چکیده:
This research is an investigation of the relationship between the
emotional intelligence of a group of Iranian English language learners
and the coherence of the essays they produced. A 40-item TOEFLtype
test of English proficiency including items on grammar,
vocabulary, reading comprehension with the Cronbach’s alpha
reliability of .742, was planned to identify the proficient candidates
who could produce substantive and meaningful texts. Moreover, a 33-
item inventory of Schutte Emotional Intelligence Scale and a task of
essay writing on a specific topic were administered. From 110
candidates who took the test, questionnaire and the task, 79 subjects
completely submitted them. Forty-five students managed to score
above 23 out of 40 on the proficiency test; therefore, their emotional
profiles and essays were further analyzed. For objective assessment of
the coherence of the essays, Bamberg’s (1984) Holistic Coherence
Scale was used with five points ranging from ‘fully coherent’ (4) to
‘unscorable’ (0). The Spearman’s rho test was used in investigating
the association between the coherence of the essays and the emotional
intelligence of their writers. Flying in the face of the researchers’
expectation, an insignificant relationship was observed
خلاصه ماشینی:
"Participants To learn about the connection between EI and language learning, the researchers administered an English proficiency test, a task of essay writing, and the Schutte Emotional Intelligence Scale to 110 undergraduate students of English language and literature at Semnan University, Iran.
This scoring rubric involves holistically assessing coherence against a five-scale criterion (involving 7 factors; identifying topic, shifting topic or digressing, orienting the reader, organizing details, using cohesive ties, concluding with statement, flow of discourse) ranging from "fully coherent" (4), through "partially coherent" (3), "incoherent" (2), "incomprehensible" (1), to "unscorable" (0).
This criterion (involving 7 factors; identifying topic, shifting topic or digressing, orienting the reader, organizing details, using cohesive ties, concluding with statement, flow of discourse) evaluated students’ writings against five degrees ranging from 4 (fully coherent) to 0 (unscorable).
For this purpose, a task of essay writing, and the 33-item Schutte Emotional Intelligence Scale as well as a test of English proficiency were administered to the participants.
However, instead of concluding categorically that emotional intelligence is irrelevant to writing and its coherence, we had better consider its relevance in an ecological perspective and study the relationship in interaction with many other relevant factors which may be both affected by and modify the effect of the writers’ EQ.
The fact that one source of coherence is the reader’s background knowledge and the readers and writers dialogically interact in the construction of coherence (Pilus, 1996), the possible impact of a myriad of other contributory factors, and writing being an off-line activity, which allows second thoughts, may all help explain the counter-intuitive results obtained in this study."