The Interrelationship between Iranian Translation Students’ Classroom Anxiety, Emotional Intelligence, and the Quality of their Consecutive Interpreting Performance

This study aims to explore the relationship between Iranian undergraduate translation students’ level of anxiety and emotional intelligence (EI) when performing consecutive interpreting, and the quality of their interpreting performance. To this end, thirty Iranian undergraduate English translation students were invited based on convenience sampling to participate in this study. A researcher-made questionnaire was designed to measure students’ interpreting anxiety. Participants completed Schering's emotional intelligence and interpreting classroom anxiety scale (ICAS) to measure their level of EI and anxiety. The participants were then asked to consecutively interpret a three-minute video clip from English into Persian about anxiety disorder. Students’ interpreting performance was assessed by three experienced raters based on Carroll’s model of translation quality assessment for consecutive interpreting. The results showed that there was no statistically significant relationship between the students’ total score of EI and the quality of their consecutive interpreting performance. However, there was a negative correlation between students’ interpreting anxiety and the quality of their interpreting performance. Additionally, a negative association was found between students interpreting classroom anxiety and emotional intelligence. Consequently, the findings demonstrated that negative emotions and thoughts such as anxiety and stress reduce translation students interpreting ability. Moreover, based on the results, the interpreting theoretical instructions, as well as teaching psychological factors should be included in the translation teaching syllabus to train proficient and skillful interpreters in Iranian universities.