:
esfandiari@hum.ikiu.ac.ir
1

Department of English
Language Teaching, Facultyof Literature and Humanities,
Imam Khomeini International
University, Qazvin, Iran

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-aforeign-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 studentcentered 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.
Keywords: E-learning-oriented assessment, Internet-based collaborative reflection,
Online teacher education, Situated learning

Introduction
Effective, online teacher education relies on the intersection of critical reflection andexperiential praxis. Student teachers learn to teach by reflecting on experiences ofteaching and translating theory to practice (Farrell, 2015). Online teacher education
also needs to move from receiving passive knowledge from an expert to reflecting onpractices 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,© The Author(s) 2024. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permitsuse, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original
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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 byadopting 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 andincluding 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 throughWeb 2.0 interface. Another essential component of experiential and online situatedlearning contexts can be the e-assessment that drives teaching and learning. Within
online teacher education, situated learning can generate knowledge from systematicreflections 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 situatedby 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’ situatedlearning through ELOA practices. However, few studies have examined the significanceof ELOA in enhancing situated learning in online teacher education. To enhance situatedlearning 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 theirteaching, 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 tofoster 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 theclassroom known as learning-oriented assessment (Carless et al., 2006). This approach

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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 andICR 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 andinteractive feedback and support (Heirdsfield et al., 2007). However, these days, due tothe significance of various concepts in education, such as personalized, situated, constructive, and cooperative learning, teacher educators need to vigorously try to makestudent 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 theirteaching experiences, reflect on and solve their problems, take wise actions, enhancetheir noticing and awareness of various instructional factors, and adapt their establishedpractices to an online remote setting (Farrell, 2022; Gkonou & Miller, 2020).
With more attention given to the concept of constructivism, teacher educators cancreate 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 enhanceknowledge of their practice reflectively and collaboratively in an experience-based digitalcontext 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 forPage 3 of 21

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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, andobserve, 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 throughinquiry 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’sobservation, teacher education tends to be nonlinear, flexible, dynamic, practical, andexploratory. 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 equalchance 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 teachersenhance 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 andactivities, 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 enhancetheir 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, andfeedback (Knight, 2002). Summative assessment is conducted to gather evidence fromstudents’ knowledge and understanding through reliable tests at the end of the courseand see how and to what extent students have achieved the objectives (Harlen, 2006).
On the contrary, formative assessment can enhance students’ learning, increase processbased 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

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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 beconsidered (Montenegro-Rueda et al., 2021). In order to solve the problems of online
assessment practices in online teacher education with a more student-centered andlearning-oriented assessment practice, student teachers should experience an assessment procedure to enhance their knowledge and practice continuously, reflectively, andcollaboratively 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 completinginteractive and purposeful assessment tasks in a situated online-learning environment.
Thus, online tasks that mirror the real-world situations prepare student teachers for thereal teaching contexts with the knowledge, skills, and expertise. The second element ise-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 participationin e-assessment practices with self- and peer-assessment to reflect on and evaluate theirown 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 andothers’ performance and experiences based on standards (Nicol & Milligan, 2006).
ELOA has the potential to enhance situated learning during online teacher education
programs and inform student teachers about how assessment practices can be used formore learning purposes. However, research is limited in how EFL student teachers canreceive benefits from ELOA practices (Carless, 2015). Also, Internet-based collaborativereflection, 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 amore situated-based online teacher education. Only a few studies have been conductedin 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 andPage 5 of 21

Fig. 1 Conceptual framework for e-learning-oriented assessment (ELOA) (adapted from Rodríguez-Gómez et al., 2009, p. 516)

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Ghiasvand (2022) showed that LOA is effective in fostering classroom interaction, collaborative learning, and engagement, including assessment, teaching, and learning, andobserving students’ achievement. ELOA can be significant for education and teacher
education of Iran due to the current emphasis on the use of technology, formative andlearning-oriented assessment, constructivism, and online assessment, so the present
study was conducted to investigate Iranian EFL student teachers’ ELOA practices to fillthis 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, andtake 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 thendecide 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 innovativenessand criticality (Arefian & Nami, 2023; Farrell, 2022). Considering the significance ofsocial interaction and collaborative efforts in constructing knowledge and skill in acommunity 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 movefrom individual, independent learning to social, collective learning. Using collaborativereflection, 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 needto 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 roleof 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 settingThis study implemented a qualitative approach to gather contextualized data from theparticipants’ 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 andthemes concerning ICR and ELOA practices) and explore the specific context (online
situated teacher education) (Nelson, 2017). To conduct the qualitative study, we selected

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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 teachingexperience at private language institutes (1 to 3 years). Previous research has confirmedthat 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, psychologyof 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, toparticipate 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 toparticipate 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, andprofessionally, 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 teacherswith real-world tasks, feedback as feedforward, and students as assessors during theirlearning 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 fromthe 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, andreflected 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 somePage 8 of 21

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units through a learning management system (LMS) and interactive social media applications for supporting face-to-face teacher education program. Furthermore, situatedlearning and experience-based teacher education are a new policy to foster the effectiveness of teacher education programs that can occur through reflective, collaborative, andsocio-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, thegeneral essence of meaning, and perceived subjective–objective experiences (Moustakas, 1994). Phenomenology can indicate the way a specific phenomenon and the essenceof the experience can be regularly assumed and observed among student teachers bygathering 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 thefollowing stages (Table 1). In the last column of Table 1, we have explained in detail thesteps and procedures which we followed to implement the phenomenological approach.
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 theprocess 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, andprocedures of ELOA practices; and discuss how they could use the formative feedback
they received from ELOA to enhance their situated online learning and teaching andknowledge 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 collectedfrom their discussion chat room. The lead researcher participated in the discussion andshared 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 thequestions 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?

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

Description of the process1

Determine if the research problem is best examined by using a phenomenological approach

EFL Iranian student teachers’ lived experiences
regarding the influence of ICR over ELOA were ofprimary focus in the present study, so phenomenological approach was used to examine theexperiences2

Identify a phenomenon of interest to study anddescribe it

Collaborations, reflections, and learning-oriented
assessment practices among EFL student teachers
were observed during the intervention phaseof the study to see how online situated teacher
education was fostered. We also explored how
EFL student teachers conducted ICR on ELOA topromote online situated learning

3

Collect data from the individuals who have experienced the phenomenon by using in-depth andmultiple interviews

Observations, group discussion, narratives, andinterviews were four data collection methods wefollowed to gather multiple, in-depth data sources
for thick description and triangulation purposes.
The ultimate goal was to synthesize various data
sources to better understand the student teachers’
practices and experiences

4

Generate themes from the analysis of significant
statements

Themes and categories were identified throughiterative process through coding and thematic procedures regarding how doing ICR on ELOA could
enhance student teachers’ online situated learning

5

Develop textual and structural descriptions

We used a textural description of the participants’experiences (what they experienced) and a structural description of their own experiences (howthey experienced them in terms of the conditions,situations, or contexts). EFL student teachers’ ICR
and ELOA practices, experiences, conditions, situations, and events were explored, identified, anddescribed to see how ICR practices influence ELOA
experiences and to deduce how student teachers
were able to foster their situated online teacher
education

6

Report the “essence” of the phenomenon by using The essence of experience, practices, conditions,a composite description
and situations about CRP, ELOA, and online situatedteacher education was described through textual
and structural descriptions, as explained earlier.
The essence of the phenomenon was describedthrough the experiences of EFL student teachers bydescribing and extracting patterns and themes

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 throughthe Internet to guide, direct, and learn from ELOA practices by enhancing their situated online teacher education, including knowing teaching practices, pedagogical andinstructional factors, methods, and techniques, students’ learning, subject, content ofteaching, 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 situatedteacher 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Arefian and Esfandiari ﻿Language Testing in Asia

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word limit encourages concise, clear, targeted, and focused responses, making it easier
to analyze and compare the responses, reducing the burden on participants and theresearchers, and providing neater, more relevant content. Thus, student teachers narrated their ELOA procedures, challenges, and benefits to indicate whether they weremore 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?). Theinterviews 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 commonlyused transcription method in qualitative research studies because it focuses primarilyon 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 oftext 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 andinvestigate the raw data obtained from multiple sources, is a common data analysis tool
to generate meanings, categories, and themes, not necessarily using a pre-establishedframework. 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 triangulationof data sources and data collection methods in this study. Multiple data types including interview, observation, and narrative data were collected, combined, and used. Fourdifferent 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

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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 wererecognized by using similar categories, knowing patterns in the earlier categories, andcreating themes based on similarities and differences. In cases of disagreement, anothercoder familiar with qualitative coding procedures was invited to intervene. If all thethree 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 asfollows: 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 andactivities 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 makeus 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 mygaps, weaknesses, and strengths by receiving feedback on LMS. I learned how to makeprogress 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

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through the internet” (O), as stated by student teacher 1. Because student teachers
focused on doing real-world activities virtually, observing their online practices andthose 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, andchanging 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 wordsof 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 oflearning and assessment as I was really engaged in the process socially, reflectively, andmeta-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 modesof 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 andcollectively. As student teacher 3 pointed out, “I understood that I could learn from mynovel experiences and peers’ practices even when I was not in class. This could makean 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’snarrative: “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

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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 sociocognitive 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 andcollaboration 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 thestudent 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, andprofessional benefits. The personal benefits included reflective, social, and professional
practices, autonomy, multiple roles, experiential learning, collaborative learning, selfassessment, engagement, and identity. Student teachers became able to reflect on theirnovel online practices with greater noticing skill as they did ICR on ELOA. They wereable to think, plan, act, analyze, and evaluate their ELOA practices collaboratively byreflecting 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 moreagentic and independent, active and collaborative, and engaged in learning and teaching through online learning platforms to conduct ICR on e-assessment tasks, self- andpeer assessment, and feedback. As student teacher 5 noted, student teachers tended tobe “seen as reflective and social developers who were autonomous, self-directed, andcollaborative 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

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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 andin 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 andpractice” (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 andtrainers to talk about key concepts and terms; it is hard to learn on my own, and verytime 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 extractfrom 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 topdown mode of education, so working on our own and with others may be less effectivefrom 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 “therequired 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).

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Discussion
The results showed that doing ICR on ELOA practices could enhance online situatedteacher education by fostering student teachers’ autonomy, social presence, personalunderstanding, 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 andsocializing online learning-oriented assessment practices, attentive observation andnoticing 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 andreflection and online learning-oriented assessment could be implemented to increase
EFL novice teachers’ cognitive, social, professional, and emotional practices throughperforming tasks, help them receive online feedback, and be reflectively and collaboratively more active.
ELOA and ICR enhanced Iranian EFL student teachers’ collective agency andautonomy through systematic reflection, social interaction, self-made and collective
decisions, cognitive and social involvement, mutual interpersonal and intrapersonalconnection, 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 importantsolution 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 throughonline 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 tookfurther actions while performing tasks, obtaining constructive feedback, and doing selfand peer-assessment tasks during ELOA practices. Since Iranian EFL student teachers
did collaborative reflection, possessed collective agency, and engaged in cognitive andsocio-cognitive learning, they were more autonomous, social, and flexible in constructing practical knowledge through conducting, enhancing, reforming, and developing own

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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 practiceand 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 androles, 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 beconsistent with that of Freeman (2016), who also found that online reflective practices
led novice student teachers to become more critical thinkers, notice learning gaps, andharbor 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 theyreflected 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 ofcompleting, 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 taskcompletion, made a strong interpersonal connection with others by building rapport
cooperatively during online teamwork, and shaped an online CoP to cooperate in colearning 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 withother colleagues in a respectful manner during conducting online tasks and activities.
Emotionally, EFL student teachers turned out to be growth minded as they interactedwith others and listened to different opinions and world views with Web 2.0 at the timeof 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 andmonitored the occurrences attentively to perceive the challenges and opportunities,
enhance their higher-order thinking skills by critically examining their performance, andimplement their meta-cognitive strategies by self-regulating their learning process when

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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 throughsemi-structured interviews and found that LOA is helpful in developing EFL teachers’classroom collaboration, interaction, reflection, and engagement. The findings of ourstudy 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 toadjust 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, andprofessional 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, thisstudy probed the role of EFL student teachers’ ICR practices on ELOA to enhance theirsituated 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 aperformance-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-worldlearning 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 canuse quantitative and mixed-method designs to examine the degree of influence ICR canhave 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 informstudent teachers of the importance of doing ICR on ELOA to enhance online situatedteacher education. Student teachers can use ICR and ELOA to enhance their agency

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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 areopen 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.
Abbreviations
ICR	Internet-based collaborative reflection
ELOA	E-learning-oriented assessment
EFL	English as a foreign language
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the language teachers who agreed to participate in the present study.
Authors’ contributions
The first author conceived of the idea, collected the data, and prepared the initial draft. The second author read andcommented on the draft, improved the language of the manuscript, and refined data analysis and methodologicalprocedures. Both authors finalized the manuscript.
Funding
We did not receive any financial support to conduct this study.
Availability of data and materials
Please contact the authors.

Declarations
Competing interests
The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
Received: 8 April 2024 Accepted: 17 July 2024

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