An Analysis of the Relationship between Test Method, Personality Type, and Gender: A Case of the Iranian EFL Learners

During the last few decades of the twentieth century, many research studies have been carried out in order to delve into the construct-irrelevant factors affecting language test performance of EFL/ESL learners. In line with this orientation and on the basis of some relevant assumptions made by scholars like Bachman (1990), Shohamy et al. ( 1993), Bachman et al, ( 1996), etc. , the study reported here was designed to examine the impact of test method, personality type and gender on the Iranian EFL learner's test performance and analyze the probable patterns of interaction between these variables in order to suggest appropriate test methods for different personality types and the two sexes and consequently maximize validity and minimize biasedness in language testing. To fulfill the above-mentioned objective, a group of 125 Iranian EFL learners were asked to take three language measures exclusively developed for the present study (a multiple-choice test, an open-ended test and a cloze test ), an oral interview and the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire.Concerning    test method effect, we could conclude that this  variable  per  se does not significantly  affect the Iranian EFL   learners'  test performance.  Likewise,   neuroticism  was not  found to be a significant  factor in this respect. However, our  data  analysis   results revealed  that extroversion  and sex positively    affect    the     subject's    test   performance    and psychoticism  negatively do so. With   regard   to   the    relationship  between  the  above mentioned variables,  it  was   found that test method is significantly   related  neither  to   personality type nor to sex. We  also  could  not find any interaction effect between personality  type and sex in relation  to different test methods.