Abstract:
Various studies suggest that it is important to determine students' personality charecteristics and assertiveness and make them aware of these differences in order to improve learning process and outcomes. This study aimed to find out how much of the variance in postgraduate students’ assertiveness is explained by five personality characteristics (i.e., Openness, Neuroticism, Extroversion, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness) and which one of these characteristics significantly predicts the students’ assertiveness. To this end, 66 postgraduate students within the age range of 22 to 35 participated in this descriptive correlational study. They were majoring in English language teaching at Islamic Azad University,Tabriz Branch, Tabriz, Iran. The College Self-expression Scale (CSES) and Big-Five Personality Inventory were used to assess the students’ level of assertiveness and their personality characteristics, respectively. In order to answer the research questions, a multiple linear regression analysis was carried out. The results revealed that about 14 percent of the postgraduate students’ assertiveness is explained by five personality characteristics and out of them, only Extroversion has a significant contribution to their assertiveness. The pedagogical implications are presented for teachers, students, syllabus designers, and materials writers.
Machine summary:
In addition to personality, assertiveness is another individual characteristic that, according to Lizarrage, Ugrate, Gradelle, Elawar, and Iriate (2003), represents one’s ability of self-expression and defending it.
g. , Furnham, 1992; Sadeghi, Kasim, Tan, & Abdullah, 2012; Threeton & Walter, 2009).
Miri and Shamsaddini (2014) studied the effect of different personality traits on Iranian EFL learners' vocabulary learning.
Ostovar, Taheri Khorasani, and Rezaei (2015) also studied the relationship between personality dimensions (introversion, extroversion) and self- assertiveness with social anxiety among university students.
g. , Bagherian & Mojambari , 2016; Bouchard, Lalonde, & Gagnon, 1988; Cote & Moskowitz, 1998; Lefevre & West, 1981; Kirst, 2011; Ostovar, Taheri Khorasani, & Rezaei, 2015; Ramanaiah & Deniston, 1993; Vestewig & Moss, 1976).
Therefore, this study aimed at contributing and complementing to the existing literature by exploring the relationship between assertiveness and personality characteristics among postgraduate learners in the context of Iran where English is taught and learned as a foreign language.
In order to answer the first research question, "How much variance in Iranian postgraduate EFL students' assertiveness is explained by their personality characteristics", the results of “Model Summary” in multiple linear regression analysis is presented (see Table 4 ).
The current study examined the relationship between Iranian EFL students' personality characteristics and their assertiveness.
The results of the study is not in agreement with Cote and Moskowitz (1998) and Vestewig and Moss (1976) studies in which they stated that there was a significant positive correlation among extroversion, conscientiousness, and openness to experiences and negative significant relationship between neuroticism and assertiveness.