A Quantitative Study on Faculty Members’ Perceptions of and Attitudes towards Teaching and Assessing Pragmatic Competence in EFL Context

The purpose of this study was to emphasize the perceptions and attitudes of faculty members in terms of teaching and assessing pragmatic competence in foreign language education. Based on a quantitative research design, this study showed that there were not statistically significant differences among the faculty members in terms of their age, gender, academic degree and teaching experiences concerning their attitudes towards teaching and assessing pragmatic competence in foreign language education. However, as to age, academic degree and teaching experience variables, though there were not statistically significant differences among the participants, the results revealed that there was a general increasing tendency towards the awareness regarding teaching and assessment of pragmatic competence as the participants gained experience in the field as well as in the profession. The study revealed that field and professional experience helped the participants expand their views in terms of the importance of pragmatic competence in general and its teaching and assessment in particular.