On the Relationship between Impulsivity/Reflectivity Cognitive Style and Language Proficiency Test Performance

The purpose of this study was to see if impulsivity/reflectivity, as two main cognitive styles of the learners, may indicate any relationship with their performance on integrative and discrete-point language proficiency tests. Moreover, the role of gender of the learners in their performance and the interaction of gender and impulsivity/reflectivity cognitive style on the learners performance in language proficiency tests were investigated. To this end, 240 male and female pre-university students from Karaj, Varamin and Shahr-e-Ray took part in this study. An advanced version of Nelson English test was administered to ensure the proficiency level of the subjects. A Persian version of the Impulsivity Sub-scale of Eysenck and Eysenck s (1990) Impulsiveness Questionnaire was also administered to divide the subjects into three groups of high, medium and low impulsive. An Ex Post Multifactorial Design was adopted to investigate the two independent variables, namely impulsivity/reflectivity and gender. Various statistical analyses were applied the results of which revealed that reflective learners outperformed the impulsive ones on the total Nelson English Test and its integrative sub-parts. The results also showed that it is not just the linguistic factors that determine the performance of the test factors, but rather there are other factors such as cognitive styles and types of the test which play a role in the subjects language proficiency test performance. The findings highlight the significance of test developers responsibility to control the influence of potential sources of test bias, namely Impulsivity/Reflectivity cognitive style more effectively through careful designing of appropriate test methods.