ELT Voices India. The Correlation between Creativity and Openness to Experience and Iranian EFL College Students' Reading Comprehension

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1 [Type text] ELT Voices India Volume 3 Issue 4 August 2013 ISSN (Print) (Online) ELT Research Paper 4 The Correlation between Creativity and Openness to Experience and Iranian EFL College Students' Reading Comprehension AzraTajhizi, Mahdi Araghi, Ph.D. & Amir Reza NematTabrizi, Ph.D. Department of English, Ahar Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tabriz, Iran. Ignite (India) Publishing, Bhavnagar, Gujarat India

2 Abstract The present study was designed to investigate the possible relationship between creativity and openness to new experience and Iranian EFL college students Reading Comprehension skill. A total of 100 intermediate learners (all female) studying at Urmia and Salmas Universities participated in this study. At the first step, two questionnaires of creativity and openness to new experiences were distributed to the participants. At the next step, Reading Comprehension Test was given to them. Through a detailed collection of data, using Pearson Correlation Coefficient, the following findings were obtained: 1) There was a positive relationship between creativity and Iranian EFL college students Reading Comprehension skill; 2) There was a positive relationship between openness to new experiences and Iranian EFL Reading Comprehension skill. Key Words: Openness to experience, Creativity, Reading Comprehension 44 E L T V o i c e s I n d i a ( V o l. 3 I s s u e 4 ) A u g u s t

3 Introduction In psychology, the Big Five personality traits are five broad domains or dimensions of personality that are used to describe human personality. The theory based on the Big Five factors is called the Five Factor Model (FFM). The FFM comprises five trait domains: neuroticism (N), extroversion (E), openness (O), agreeableness (A) and conscientiousness (C). Each dimension has subscales (facet scores) within the overall construct. The FFM is assessed using either the 240-item NEO Personality Inventory (Costa & McCrae, 1992), or a shorter, facet-score free 60-item NEO-Five Factor Inventory (Costa & McCrae, 1992). The FFM has been widely demonstrated cross-culturally (Schmitt, McCrae & Benet-Mart ınez, 2007), and has substantial cross-situational and longitudinal consistency (Murray et al., 2003). The idea of five major dimensions encompassing much of personality is long standing (Fiske, 1949; Norman, 1963). Openness to experience is one of the domains which are used to describe human personality in the Five Factor Model. Openness involves active imagination, aesthetic sensitivity, attentiveness to inner feelings, preference for variety, and intellectual curiosity. A great deal of psychometric research has demonstrated that these qualities are statistically correlated. Thus, openness can be viewed as a global personality trait consisting of a set of specific traits, habits, and tendencies that cluster together. Openness tends to be normally distributed with a small number of individuals scoring extremely high or low on the trait, and most people scoring moderately. People who score low on openness are considered to be closed to experience. They tend to be conventional and traditional in their outlook and behavior. They prefer familiar routines to new experiences, and generally have a narrower range of interests. Openness has moderate positive relationships with creativity, intelligence and knowledge (McCrae & John, 1992). Openness to experience correlates with creativity, as measured by tests of divergent thinking (McCrae, 1987). Openness has been linked to both artistic and scientific creativity as professional artists and scientists have been found to score higher in openness compared to member of the general population ( Feist, 1998). Literature Review The idea of personality traits may be as old as human language itself. In the 1940s many investigators focused on intensive studies of individual traits. According to Allport s (1937) 45 E L T V o i c e s I n d i a ( V o l. 3 I s s u e 4 ) A u g u s t

4 textbook, traits represent structures or habits within a person. Psychological traits are characteristics that describe ways in which people are different from each other. Saying that someone is shy is to mention one way in which he or she differs from others who are more outgoing. Traits also define ways people are similar. For example, people who are shy are similar to each other in that they are anxious in social situations, particularly situations in which there is an audience focusing attention on them.first, they help everyone to describe people and help they understand the dimensions of difference between people. Second, traits are useful because they may help they explain behavior. The reasons people do what they do may be partly a function of their personality traits. Third, traits are useful because they can help they predict future behavior for example, the sorts of careers individuals will find satisfying, who will tolerate stress better, and who is likely to get along well with others. Thus, personality is useful in describing, explaining, and predicting differences between individuals. Gordon Allport, the father of modern personality theory, very briefly defined personality as an organization of psychodynamic processes that creates the person s characteristic patterns of behavior, thoughts, and feelings. He wrote the influential book, Personality in He developed his ideas about traits viewing these as the basic structural elements of personality. According to Allport (1937), traits have an actual physical location in the nervous system; they are inferred their existence because of consistency of behavior. He also made the distinction as to whether traits could be used to describe people in general or just a single individual. Nomothetic traits were trait units that could be applied to all people. Idiographic traits were those unique to the individual. Applying this concept to personality, Allport and Odbert (1936) were looking at natural language. In 1936 Gordon Allport and H. S. Odbert hypothesized that those individual differences that are most salient and socially relevant in people s lives will eventually become encoded into their language; the more important such a difference, the more likely is it to become expressed as a single word. This statement has become known as the Lexical Hypothesis. The Five Factor Model is a theory of personality assessment and measurement which was founded in factor analysis. In the process of factor analysis the researcher gathers a large number of subjects for a broad study. The subjects are all tested in the same manner, and from the test results, the theorist searches for common variables/factors. In other words, the theorist attempts to first isolate broad 46 E L T V o i c e s I n d i a ( V o l. 3 I s s u e 4 ) A u g u s t

5 similarities or underlying factors. This step is called "reloading'' or "factor loading''. After factor loading, the theorist then measures the extent to which a subject/subjects are affected by the individual underlying factors. Once the underlying factors are determined and are categorized, the theorist can devise a more efficient system than the original factor analysis for measuring the underlying factors. The extent to which given subjects rate among these five factors is determined through analysis of trait adjectives, factor analysis, and analysis of existing personality inventories (often made by other theorists). The usual test for this is called the Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R). Through this process of factor analysis Tupes and Christal first originated the theory of five underlying factors which are the basis of personality measurement in Big five taxonomy is a scientific classification system. It involves ordering, naming and systematically distinguishing between things. Should help individuals understand how things differ. In Personality Psychology, the Science of Individuality (1998), Nathan Brody and Howard Ehrlichman, defined personality in this way that the term personality implies the existence of a living being with an inner mental life consisting of thoughts, feelings, desires, and goals as well as behaviors. Personality is not merely a description of behavior, but involves processes in the person that are responsible for this behavior. People behave as they do, at least in part, because of their personalities. To say a person is sociable or aggressive or honest is to say there are inner characteristics that cause him or her to be sociable or aggressive or honest. The field of psychology is filled with numerous personality models. To some extent, the many models seem similar to a roadway filled with various vintages of automobiles. As technology improves, automobile designs change; and likewise, as research improves, personality models change. To say that any particular personality model is right or wrong seems similar to saying that a particular automobile design is right or wrong. Instead, most engineers develop different automobile designs based on the technology available at the time of development. Naturally, if a person decides to drive across the country in the twenty-first century, that person will probably choose a late-model automobile. Prior to World War II, personality models were based entirely on inference. These inference theories started with Socrates around 2500 years ago and continued through the time of Jung in the early to Mid-1900s. The 47 E L T V o i c e s I n d i a ( V o l. 3 I s s u e 4 ) A u g u s t

6 Socrates model measures personality across four factors (choleric, melancholic, phlegmatic, and sanguine) based on the level of four body fluids. Some twentieth century personality models use similar factors. Despise the common use of these personality terms, absolutely no empirical research validates his model or any of the inference models. By the Mid-1930 s, however, several personality theorists started to develop phenomenological theories. These theories explain what is seen and observed rather than what is inferred. Allport (1937) initiated modern personality assessment by observing the words used in language. James Beck (1999) explains the logic of the linguistic approach such as this manner that with a little reflection, one can see the simple logic of using a linguistic approach. Language reflects human experience. When people want to communicate with each other about some new observation, they invent words and grammar through which they communicate that material to others. For instance, if an ancient ruler was selecting members of the court who could advise and counsel the ruler, some assessment of the personality strengths and weaknesses of the prospective advisors would undoubtedly take place. Officials would likely have to assess the person s trustworthiness, reliability and honesty, among other things. So, a growing and developing language to describe all of these personality attributes would facilitate the task. The older and more developed the language, the more it would have the ability to describe these subtleties of personality. The biblical languages of Hebrew and Greek both contain a large number of nouns, adjectives and verbs that provided the writers with vocabulary with which to describe people and their behavior. In 1936, Gordon Allport culled 17,936 adjectives that describe personality from an unabridged English dictionary. After eliminating duplicate words or words that did not describe personality unambiguously, he derived 4,504 descriptive terms. However, the state of statistical science remained inadequate to reduce the number of terms any further. In 1942, British researcher Raymond Cattell implemented a newly developed statistical technique called factor analysis. In spite of all its complexities, factor analysis is simply a statistical method that identifies the common factors that describe a large body of data. Since computers were not yet invented, Cattell employed an army of graduate students to perform a laborious hand-computed factor analysis on the personality terms. Cattell identified twelve factors to which he added on his own four additional factors (John, 1990). The resulting sixteen factors became very well known as the 16PF (personality factors).later investigators 48 E L T V o i c e s I n d i a ( V o l. 3 I s s u e 4 ) A u g u s t

7 re-analyzed Cattell s data using the computational power of modern computers. However, no research has substantiated Cattell s twelve factors. Although Cattell s manual calculations identified twelve factors, his data yields only five factors when a factor analysis is performed on a computer (Digman, 1996). In 1961, Ernest Tupes and Raymond Christal (in a project sponsored by the U. S. Air Force) attempted the first computer-based factor analysis of Allport s terms. Their factor analysis found that as few as five factors describe personality: Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism. These are often remembered with the acrostic, OCEAN. Soon afterward, an independent analysis by Norman (1963) reconfirmed the Five- Factor Model (FFM). Since the late 1970 s, researchers have demonstrated that five broad personality factors explain the full range of personality differences more completely than any of the previous theories. Factor analysis research in 28 different languages has consistently found five personality factors in analyses of Arabic, Croatian, Czech, Dutch, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Hebrew, Icelandic, Japanese, Korean, Tagalog, Mandarin, Cantonese, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Norwegian and Swedish, among others. Recent research findings in languages from five distinct language families strongly suggest that personality trait structure is universal (McCrae & Costa, 1997). Thus, the FFM seems to provide a language-independent and culture-independent personality assessment instrument. The FFM seems so broad, compared to other models, that it provides the ability to explain nearly every other personality model. It is the only model that is derived from research, instead of inference or theory. In summary, the English language includes thousands of terms to describe aspects of personality, and analysis after analysis has found five similar factors (Costa & McCrae, 1992).The FFM is not the sum total of what is needed to know about personality, but everything that presently should be known about personality is explained in the FFM. The FFM provides the most accurate, most comprehensive, and most robust tool available to understand the individual, including an assessment of each individual s strengths, weaknesses and information relevant to interpersonal style, character, levels of emotional well-being, aspiration levels, and a wide range of other psychologically relevant information (Piedmont, 1998). It also provides a means for a clinical differential diagnosis, a means for empathy and rapport, and a means to match treatments to clients. Piedmont notes that matching treatments to clients probably provides the most important contribution. The most widely known version of the FFM generally takes minutes to 49 E L T V o i c e s I n d i a ( V o l. 3 I s s u e 4 ) A u g u s t

8 complete. Recognizing that minutes per assessment translates into a substantial cost when applied across the tens of thousands of military recruits, Raymond Christal and the Air Force Research Laboratory developed a research project to reduce the required assessment time. After seven years of research using many thousands of subjects, they developed a new FFM instrument in The new software enables a personality assessment within 15 to 20 minutes, depending on the reading speed of the individual. Thus, the project shortened the entire assessment process to about 1/3 of the time required for other FFM instruments while refining and retaining measurement of the finer facets that comprise each factor. Research Methodology This section describes the research methodology used in this study. Included are descriptions of the participants, assessment instruments, procedures, research design, and statistical analysis. Participants Participants in this study were students studying Teaching English as a Foreign Language at Islamic Azad University, Urmia and Salmas Branches. 100 students took part in this study. They included 100 females and no male with ages ranging from years old. These totally 100 learners were randomly selected from among the students of 5 Reading Comprehension classes. They were voluntarily ready to take part in this study. Instruments The instruments in this study included two questionnaires of Creativity and Openness to new experiences and one Reading Comprehension Test. Neo-five factor inventory (NEO-FFI ) college form S The Persian adaptation of NEO Five Factor Inventory (Costa and McCrae, 1999) was used for measuring personality. The NEO-FFI is a self-report paper and pencil questionnaire which covers the five main domains of the Big Five model. The five dimensions of 50 E L T V o i c e s I n d i a ( V o l. 3 I s s u e 4 ) A u g u s t

9 personality measured by this inventory are: Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness. The inventory consists of 60 items that are scored according to the Likert- type scale of five points ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree. Each personality dimension on this inventory is measured by 12 items. Here the purpose of this study was to consider 12 items of openness to experience domain. The NEO-FFI is a 60 item survey that takes approximately 30 minutes to complete. The scoring method of the items is like Likert-type scale that has five answer options that respectively included these: (0) strongly disagree, (1) disagree, (2) I don t have any idea, (3) agree, and (4) strongly agree. Some questions are graded in the reversed way. This is the grading method of this inventory. Creativity questionnaire Dr. Azam Abedi s creativity questionnaire has 60 items with 3 answer options from A to C. The options show creativity level from low to high that scores respectively from 0 to 2 are belonged to the items. The option A in each item has posed the lack of ability in performing activity that 0 score will be given to this answer option. The option ((B)) in each item has posed the ability in performing activity that 1 score will be given to this answer option. The option ((C)) in each item has posed the ability in performing the full performance that it reveals creativity and a score of 2 is assigned to it. These scores are collected in four groups and thus a total score can be obtained for creativity subjects with the sum of these four scores. The range of scores in this test is between 0 to 120 and the participants were scored according to the following five levels. Those who score below 50 have very low level of creativity. Those who score between have low level of creativity. Those who score have intermediate level of creativity. Those who score between have high level of creativity. Those who score between have very high level of creativity. This questionnaire has been divided into four sections. The first section (fluency) has been included 22 questions. The second section (elaboration) has been included 11 questions, the 51 E L T V o i c e s I n d i a ( V o l. 3 I s s u e 4 ) A u g u s t

10 third section (creativity) has been included 16 questions, and the last section openness to experience (flexibility) has been included 11 questions. Reading Comprehension Test At the final step the Reading Comprehension Test was given to the learners. This test was chosen from TOEFL Test Practices Book by Keith S. False. They were totally included 20 multiple choice questions. Procedures Firstly, in order to determine the learners creativity level, DR. Abedi s creativity short version 60 items questionnaire was given to them. Then the openness to experience questionnaire was completed by the learners. In this study NEO-FFI self-report short version inventory is used, which has 60 items with 5 domain scales and each domain included 12 items but the aim of this study is to measure only the openness to experience domain by making statements relating to openness and having participants rate the statements in relation to themselves: from "strongly agree" to "strongly disagree. After that, their reading comprehension performance was measured by reading comprehension test. And finally the correlation between Iranian EFL learners creativity and openness to experience and reading comprehension was demonstrated. Design This study was employed a cross-sectional descriptive and paper-pencil survey research design. Especially the Pearson Correlation technique was used. A set of brief descriptive coefficients that summarizes a given data set, which can either be a representation of the entire population or a sample. The measures used to describe the data set are measures of central tendency and measures of variability or dispersion. Measures of central tendency include the mean, median and mode, while measures of variability include the standard deviation (or variance), the minimum and maximum variables. Descriptive statistics provide a useful summary of data when performing empirical and analytical analysis. 52 E L T V o i c e s I n d i a ( V o l. 3 I s s u e 4 ) A u g u s t

11 Data Collection Results from this research study were analyzed with the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) software Version 20 using Pearson Correlation. SPSS is one of the most popular statistical analysis software packages available. Description of data The data in this study is consisted of 100 female students answer samples of creativity and openness to experience questionnaires and the reading comprehension test. In this section data analysis are described. Data analysis Table1. The descriptive statistics indexes of openness to experience variable Frequencies Openness N Valid 100 Mean Median Mode Std. Deviation Variance Minimum Maximum In table 1descriptive statistics indexes of Openness to experience variable was reported. The mean, median, mode of its scores are respectively equal with 27/33, 27, and 29. The Standard deviation and variance of its scores are respectively 5/09, and 25/88. The minimum and maximum of scores are 17 and E L T V o i c e s I n d i a ( V o l. 3 I s s u e 4 ) A u g u s t

12 Figure1. Histogram diagram and scores distribution of openness to experience variable In figure 1-1, histogram diagram and normal distribution of Openness to experience scores were reported. According to the values of central indexes (mean, median, and mode), the scores curve distribution figure of Openness to experience had a negative slope. Table 2. The descriptive statistics indexes of creativity variable Frequencies Statistics Creativity N Valid 100 Mean Median Mode E L T V o i c e s I n d i a ( V o l. 3 I s s u e 4 ) A u g u s t

13 Std. Deviation Variance Minimum Maximum In table 2 descriptive statistics indexes of creativity variable was reported. The values of central indexes (mean, median, and mode) of creativity scores are respectively: 71/91, 74, and 79. The values of standard deviation and variance of creativity scores are 13/29 and 175/84. The minimum and maximum of the scores are respectively 36 and 96. Creativity Figure2. Histogram diagram and normal distribution of creativity scores In figure 2 histogram diagram and normal distribution of creativity scores was reported. With regard to the figure of diagram and values of central indexes, scores had a negative slope. It means that most of them had high creativity scores rather than mean score. Table 3.The descriptive statistics indexes of reading comprehension variable scores Frequencies Statistics 55 E L T V o i c e s I n d i a ( V o l. 3 I s s u e 4 ) A u g u s t

14 Reading N Valid 100 Mean Median Mode 7.00 Std. Deviation Variance Minimum 2.00 Maximum In table 3 descriptive statistics indexes of reading comprehension scores were reported. The values of central indexes (mean, median, and mode) respectively are: 6/93, 7, and 7.The values of standard deviation and variance of the reading scores are 2/24, and 5. The minimum and maximum of the reading scores are respectively: 2 and 10. Reading Figure 3.Histogram diagram and normal distribution of reading comprehension scores In figure 3histogram diagram and normal distribution of reading comprehension scores were reported. The scores had a negative slope with regard to the values of central indexes (mean, 56 E L T V o i c e s I n d i a ( V o l. 3 I s s u e 4 ) A u g u s t

15 median, and mode) and the shape of diagram, and it means that most of individuals had high scores rather than mean score. Table4. The descriptive statistics indexes of reading comprehension and openness to experience scores Correlations Descriptive statistics Mean Std. Deviation N Openness Reading In table 4descriptive statistics indexes of openness to experience and reading comprehension scores were indicated. As shown in this table the mean and standard deviation for openness to experience scores are respectively: 27.33, and 5.09, and the mean and standard deviation for reading comprehension scores are respectively: 6.83, and Table 5. The correlation coefficient of reading comprehension and openness to experience scores Correlations Openness Reading Pearson Correlation ** Openness Sig. (2-tailed).000 N Pearson Correlation.582 ** 1 Reading Sig. (2-tailed).000 N For examining the hypothesis, the correlation coefficient test as is given in table 5 is used. According to the table, two ranges at the level %1 are significant because the calculated values of correlation coefficient is (r = + %58), and (sig= 0.001<0.01). 57 E L T V o i c e s I n d i a ( V o l. 3 I s s u e 4 ) A u g u s t

16 Reading Figure4.Linear regression diagram of reading comprehension and openness to experience scores Table 6. The descriptive statistics indexes of reading comprehension and creativity scores Correlations Descriptive Statistics Mean Std. Deviation N Creativity Reading In table 6 descriptive statistics indexes of creativity and reading comprehension scores were reported. The mean and standard deviation of creativity scores are respectively: and The mean and standard deviation for reading comprehension scores are respectively 6.93 and Table 7.The correlation coefficient of reading comprehension and creativity scores Correlations Creativity Reading Creativity Pearson Correlation ** Sig. (2-tailed) E L T V o i c e s I n d i a ( V o l. 3 I s s u e 4 ) A u g u s t

17 Creativity N Pearson Correlation.578 ** 1 Reading Sig. (2-tailed).000 N For examining the hypothesis, the Pearson correlation coefficient test as given in table 7 is used. According to the table, the calculated value of correlation coefficient is (r= =0.578), and therefore two ranges at level %1 are significant (sig= 0.001<%1). Figure5.Linear regression diagram of reading comprehension and creativity Reading Descriptions of hypotheses results The descriptive statistical analyses obtained in this study provided useful evidence in favor of the reliability and validity of the results produced by the analyzing correlation between creativity and openness to experience and reading comprehension hypotheses. The aim of this study was to help finding open minded individuals in order to do creatively while reading comprehension, and almost most of people with openness to experience trait had creative thinking and performed creatively. They also could understand well the text they read. 59 E L T V o i c e s I n d i a ( V o l. 3 I s s u e 4 ) A u g u s t

18 Discussion: There is a significant correlation between openness to experience and reading comprehension scores. In table 4 descriptive statistics indexes of openness to experience and reading comprehension scores were reported. The mean and standard deviation for openness to experience scores respectively are: 27.33, and 5.09, and the mean and standard deviation for reading comprehension scores respectively are: 6.83, and For examining the hypothesis, the correlation coefficient test as is given in table 5is used. According to this table, the correlation between them at range (sig =2-tailed) at the level %1 are significant because the calculated values of correlation coefficient is (r = + %58), and (sig= 0.001<0.01), therefore the null hypothesis at level %1 is rejected and then the research hypothesis with %99 confidence is confirmed. With %99confidence it can be claimed that there are positive and significant relationships between openness to experience and reading comprehension scores and this result corresponds with linear regression diagram 4and the reading comprehension scores will increase with increasing the openness to experience scores. Hypothesis 2: There is a significant relationship between creativity and reading comprehension scores. In table 6 descriptive statistics indexes of creativity and reading comprehension scores were reported. The mean and standard deviation of creativity scores are respectively: and The mean and standard deviation for reading comprehension scores are respectively 6.93 and 2.24.For examining the above mentioned hypothesis, the Pearson correlation coefficient test as given in table 7 is used. According to the table, the calculated value of correlation coefficient is(r= =0.578), and therefore the correlation between them at range (sig =2-tailed) at level %1 are significant (sig= 0.001<%1). Therefore null hypothesis at level %1 is rejected and the research hypothesis with %99confidence is confirmed. It can be concluded that there are positive and significant relationships between creativity and reading comprehension scores and this result corresponds with the linear regression diagram 5and by increasing creativity scores, the reading comprehension scores will increase. 60 E L T V o i c e s I n d i a ( V o l. 3 I s s u e 4 ) A u g u s t

19 Conclusion The major aim of this study was to develop a model which could enable university language learners to view reading comprehension skill from different perspective, it means each learner can look to this skill from different viewpoints because each has different character that is unique, and character of each learner consists of different traits and each trait causes variety at learners and in learning environments. Uniqueness also bring about to reach various outcomes at each performance. For this, it will be good if instructors try to assess the students reading comprehension performances from psychological view during stage of the reading comprehension process. Richards and Schmidt (2002) define personality as those aspects of an individual s behavior, attitude, beliefs, thoughts, actions and feelings which are seen as typical and distinctive of that person and recognized as such by that person and others. Based on this definition, each person has a type of personality which is exclusive to him/her. Ehrman (2003) indicates to the fact that in the recent years the influence of personality variables on learning styles has increased greatly. Every individual uses a series of learning strategies and styles that are grounded in his/her personality to handle linguistic tasks and better to say language learning performance. Likewise, researchers make use of learning style research with personality and cognitive styles to determine ability, predict performance, e.g. in speaking or reading comprehension, and improve classroom teaching and learning (Ehrman, 2001). Young and Schinka (2001) stated that the five factor model of personality has become the dominant model for the investigation of personality. In the current study, the researcher chose to use this model because of the clarity of these factors, its widespread acceptance, and the relative abundance of research on the FFM and its component factors. The mostly widely used instrument to assess the five factors, the NEO, was also used in the present study to assess the personality variables. 61 E L T V o i c e s I n d i a ( V o l. 3 I s s u e 4 ) A u g u s t

20 Pedagogical implications The Personality plays an important role that effect academic achievement. Understanding the factors influencing academic performance has always been a great concern for counseling and educational psychologists. Many researchers are anxious to know in advance who will perform well or not in any academic activity. Thus, identifying the factors determining academic success is a major concern of researchers for the purpose of developing an education curriculum aimed at improving levels of academic performance. This calls for examining the reasons for individual differences in students academic performance. A number of studies have identified a positive association between openness and academic performance (Chamorro-Premuzic & Furnharm, 2005).The psychological literature suggests that especially openness to experience is important predictor of educational success. Openness to experience is akin to intelligence and bears on intellectual curiosity and commitment to assignments (MacCrae& Costa, 1997). Creativity and resourcefulness are aspects of openness that are also positively related to scholastic achievement. Therefore, teachers should construct learning environments that take into consideration students individual differences and strengths. References [1] Allport, G.W. & Odbert, H.S. (1936). Trait-names: A psycho-lexical study. Psychological Monographs, 47(211). [2] Allport, G. W. (1937). Personality: a psychological interpretation. New York: Holt, Rinehart, & Winston. [3] Brody, Nathan, and Howard Ehrlichman.(1998). Personality Psychology: The Science of Individuality. Upper Saddle River: Prentice,. Print. [4] Chamorro-Premuzic, T., &Furnham, A. (2005).Personality and intellectual competence. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. [5] Costa, P.T. and McCrae, R.R. (1992) Revised NEO Personality Inventory and NEO Five-Factor Inventory Professional Manual, Psychological Assessment Resources, Odessa, FL. [6] Schmitt, D.P., Allik, J., McCrae, R.R. and Benet-Mart ınez, V. (2007) The geographic distribu-tion of Big Five personality traits: patterns and profiles of human 62 E L T V o i c e s I n d i a ( V o l. 3 I s s u e 4 ) A u g u s t

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22 [18] Richards, J.C., Schmidt, R., 2002.Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics, (3 rd ed). Pearson Education, London. [19] Tupes, E. C., & Christal, R. E. (1961).Recurrent personality factors based on trait ratings. United States Air Force. [20] Young, M. S., &Schinka, J. A. (2001).Research Validity Scales for theneo PI R: Additional evidence for reliability and validity.journal ofpersonality Assessment, 76, E L T V o i c e s I n d i a ( V o l. 3 I s s u e 4 ) A u g u s t