Extroversion/Introversion personality trait and language proficiency; success and failure: voices from students of medical sciences

Background: There are two major personality types in the worldview of social life. The first is an outgoing person who easily blends in with the community, commonly termed an extrovert. In contrast, a second type is a person who chooses to interact or communicate with certain people and takes a long time to blend in, termed an introvert. Methods: The current mixed methods study included 277 students of medical sciences, who completed two questionnaires and participated in a semi-structured interview investigating participants’ traits toward language learning. The current study used a Student Information Questionnaire (SIQ), the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ), language proficiency test scores of the English Bridge Course, and a semi-structured interview. Results: Extrovert students outperformed in speaking skills with a mean difference of P<0.001. Introverts did slightly better in reading and listening skills (75.16) than extroverts (51.41), with the mean difference of P<0.001. Writing skills did not show a stronger correlation with either of the traits (63.60) than the extroverts (59.99), however, introverts slightly outperformed and no major difference was found between the extroverts’ and introverts’ comprehensive language proficiency scores, however, the extroverts did relatively better than their counterparts with almost higher mean scores. The EPQ evaluation revealed that out of the total 277 participants, 146 (46%) were extroverts, 105 (36%) were introverts and 26 (18%) showed no considerable inclination towards either personality. Introverts showed higher mean scores for listening skills (75.87) than extroverts (45.90) with a mean difference of P<0.001. Conclusion: This study has contributed to the notion that personality types affect language learning by suggesting that the factor of the type of instruction is a significant role player as well. The findings also verified that selecting a learner-friendly type of instruction in academic settings and at the academic levels might benefit all students, including introverts and extroverts.