An Investigation into the Students’ Perceptions of the Language Teachers’ Ethical Characteristics with Regard to the Students’ Socioeconomic Status

The purpose of this study was to investigate the students’ perceptions of the language teachers’ ethical characteristics with regard to the students’ socioeconomic status. For this reason, an explanatory sequential mixed methods design was employed. First, a socioeconomic status questionnaire which was used to categorize the students into socioeconomically higher or lower groups. From among the 81 questionnaires distributed at 5 different language classrooms of 2 universities in Qom, 53 of them were completed. Afterwards, 22 of the students agreed to participate in a semi-structured interview as the second qualitative portion of the study. After close and repeated analyses of the codes and categories of the students’ interviews, 1 major theme (seriousness) was identified and cross-checked with the students’ socioeconomic status by using Fisher’s exact test. Finally, a model of language teachers’ ethical characteristics was contemplated on the basis of the students’ perceptions in order to be utilized in planning codes of ethics particularly designed for language educators as well as raising their awareness.