Individual Psychological Factors: facilitators of PSL learners’ reading comprehension ability? a mixed methods study

This mixed methods nationwide research aimed to examine the relationships between three variables; namely, self-efficacy (S-E), emotional intelligence (EI), autonomy (A), their sub-constructs and reading comprehension ability of Persian second language (PSL) students. Participants were 141 PSL students from 28 different countries studying at 12 universities across Iran. Data were collected through S-E, EI, A scales, and a reading comprehension test and were analyzed using Pearson correlation. The results revealed that there were significant links between the variables and their sub-constructs and reading comprehension ability. Also, structured interviews were administrated with 45 participants, the results of which confirmed those obtained from quantitative instruments. Moreover, structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to access more in-depth perception of the variables and explore the strengths of the causal relationships. The three independent variables strongly predicted reading comprehension, with S-E being the strongest predictor. Also, three out of four sub-constructs of EI, and two out of three sub-constructs of A were powerful predictors of reading comprehension. In terms of the increasing number of PSL learners, the findings of the present study could be helpful for L2 (particularly PSL) teachers, learners, and academic policymakers.