Abstract
Personality and motivation have been identified as influential variables associated with foreign language learning; however, few studies have investigated their effect on oral presentations. This study addresses the importance of both personality and motivation in students’ collaborative oral presentation performance. A Big Five personality trait questionnaire measuring Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism and Openness to Experience, together with the Collaborative Inquiry-based Project Questionnaire measuring Task, Project Work, Reinforcement, Social Learning and Social Pressure motivational constructs were employed to evaluate 257 university students. In general, the results showed that Extraversion, Project Work and Social Pressure were significant correlates of oral presentation scores. The first result suggests that extraverts possess superiority in situations where oral language production is central to communication. This was particularly true for lower-level students, inferring that extraverted personalities can compensate for a lower English language ability. The second indicates that the inquiry-based nature of the assignments was an intrinsic motivator especially valued by extraverts. The third implies that extrinsic motivation was a factor influencing student performance. These findings extend previous research by highlighting the contextual relationships between these affective variables and performance in collaborative oral presentation contexts.
Highlights
Personality research has shown that every individual possesses distinct combinations of personality characteristics that affect their emotions, perceptions, feelings, thoughts and motivations
English as a foreign language (EFL) students enrolled in an English for specific purposes (ESP) program at a university in northern Taiwan participated in this study, where collaborative oral presentation scores served as the dependent variable (DV)
Extraversion traits manifest to a greater degree in the achievement of students with lower English ability. These results suggest that lower ability students benefit from the presence of the extraversion characteristics associated with collaborative oral presentation scenarios, where an outgoing personality can compensate for insufficient language ability, when this personality trait results in the ability to overcome a lack of confidence
Summary
Personality research has shown that every individual possesses distinct combinations of personality characteristics that affect their emotions, perceptions, feelings, thoughts and motivations. Language learning success has been associated with individual personality and motivation differences (Dörnyei 1998; Dörnyei and Ushioda 2013; Dweck and Leggett 1988; Ehrman et al 2003). Extraversion has been recognized as a factor connected to successful language acquisition (Dewaele and Furnham 1999), and empirical research on foreign language performance and personality traits has revealed extraversion to be a significant variable of interest for language learning performance (Brown et al 2001; Busch 1982; Ockey 2011). Much of the existing research focuses on the effect of personality traits on language learning strategies, styles and performance measured via standardized tests, which may not represent the optimal context to analyze the existence of meaningful relationships
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