personality and english proficiency

Matthew AppleNara National College of Technology

Personality and English Proficiency

TUJ Colloquium, Temple University Japan, February 8, 2009

Outline

Definitions of personalitySLA and personalityStudy background and

hypothesesResultsDiscussion and interpretations

Why personality?

The most individual

Instinctive, intuitive

Least understood

Least important?

Individual differences

Personality = ?

“A person's whole character and nature”

“[C]onsistent patterns of feeling, thinking, and behaving...”

dimensions traits

INTJ

extraversion-introversion

sensing-intuiting

thinking-feeling

judging-perceiving

Jungian archetypes

The MBTIThe Myer's Briggs Type Indicator

Eysenck's “Big Three”

P – E – N

PPsychoticPsychotic

Vs

“Tendermindedness”

EExtraversionExtraversion

Vs

Introversion

NNeuroticismNeuroticism

Vs

Emotional stability

“The Big Five”

Greenberg/Costa/McCrae

The Big Five

OCEAN

OpennessConscientiousnessExtraversion-introversionAgreeablenessNeuroticism

Extraversion-introversion (EI)

Emotional Stability (Emo)

Conscientiousness (Con)

“Super-traits”

SLA and personality

Rubin, Naiman, etc.

Ely, Ehrman, Oxford, etc.Gardner, MacIntyre, etc.

1970s

1980/90s

2000sBrown et al. (2001)Verhoeven & Vermeer (2002)

Studies in Japan

MBTI

P-E-N (Eysenck's EPQ)

Yawate-Guilford Personality Inventory (Y/GPI)

Problems

Small N-sizes

Too many questionnaire items

No standardized test scores

No construct validity

Study Background: Participants

186 3rd year technical college

students

5 departments5 intact classes

Study Background: Participants

28 items4 hypothesized factors

Study Background: Questionnaire

EI – Extraversion/Introversion (8 items)Emo – Emotional Stability (7 items)Con – Conscientiousness (7 items)

D – Desire to communicate (6 items)

Study Background: Questionnaire

Study Background: Proficiency Exam

TOEIC

T-ListT-ReadT-Tot

Analysis Methods

Descriptive statistics(check assumptions)

Convert TOEIC into standardized z-scores

Analysis Methods

Rasch analysis of construct validity

Analysis Methods

Principal Components Analysis

(factor analysis)

Analysis Methods

Convert items on factors into z-scores

(factor scores)

Analysis Methods

Correlation analysis(factor scores and

TOEIC)

Analysis Methods

Multiple regression analysis

DV = TOEICIV = Con, Emo, EI, D

Analysis Methods

Hypotheses

Conscientiousness will predict TOEIC scores

Emotional stability will predict TOEIC scores

Extraversion will NOT predict TOEIC scores

Desire will NOT predict TOEIC scores

Rasch Analysis results

Person reliabilities:*.80 to .88

*most similar to traditional Cronbach's alpha estimates as measure of respondent consistency

Rasch Analysis results

Item reliabilities:*.94 to .96

*Demonstrates how accurately items actually measure the construct for which they were intended

Rasch Analysis results

EI (Extraversion-Introversion)

Item 5 (ei2) misfit the construct

Rasch Analysis results

ei2: Feel at ease in a large group of people

たくさんの人の中にいると落ち着く

Table 1: Factor Analysis

Factor Analysis results

Factor Analysis results

Four factorsCumul. Variance: 56.74%

All loadings above .50*

*Stevens (1992) = .40 min.

Correlation Analysis results

Table 2: Correlation Analysis

Correlation Analysis results

TOEIC sections and Total(a given!)

T-List and T-Read = medium?

r = .55

Correlation Analysis results

Conscientiousness

r = .18* (T-Read)

Hierarchical Multiple Regression Analysis

DV = T-ReadIVs (in order)Conscientiousness**Emotional Stability*Extraversion-introversionDesire to communicate

Hierarchical MR Analysis results

R2 = .07, F(1,166) = 3.05(p = .02)

B SEB β t

Con 0.18 0.08 0.18 2.43*

Emo -0.12 0.08 -0.12 -1.54

EI 0.09 0.08 0.09 1.13

D 0.13 0.08 0.12 1.64

And…?

One personality factor significantly predicted English reading scores…

But…Discussion

and interpretation

The stats mean…R2 = .07

β = .18

7% of TOEIC score differences explained

3% accounted for by Conscientiousness

What happened?

What is “English Proficiency”?

Discussion and interpretation

TOEIC ListeningTOEIC Reading

Seven parts

200 total questions

a-b-c-d

Passive knowledge

Active knowledge

Writing Speaking

Concentration

Memory

Test strategies

Stamina

More caveats…

Small sample size (N = 167)

Mostly male students

All engineering majors

Researcher = teacher

Next time…

1. Bigger sample size4. Speaking assessment

2. Balanced gender reps

3. Inclusion of more majors

Matthew AppleNara National College of Technology

Personality and English Proficiency

matthewtapple@mac.commanzano0627@gmail.com

Thank you for your time and

patience!