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Following the significant role of critical thinking (CT), sense of efficacy beliefs and teaching style preferences in the success of teachers and consequently the success of the educational system, this study intended to explore their relationship and the possible influence of these three factors among English as a Foreign Language (EFL) university professors.

To this end, Watson–Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal-Form A, Teacher Sense of Efficacy Scale (TSES) and Grasha's Teaching Style Inventory (TSI) were administered to 320 Iranian EFL university professors.

The data were examined via path analysis indicated that teachers' CT abilities and sense of self-efficacy beliefs significantly influenced the teaching style preferences. Moreover, it was concluded that Iranian EFL university professors' CT skills positively affect their sense of efficacy beliefs.

Future studies may advance the possible relationships among the sub-components of CT, self-efficacy beliefs and teaching style. Furthermore, further investigations are recommended to study the influence of university professors' CT, self-efficacy beliefs and teaching style preferences in enhancing their learners' achievement.

The implications of the present study may contribute to the field of teacher education in providing opportunities for teachers to develop and practice higher-order thinking and self-assisted skills.

The implications of this study may redound to the advantage of university professors, teacher educators and policy-makers.

This research is original. To the best of the researchers' knowledge, there has been no study investigated the possible relationships between CT, sense of efficacy beliefs and teaching style preferences in higher education.

Informed by the Bourdieusian construct of the social field, the purpose of this paper is to explore how different aspects of the educational field and the sub-field of English language teaching in Iran influence diverse components of the professional identity of high school EFL teachers. To this aim, the impact of the power hierarchization structure, distribution of capitals and field autonomy, as important aspects of the social field theory, is investigated in relation to Iranian EFL teachers’ professional identity construction.

Van Manen’s (1990) hermeneutic phenomenological research method was adopted to analyze the data obtained through the semi-structured interviews and reflexive journals from 15 Iranian EFL teachers at high schools.

The hermeneutic phenomenological analysis of the data yielded to the extraction of one global, three organizing and six basic themes. The global theme was the educational field and professional identity. The resulting organizing themes were: first, autonomous field and teachers’ commitment; second, asymmetric power relation and teachers’ autonomy; and, finally, cultural capital and teachers’ motivation. This study revealed how the complex and multi-dimensional nature of the power relations between the field of education and power influenced the professional identity of EFL teachers.

This dynamic representation of the inherent complexities of the educational context contributes to a more profound understanding of the role of the micro and macro contextual factors in formulating teachers’ professional identity. The implications of this study are further explained.

Hereby, the authors declare that all the procedures of data collection and analysis have been just done by the researchers.