The Relationship between Big-Five Personality Traits, English Language Proficiency Scores on IELTS, and Academic Success of Iranian Foreign Students

Abstract

Abstract-There is a potential to supply personality as a psychological factor in terms of the Big-Five Model including Extraversion, Agreeableness, Consciousness, Openness to Experience, and Neuroticism. This study was an attempt to examine the relationship between Big-Five personality traits, English language proficiency scores on IELTS, and academic success of Iranian foreign students. The participants of the study included 202 Iranian students (126 males and 76 females) who studied at English speaking universities in different countries including Armenia, Austria, Australia, Canada, Cyprus, Germany, Hungary, India, Italy, Malaysia, New Zealand, Pakistan, Philippines, Sweden, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, Ukraine, and the United States of America. The necessary data for this study were collected from participants' first-semester academic reports to measure the degree of academic achievement, academic IELTS certificates to determine the language proficiency of candidates, as well as International Personality Item Pool Big-Five inventory to identify the participants' personality traits. The data were gathered via different communication tools. The correlational analyses showed that there were significant relationships amongst personality traits and Iranian foreign students' language proficiency. Neuroticism was the only psychological trait, negatively correlated with both language proficiency and academic success of Iranian foreign students. The study also revealed that there was a high correlation between the scores on IELTS and academic success of Iranian foreign students. Finally, multiple regression analysis indicated the causality among the Big-Five personality traits, English language proficiency score on IELTS, and academic success of Iranian foreign students. These bear testimony to the idea of cognitive approach in that one's underlying mental processes are in charge of second language learning process.

Relationship between novice versus experienced EFL teacher’s Big Five personality traits and their ambiguity tolerance and risk taking

“…Seyed Erfani and Mardan (2017) conducted a study on the relationship among Big Five personality traits, English language proficiency scores and academic success of Iranian students. For this purpose, they selected 202 Iranian students in foreign countries studying language-related courses.…”

Big Five Personality Test for State Islamic Senior High School Students in Indonesia

“…Similarly, Molaei (2016) found that the conscientiousness is very influential on the effectiveness of the ELTIS (English Language Teaching Institute) program. Likewise, Erfani and Mardan (2017) confirmed that conscientiousness is related to English language proficiency scores on IELTS, and academic success of Iranian foreign students. Dinius (2013) found that conscientiousness influences students' perceptions of English as a second/foreign language (ESL / EFL) programs.…”

Big Five Personality Traits and Second Language Learning: a Meta-analysis of 40 Years’ Research

“…Research has suggested that neuroticism was related to L2 learning (Lee, 2001), mostly in a negative way Zhang, 2013). For example, as proposed in Erfani and Mardan (2017)'s study, among the five personality traits in the Big Five model, neuroticism was the only personality trait that was negatively correlated with both language proficiency and academic success in a sample of Iranian students who studied at different English-speaking universities around the world. However, some research indicated that the relationship between neuroticism and L2 achievement was nonsignificant (Ghapanchi et al, 2011;.…”