Personality Traits And English Performance

This thesis reports the results of an experimental research in the Chinese context of certain personality traits and their relationships to English performance at the college level.16 PF(Cattell's 16 Personality Factors) was administered to 120 students selected randomly from Changsha College. Their English performance was based on the scores of their latest final examinations of two semesters. With the aid of the computers, the results were gained through Pearson's Correlation Test and Multi-factor Analysis of Variance (MANOVA ) Test. It is found that:(l) Among the five personality traits, willpower, risk-taking, anxiety and independence are significantly related to Chinese learners' performance in English learning while no significant relationship is found between introversion/extroversion and Chinese learners' performance in English learning. (2) The five personality traits have different degrees of influence on language performance -reading comprehension, listening comprehension, speaking and writing. For example, anxiety and risk-taking both impact on learners' reading comprehension. Independence influences learners' writing. The interaction of willpower and introversion/extroversion affects learners' listening comprehension. Also the interaction of willpower and anxiety influences learners' speaking.Although the findings of this research are mostly in line with the hypotheses, there is also some information worthy of attention: there exists sexual difference in the influence, which the five personality traits have onlearners' performance in English learning. Risk-taking influences male learners' performance while willpower influences female learners' performance. Furthermore, independence influences female learners' reading comprehension achievement. These findings will shed lights on English teaching and learning in China.