The Relationship between Self-Esteem and Paragraph Writing of Iranian EFL Learners

doi:10.4236/psych.2012.31004

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Psychology

2012. Vol.3, No.1, 24-29

Published Online January 2012 in SciRes (http://www.SciRP.org/journal/psych) http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/psych.2012.31004

The Relationship between Self-Esteem and Paragraph Writing

of Iranian EFL Learners

Mansoor Fahim, Somaye Khojaste Rad

Islamic Azad University Tehran Central Branch, Tehran, Iran

Email: [email protected], [email protected]

Received September 21st, 2011; revised October 31st, 2011; accepted November 30th, 2011

The present study is an attempt to understand the relationship between self-esteem and paragraph writing

of Iranian EFL learners. The study was conducted on both Iranian male and female senior EFL learners

studying at Tonekabon and Lahijan Azad Universities. To start the project, first of all, the researcher ran

the TOEFL test among 80 students. Then, the Self-esteem Coopersmith inventory was given to the same

subjects, after that the researcher asked them to write three different kinds of paragraphs in three forms

namely; descriptive, comparison/contrast and cause/effect. However, the last two stages were adminis-

tered in one session by one week interval. Needless to say, the researcher was available in the class in or-

der to eliminate probable misunderstanding while the subjects were completing all three above-mentioned

stages. Finally, in order to come up with the result, the correlation related to the four questions was mea-

sured by Pearson-product moment formula, thus, the results of the calculation of correlation coefficient

showed a correlation between variables of each question. Based on the above-mentioned results the null

hypotheses of this study were all rejected. Meanwhile, the consistency of the raters was calculated by α-

Chronbach index showing a high reliability among all raters.

Keywords: Self-Esteem; Self-Concept; Paragraph Writing; Expository Writing

Introduction

Most of the writing problems are closely related to psycho-

logical factors out of which self-esteem is an overwhelming is-

sue that has determining effects on language learning. What this

points to is that the importance of self-esteem as a crucial factor

affecting motivation should not be underestimated. One approa-

ch to reveal writing problem of the students is to make a conne-

ction between self-esteem and writing skill. According to the

study by Badran A. in (1999) among 50 randomly chosen uni-

versity students about finding a positive correlation between se-

lf-esteem and writing achievement, no significant relationship

was reported in this research. Neither was any report associated

with the low level of self-esteem and its relationship with low

level of writing; besides, nor was any finding regards with a

connection between high level of self-esteem and high level of

writing ability. In another study by Grodnick reported in (2001)

writing apprehension of university EFL students negatively co-

rrelated with their self-esteem. And also based on another re-

search which was investigated in Iran by Hayati (2006) the re-

search is between listening comprehension and self-esteem that

as the result showed there was a positive relationship between

self-esteem and listening comprehension. Therefore, the last in-

vestigation persuaded author to do another research to examine

the relationship between self-esteem and paragraph writing in

which she was expecting to discover new findings of the cur-

rent research. Similarly, the current research, which has been

done in line with the other approximately the same report, has

illustrated a positive relationship between self-esteem and para-

graph writing. The present research which was administered

among 80 students was suggesting an appropriate correlation

between students’ self-esteem and writing; therefore, better say,

such results can be attributed to two main factors: on the one

hand, the students’ academic writing knowledge which was up-

graded depending on back-up parameters such as grammar, rea-

ding, etc., and on the other hand their reasonable level of self-

esteem which was boosted both at home and academic envi-

ronment. Thus the research result not only was affected by

writing skills of the participants but their self-esteem aspects

also have been effective for establishing such relationship.

The Concept of Self-Esteem

According to Kobal & Musek (2002), self-concept as a theo-

retical term has both numerous synonyms and definitions. In

the literature, it is also identified as self representation, self-es-

teem and self-evaluation. Self-concept is a psychological entity

which includes our feelings, evaluations and attitudes, as well

as descriptive categories of our selves. It is manifested outwa-

rdly by your behavioral and personality traits and inwardly by

how we feel about ourselves and the world around us. As a psy-

chological whole, it has an effect on one’s particular self per-

ceptions and on the perceptions of other people. It also regu-

lates academic achievement attitudes to school, etc. (Burns, 1979,

p.78). He also states that self-esteem is a positive or negative

attitude of an individual towards himself.

High Self-Concept and Low Self-Co n ce pt

Burns (1979) argues that: “A person who has high self-es-

teem is confident reveals that a person is in secure, lacking in

confidence and self-critical. People who have low self-concept

usually show signs of stress and unhappiness” (p.112) Accord-

ing to Winter (1996), people with high self-esteem have more

M. FAHIM ET AL.

realistic views of themselves and others i.e. they consider weak

points and shortcomings more realistically, instead of criticiz-

ing severely themselves. This group of people will not have any

problem in adjusting to the environment. On the contrary, peo-

ple with low level of self-concept are likely to become malad-

justed, because of the negative attitudes they hold towards oth-

ers and themselves.

Essay and Composition

The words “essay” and “composition” have sometimes been

employed interchangeably. However, the two terms are not sy-

nonymous. Heaton (1988) defines composition as a task which

involves the student in manipulating words in grammatically

correct sentences and in linking those sentences to form a piece

of continuous writing which successfully communicates the

writer’s thoughts and ideas on a certain topic. Moreover, he be-

lieves that essay writing is a more demanding task which re-

quires creativity and originally because it both informs and en-

tertains the readers. Other scholars have not focused on the di-

fferences between the two; rather, they have only defined com-

position. According to Raimes (1985), composing means expre-

ssing ideas, and conveying meaning. Composing means think-

ing. She claims “thinking and writing should be inseparable

when our students compose” (p. 261). Likewise, Slager (1972)

defines composition as “writing beyond the sentence level” (p.

232). Addressing this issue, Finocchiaro (1967) believes: A co-

mposition generally consists of several paragraphs on one the-

me, each paragraph containing an idea, which is expanded or

explained within that paragraph or in the succeeding ones. Ideas

are generally linked by words, which indicate the transition

between one paragraph to another. The arrangement of ideas is

such that the reader can sense the author’s organization, which

may be logical, chronological, or one showing cause and effect,

for example, (p. 41) considering these definitions; one can real-

ize how complex and demanding the task of composing is. That

is why Crowhurst (1983) insists, “composing is a complex act

which depends on many skills” (p. 14). Along the same line,

Chimombo (1986) considers writing as “the toughest of all lan-

guage skills to master” (p. 20). Moreover, Memering and

O’Hare (1984) assert that “the skills of writing have always

been difficult to teach, more difficult to learn” (p. v), and per-

haps one can claim that if is still more difficult to est. according

to Ross (1968): Acquiring skill in composition involves ac-

quiring control over rhetorical devices, setting up a control idea,

maintaining this idea throughout the composition, presenting

the ma- terial in an orderly sequence, and so on. Basic to com-

position skill is control of sentences structure and accuracy in

mechanics so that the student writes correctly the first time and

does not practice errors, (p. 253) Due to these complexities,

most scholars including Croft (1972) believe that “writing

skills ... are usually developed at advanced level of English

instruction” (p. 209). Moreover, it seems quite reasonable that

acquiring skill in composition is even more difficult for

non-natives. According to Celce-Murica and Mcintosh (1979):

The ability to express one’s ideas in the written form in a sec-

ond language and to do so with reasonable accuracy and co-

herence is no mean achie- vement since many native speakers

of English never truly master this skill, (p. 187) In this regard,

Raimes (1983) states that ESL student writers have all the wor-

ries of the native speakers and many more besides, for all of

them have to acquire to consciously learn the phonology,

grammar, syntactic structure, vo- cabulary, rhetorical structure

and idioms of a new language in addition to learning the me-

chanics of prose (p. 259). Therefore, many authorities believe

that for a non-native speaker, the goal in productive skills, in-

cluding writing skill, is not native speech, but the ability to

communicate with a native speaker (Chastain, 1971: p. 220).

Expository Writing

Expository writing is a mode of writing in which the purpose

of the author is to inform, explain, describe, or define his or her

subject to the reader. Expository text is meant to expose infor-

mation and is the most frequently used type of writing by stu-

dents in colleges and universities. A well-written exposition re-

mains focused on its topic and provides facts in order to inform

its reader. It should be unbiased, accurate, and use a scholarly

third person tone. Examples of expository writing can be found

in magazine and newspaper articles, non-fiction books, travel

brochures, business reports, memorandums, professional jour-

nal, oral presentations and encyclopedia articles and many other

types of informative writing. One of the most familiar and basic

forms of expository writing is the five-paragraph essay, which

features an introduction with a clear thesis statement, three

main body paragraphs and a conclusion. (Retrieved from inter-

net, paper site, Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.htm)

Research Q uestions

To fulfill the purpose of this study, the following research que-

stions are addressed.

1) Is there any significant relationship between self esteem

and paragraph writing of Iranian EFL learners?

2) Is there any significant relationship between English lan-

guage proficiency and paragraph writing of Iranian EFL learn-

ers?

3) Is there any significant relationship between English lan-

guage proficiency and self-esteem of Iranian EFL learners?

4) Is there any significant relationship between English lan-

guage proficiency, self-esteem, and paragraph writing of Iranian

EFL learners?

Research Hypotheses

In order to investigate the above-mentioned research ques-

tions empirically, the following null hypotheses are stated:

H1: There is no significant relationship between self-esteem

and paragraph writing of Iranian EFL learners.

H2: There is no significant relationship between English lan-

guage proficiency and paragraph writing of Iranian EFL learn-

ers.

H3: Here is no significant relationship between English lan-

guage proficiency and self-esteem of Iranian EFL learners.

H4: There is no significant relationship between English lan-

guage proficiency, self-esteem, and paragraph writing of Iranian

EFL learners.

Method

Participants

The subjects who participated in this study were 80 students

majoring at English translation at Tonekabon and Lahijan Azad

Universities. Among 80 subjects half was male and the other

M. FAHIM ET AL.

half was female who junior students were. The selection was

performed based on their TOEFL test. In this research the writ-

ing was rated by Writing Scoring Guide which is applicable for

TOEFL/CBT/PBT TEST in which factors like being well-or-

ganized, using appropriate details, demonstrating syntactic va-

riety, and using appropriate word choice have been considered.

All three paragraphs of the participants, descriptive, compari-

son/contrast, and cause/effect were all rated by three raters who

were a researcher and two academic professors in each time of

rating-it is worth mentioning that the researcher and the other

two raters are all teaching English in academic level and ex-

perts in this field. It was a holistic writing evaluation. In order

to find out the degree of agreement between judgments of the

raters, the inter-rater reliability of the scores was estimated. The

purpose behind evaluating the relationship between language

proficiency and paragraph writing was to measure whether stu-

dents with advancing level of language proficiency have more

ability in paragraph writing, and how much this affects their

writing, that ,of course, we found that this hypothesis was acce-

pted; to prove this I should say a student who is proficient in

both grammar and vocabulary could be a successful writer sin-

ce the requirement to be a good writer is to practice and write a

lot especially to be aware of the most fundamental factors of

writing including vocabulary and grammar to build proper wri-

ting schemata and regulate writing process and also have high

self confidence that is only achievable through practice. The li-

mitations of this research are as follows: The gender of the

students is not controlled in terms of being male or female.The

number of the students is limit and the study is not done on a

large group.

Instrumentation

In the present study a TOEFL proficiency test, from TOEFL

ACTUAL TEST (October 2003), Nashre Ebteda, was used. It

consisted of 90 multiple-choice items in the two parts of struc-

ture (section 1, 40 items) and reading comprehension (section 2,

50 items). The allotted time was 1 hour and 30 minutes. An-

other measuring instrument which was used in this study was

self-esteem questionnaire, which was selected in order to test

subjects’ global selfesteem. The Coopersmith self-esteem in-

ventory contains 58 items: eight of which are lie items, (6, 13,

20, 27, 34, 41, 48, 55); items number (2, 4, 5, 10, 14, 18, 19, 21,

23, 24, 28, 29, 30, 32, 36, 45, 47, 57) are given one mark if they

are marked by “yes”, and they receive no mark if they are an-

swered by “no”. The rest of the items are marked in a reverse

order. The desirable score on this test range from 25 to 50. The

students chose one of the choices of “like me” and “unlike me”

that each was in the place of “yes” and “no” answer. Each of

the 58 items was scored on 2 points, ranging from 0 to 1 point,

which showed the most positive attitudes and the most negative

attitudes. The maximum score for this questionnaire was 50 and

the minimum was 0. The name of the students remained ano-

nymous. The researcher asked the students not to mention their

name to reduce the degree of anxiety producing from evalua-

tion. The translated sample of this questionnaire is prepared in,

but the students were just provided with the original copy of the

questionnaire. In addition, the SPSS software along with the

Pearson-product moment formula for the correlation coefficient

was used in this research, and also α-Chronbach index was

applied to examine the reliability among raters in this study.

Procedure

To pave the way for this study, several steps were succes-

sively taken.A General Proficiency Test consisted of 90 multi-

ple-choice items including 40 structure items and 50 reading

comprehension items were administered for 150 students then

the numbers of 80 students were selected. The allotted time was

1 hour and 30 minutes. In the present study a TOEFL profi-

ciency test from TOEFL ACTUAL TEST (October 2003), Na-

shre Ebteda, was provided for the students. In the second step,

Coopersmith’s Self-Esteem Inventory was administered to the

same 80 subjects. The result of the previous studies in Iran

showed nearly high reliability of 87% which proved the ac-

ceptability of the questionnaire in Iran. As participants answer-

ing the items, it was found that some of the students had prob-

lem with some of the items of self-esteem questionnaire. For

example, they did not know how to answer the items which

were negatively worded. Therefore, during the administration

the testees were provided with an example. They were told that

providing “yes” answer means that the item was corrected, no

matter it has a negative or positive verb and vice versa. In other

word a “yes” answer indicates that the item describes the tes-

tee’s feeling. In the same way, a “no” answer indicates that the

item does not describe the testee’s feeling.

The Coopersmith self-esteem inventory contains 58 items:

eight of which are lie items, (6, 13, 20, 27, 34, 41, 48, 55);

items number (2, 4, 5, 10, 14, 18, 19, 21,23, 24, 28, 29, 30, 32,

36, 45, 47, 57) are given one mark if they are marked by “yes”,

and they receive no mark if they are answered by “no”. The rest

of the items are marked in a reverse order. The desirable score

on this test range from 25 to 50. The students chose one of the

choices of “like me” and “unlike me” that each was in the place

of “yes” and “no” answer. Each of the 58 items was scored on 2

points, ranging from 0and1point, which showed the most posi-

tive attitudes and the most negative attitudes. The maximum

score for this questionnaire was 50 and the minimum was 0.

In this step, the subjects were asked to write on three differ-

ent topics, the researcher tried to choose specific topics related

to psychology, so that they emerge their self. All three topics

were related to expository writing: descriptive, comparison/con-

trast, and cause/effect writing. It took 1 hour 20 minutes for

each paragraph. Needless to say because 2 of those topics were

established in two parts as it is shown, comparison/contrast, and

cause/effect, while the students were writing, there was some

misunderstanding on writing topics; therefore, they were clari-

fied to the point. It needs to be mentioned that since these kinds

of three different writings (descriptive, comparison/contrast, and

cause/effect) are dealing with more than one paragraph ,so the

researcher asked the students to write at least in two paragraphs

in order to convey the format of these kinds of writings . After

that, the researcher and the other raters who were all university

English teachers rated the participants’ writing samples. The

researcher and other raters evaluated the writing of the students

using TOEFL rating score. Then, In order to find out the degree

of agreement between the judgments of the raters, the in-

ter-rater reliability of the scores was estimated. The results in-

dicated that there was a high inter-rater correlation between the

scores of the two raters.

Data Analysis and Interpretations

Analysis N o. 1

In order to answer this research question: is there any rela-

M. FAHIM ET AL.

tionship between self-esteem and paragraph writing of Iranian

EFL learners and to test the null hypothesis: there’s no rela-

tionship between self-esteem and paragraph writing of Iranian

EFL learners, the correlation coefficient between self-esteem

and paragraph writing is calculated.

Table 1 presents the correlation between self-esteem scores

and paragraph writing scores. As Table 1 shows, the correla-

tion between self-esteem and paragraph writing was .217, with

degree of reliability, which was statistically significant (p < .05).

So the higher the students’ self-esteem scores were the higher

their paragraph writing scores were and vice versa.

Analysis N o. 2

In order to answer this research question: is there any rela-

tionship between English language proficiency scores and para-

graph writing scores and to test the null hypothesis: there’s no

relationship between English language proficiency scores and

paragraph writing, the correlation coefficient between English

language proficiency and paragraph writing is calculated.

Table 2 presents the correlation between English langua- ge

proficiency scores and paragraph writing. As Table 2 shows,

there is a correlation of .339 between English language profi-

ciency scores and paragraph writing scores, which was statisti-

cally significant (p < .02). So the higher the students’ English

language proficiency scores were the higher their paragraph

writing scores were and vice versa.

Analysis N o. 3

In order to answer this research question: is there any rela-

tionship between English language proficiency scores and self-

esteem scores and to test the null hypothesis: there’s no rela-

tionship between English language proficiency scores and self-

esteem, the correlation coefficient between English language

proficiency scores and self-esteem is calculated.

According to Table 3 there is also a correlation of .35 be-

tween English language proficiency and self-esteem. The cor-

relation between self-esteem and paragraph writing was .350,

which was statistically significant (p < .05)

Table 1.

Correlation between self-esteem and paragraph writing.

N Sig. (2-tailed) Pearson correlation

80 .53 .217 Self-esteem writing

Table 2.

Correlation between toefl and writing.

N Sig. (2-tailed) Pearson correlation

80 .002 .339** TOEFL writing

Table 3.

Correlation between TOEFL and self-esteem.

N Sig. (2-tailed) Pearson correlation

80 .001 .305**

TOEFL

Self-esteem

Interpretation: There is a positive correlation between Eng-

lish language proficiency scores and self-esteem. So the higher

the students’ English language proficiency scores were the

higher their self-esteem scores were and vice versa. Accord-

ingly, the null hypotheses that there is no relationship between

self-esteem and paragraph writing of EFL language learners

and there is no relationship between English language profi-

ciency and paragraph writing of EFL language learners and also

there’s no relationship between English language proficiency

and self-esteem of Iranian EFL learners are fully rejected.

These correlations mean that there is a relationship between

self-esteem and the paragraph writing of EFL language learners

and there is a relationship between English language profi-

ciency and paragraph writing and also there is a relationship

between English language proficiency and self-esteem of EFL

language learners.

Analysis N o. 4

In order to answer this research question: is there any rela-

tionship between English language proficiency, self-esteem,

and paragraph writing and to test the null hypothesis: there’s no

relationship between English language proficiency, self-esteem,

and paragraph writing, As Table 4 shows, the correlation coef-

ficient between English language proficiency, self-esteem, and

paragraph writing are calculated. The correlation among these

variables is 0.28 that means it has reliability and is statistically

significant (p < .05)

Interpretation: there was a correlation between English lan-

guage proficiency, self-esteem, and paragraph writing. So the

higher the students’ scores of the two independent variables na-

mely, English language proficiency and self-esteem, were the

higher the scores of their paragraph writing were.

Analysis N o. 5

Inter-Rater Consistency

In order to find the consistency among raters of writing

scores, the researcher utilized the Pearson-product moment

formula and came up with the following results: According to

Table 5, there is a positive correlation among raters 1, 2, and 3

with the correlation of .457, degree of freedom: 77 which are

significant at the level of (p < 0.05).

Table 4.

Correlation between TOEFL, self-esteem, and writing.

df Sig. (2-tailed)correlation

77 .010 .288 Self-esteem TOEFL writing

Table 5.

Correlation among 3 raters.

df Sig. (2-tailed) correlation

Rator 1

Rator 2

.000 .457

Rator 3

M. FAHIM ET AL.

Table 6.

Reliability between the rater 1 and 2.

N of items Cronbach’ Alpha

2 .621

Table 7.

Reliability between the rater 1, 2 and 3.

N of items Cronbach’ Alpha

2 .766

Analysis N o. 6

As shown in Table 6, according to Cronbach’s Alpha me-

thod, there is a high reliability of .621 between the first two

raters. Therefore, there exists a consistency between the first

two raters.

Analysis N o. 7

As shown in Table 7, according to Cronbach’s Alpha me-

thod, there is a high reliability of .766 among the three raters.

Therefore, there exists a consistency between the three raters.

Interpretation: The reliability in Tables 6-7 shows the de-

gree of agreement among raters about the performance of sub-

jects on paragraph writing and utilizing appropriate scale in co-

rrecting subject’s writing.

Discussion

As the study shows, based on the relationship between self-

esteem and writing, it should be said if teachers are given more

guidance regarding their own behaviors and attitudes to boost

students’ self-esteem that of course at the same time is a moti-

vate for developing their writing skills. The more they feel se-

cured in class the more they are encouraged to participate in

writing activities. Furthermore, teachers are required to develop

great willingness to appreciate students’ efforts in the process

of writing because it helps, if they show any kind of progress in

the course of their writing, and brings them a high level of self-

esteem, as well. Programs can be arranged to enhance teachers’

abilities to positively interact with students to individualize and

utilize a wide variety of teaching methods; to invite collabora-

tive assistance which can positively impact on students’ achie-

vement from the first day of their writing course. Based on the-

se findings, EFL writing instructors are encouraged to teach

students how to reflect upon their own leaning as well as to im-

prove their strategic knowledge in EFL writing. Comments fro-

m teachers of writing often include suggestions; the way a stu-

dent feels about himself affect, and is affected by, how he or

she writes. Therefore, as it is found in this research and con-

cerning the mutual relationship of self-esteem and writing we

can also add this fact that teachers by providing students with

regular writing instructions and students' everyday practice on

writing-which starts from a mini-story to a long essay-can ex-

pect their self-esteem and self-value; their belief in their capa-

bilities will astonishingly flourish and turn them into students

that now with support of their self-esteem are able to write very

well.

Conclusion

In order to test the first null hypothesis, the researcher meas-

ured the correlation between the scores on the Coopersmith se-

lf-esteem inventory and the scores on paragraph writing. The

results show that there is a positive relationship between self-

esteem and paragraph writing scores by utilizing Pearson-pro-

duct moment formula. It follows that there is a relationship

between self-esteem and the writing scores. Therefore, the first

null hypothesis is rejected. Regarding the second null hypothe-

sis, the researcher found a positive relationship between the

scores of English language proficiency and paragraph writing

by using Pearson-product moment formula. It showed there is a

positive relationship between English language proficiency and

paragraph writing. Thus, the second null hypothesis is also re-

jected. Considering the third null hypothesis, the researcher a-

gain found a positive relationship between English language

proficiency and the subjects’ scores of self-esteem according to

Pearson-product moment. It shows that there positive relation-

ship between English language proficiency and self-esteem.

Therefore, the third null hypothesis is rejected too. In the fourth

null hypothesis the researcher by utilizing Pearson-product mo-

ment found a relationship between English language proficie-

ncy, self-esteem, and paragraph writing. So the researcher again

safely rejected the fourth null hypothesis. Thus, there is a posi-

tive relationship between English language proficiency, self

esteem, and paragraph writing.

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