Abstract:
This study examined the Iranian EFL learners’ multicultural developmental trend in light of Investment Hypothesis as they furthered their academic studies from BA toward postgraduate levels. In so doing 117 BA, 92 MA, and 35 Ph.D. EFL students at Allameh Tabataba’i University, Tarbiat Modarres, and Islamic Azad Universities, Tehran, Iran, were randomly selected to provide answers to Multicultural Personality Traits Questionnaire (MPQ) that measures individuals’ Multicultural Personality Traits (MPTs: Cultural Empathy, Open-Mindedness, Social Initiative, Emotional Stability, and Flexibility). Ph.D. students’ MPTs mean was found to be 277.77; MA students’ MPTs mean score was 272.20; and BA students’ MPTs mean score was 267.96. The ANOVA conducted revealed that EFL Iranian students’ MPTs improved as they furthered their academic career fromaBA to MA and from MA to Ph.D. levels. The study concluded that advancement in EFL students’ academic career resulted in a concomitant development in their MPTs and among the five MPTs, cultural empathy and social initiative were found to have been significantly improved at Ph.D. level. Among the MPTs, Social initiative provides the highest contribution to social interactions and its significant development at Ph.D. level is confirmatory of the discursive-constructionists’ approach to L2 learning.
Machine summary:
Levels a Mohammad Khatib Associate Professor of TEFL, Allameh Tabataba’i University, Tehran, Iran b 1 Hossein Samadi Bahrami Assistant Professor of Applied Linguistics, School of International Relations, Tehran, Iran Received 2 September 2012; revised 25 July 2013; accepted 6 August 2013 Abstract This study examined the Iranian EFL learners’ multicultural developmental trend in light of Investment Hypothesis as they furthered their academic studies from BA toward postgraduate levels.
EFL students at Allameh Tabataba’i University, Tarbiat Modarres, and Islamic Azad Universities, Tehran, Iran, were randomly selected to provide answers to Multicultural Personality Traits Questionnaire (MPQ) that measures individuals’ Multicultural Personality Traits (MPTs: Cultural Empathy, Open-Mindedness, Social Initiative, Emotional Stability, and Flexibility).
L2 learners in IH are portrayed as social beings with a future perspective of an enriched identity by means of investment in learning a new language.
Every one of these cultural features calls for a thorough scientific study and analysis that is beyond the capacity of a single research; therefore, in this study, the investigation was confined to MPTs (Cultural Empathy, Open-mindedness, Social Initiative, Emotional Stability, and Flexibility) of 215 Iranian EFL students in the course of their academic career from BA to MA and to Ph. D.
The following questions were posed and investigated in the present study: 1) Does the association with English as a foreign language develop in Iranian EFL students a significant level of MPTs as they further their academic career from BA to MA and to Ph. D.
It was concluded that the association with English as a foreign language developed in Iranian EFL students a significant level of MPTs as they furthered their academic career from BA to MA and to Ph. D.