A Quantitative Analysis of the Relationship Between Emotional Intelligence and Foreign Language Testing

Success in educational institution has been claimed by almost all to be a high correlate of high IQ (Intelligence Quotient); however, a small body of empirical research has been conducted to trace thepossible association of EQ (Emotional Intelligence) which is categorized as an effective factor in the learning process with academic achievement especially in the context of second language learning. Therefore, the enigmatic nature of this association has inspired an interest to carry out a research to explore the relationship between the emotional intelligence and different kinds of test tasks namelymultiple-choice tests, essay type tests, and cloze tests. To this end, 90 intermediate Persian learners of English, both male and female, participated in this study. The participants were asked to complete the Emotional Intelligence Inventory (EQ-i) which is developed by Bar-on. Subsequently, EQ-i data werematched with the students’ records in different types of test tasks which were designed based on English reading texts. The role of sex as a variable was also marginally studied. The obtained data were subjected to different statistical analysis. As a result, a positive correlation was found betweenemotional intelligence and different test tasks. Also a regression analysis of the data indicated thatsignificant amount of success was accounted for by the types of test tasks. The results of this study provide a clear answer to some of the unanswered questions concerning the emotional intelligence which is presently at the beginning of its curve of growth.