University of Tabriz Journal of English Language Teaching and Learning 2251-7995 14 30 2022 11 01 Critical Thinking as an Essential Factor in EFL Teacher Educators’ Professional Development: a Transformative Learning Paradigm 194 208 14907 10.22034/elt.2022.51042.2493 EN Jalil Yazdankhah English Language Department, Bonab Branch, Islamic Azad University, Bonab, Iran Bahram Behin English Language & Literature Department, Azarbaijan Shahid Madani University, Tabriz, Iran Mohammad Hossein Yousefi English Language Department, Bonab Branch, Islamic Azad University, Bonab, Iran Hassan Asadollahfam English Language Department, Bonab Branch, Islamic Azad University, Bonab, Iran Journal Article 2022 06 08 The present qualitative research sought to investigate EFL teacher educators’ experiences and attitudes toward critical thinking and its role in teacher professional development. The adopted design was a case study and the theoretical framework was the theory of transformative learning (Mezirow, 1978). For the data collection purpose, 30 EFL teacher educators participated in in-depth interviews. The  whole procedure of  the data collection was audiotaped for further reference in data analysis. The interviews were transcribed to familiarize with the data and the transcribed interviews were member checked with the participants. The collected data were analyzed through reflective thematic analysis. The data analyzed paved the way for generating three themes: <em>cognition, metacognition</em>, and <em>personal growth/self attainment</em>. The findings of the study comprise a number of implicatios for both theory and practice. One aspect of our contribution is that the notion of critical thinking can be conceived as more than cognitive and metacognitive one; it should be conceptualized as possessing both facets as well as other possible subsets. Beyond that, we suggest that critical thinking should be conjectured as being both a process and a product. https://elt.tabrizu.ac.ir/article_14907_f9d55fded8a2caf204e2d06894cc64ed.pdf