A Structural Equation Modeling Approach to the Relationship between Neuroticism and Iranian EFL Learners' Oral Performance

Abstract This study aimed to investigate the effects of neuroticism, as one of the big five personality factors, on oral performance and its components comprising cohesion and fluency, pronunciation, grammaticality, and lexical resources. To this end, 257 Iranian EFL students took an oral proficiency interview and responded to a personality questionnaire (Goldberg, 1992). The participants' oral performance was rated by two trained raters. The results of correlation analysis showed that neuroticism had a significant negative correlation with speaking totally (r= -.433, p<.05) and also with its constituent components including cohesion/fluency (r= -.351, p<.05), lexical resources (r=-.368, p<.05), grammatical accuracy (r=-.315, p<.05), and pronunciation (r=-.387, p<.05). The structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis, revealing the standardized non-direct effects of neuroticism on the components of speaking, showed that neuroticism had moderate and negative indirect effects on cohesion and fluency (Beta = -.351), lexical resources (Beta = -.365), grammaticality (Beta = -.354), and pronunciation (Beta = -.350). The results of the study are discussed and the pedagogical implications are provided for the EFL context.