School Performance, Cultural, Social and Personality Factors and Their Relationships with Majoring in Foreign and First Languages

Abstract

This study reports the performance of 419 undergraduate and graduate students on three questionnaires addressing their biodata, social and cultural capitals and personality factors. The statistical analysis of the students' diploma Grade Point Averages (GPAs) and monthly family income (MFI) showed that the GPAs and MFIs of students majoring in English as a foreign language were significantly higher than those majoring in Persian as a first/second language. Among the five personality factors, i.e., Neuroticism, Extroversion, Openness, Agreeableness and Conscientiousness, only the last revealed significant relationships with the eight social factors, i.e., Parental Consultation, Family-School Interaction, Family Support, Extracurricular Activities, Family Relationship, Parent-School Encouragement and Facility, Peer Interaction, and Religious Activities, for both English and Persian students. Conscientiousness, however, correlated significantly only with the GPAs of Persian students (r = .21, p <.01). Similar significant differences were found in the relationships among the GPAs and social factors underlying the social capitals of English and Persian students. Since the highest correlations obtained in the study belonged to different cultural, social and personality factors for English and Persian students, it is argued that learners approach a foreign language as a goal in itself whereas students of native languages employ them to achieve various objectives such as establishing interpersonal relationships through Extroversion and overcoming their Neuroticism through social interactions. The implications of the findings are discussed within the context of foreign language teaching and suggestions are made for future research.

Environmental factors and teenagers’ personalities: The role of personal and familial Socio-Cultural Level

“…Our results appear to be at variance with those on adulthood reported in the literature [15][16][17]. First of all, whereas the personal education level in adulthood seems to be related to all personality traits [15], in teenagers it appears to be associated with no traits.…”

“…Although rarely investigated, CC and SC also have shown a relationship to personality in adults. Both have shown associations with Extraversion, Emotional stability, and Openness to experience; SC has also been associated with Conscientiousness [16].…”

Modeling What Friendship Patterns on Facebook Reveal About Personality and Social Capital

“…Unexpectedly, both empathy and conscientiousness are found to have no direct influence on bridging social capital, unlike in previously published results [Anderson and Jack 2002;Khodadady and Zabihi 2011]. Instead, a mediation effect of social network structure between personality and bridging social capital was found.…”

“…Conscientiousness refers to individual differences in impulse control, conformity, determination, and organization [George and Zhou 2001]. Khodadady and Zabihi [2011] found that conscientiousness is positively associated with greater social capital. People's conscientiousness is an effective predictor of their academic performance (e.g., Blickle [1996]; Busato et al [2000]).…”

“…One study suggests that Facebook users tend to have lower levels of conscientiousness, and that their conscientiousness is negatively correlated with time spent on Facebook per day [Ryan and Xenos 2011]. However, another study indicates conscientiousness is not a significant factor of Facebook usage [Ross et al 2009], whereas conscientiousness has been reported to be positively associated with greater social capital in daily lives [Khodadady and Zabihi 2011]. The mixed previous findings are likely affected by differences in settings, samples, and time of study, but they also suggest that there might be some important factors that affect the interaction between social networking activities and social capital establishment that were not identified in prior studies.…”