How do EQ and its family members treat Creativity in Iranian EFL learners’ neighborhood

This study investigated the correlation between EQ and creativity of Iranian EFL students, and the extent to which EQ components predicted their creativity towards improved academic achievement. All undergraduate EFL Iranian students (n=138), from three different Iranian universities, were invited through census sampling technique to participate in the study. The Persian validated versions of SSEIT and Rand sip et al. (1979), Self-report Creativity Test were distributed among the participants to collect data. SPSS was used to analyze the relationship between the study variables. Only 103 questionnaires were returned for analysis. Findings revealed a significant correlation between EFL learners’ EQ and their creativity, and that the three subscales of EQ explained 14.6% of the variability of students’ creativity (P<0.05). The regulation dimension of emotion had the strongest correlation with creativity. The findings also indicated that the appraisal and expression dimension of emotion has stronger relationship with the regulation dimension of emotion compared with the utilization dimension of emotion, which was indicative of reciprocity, and that the regulation dimension of emotion was in a stronger correlation with the utilization dimension of emotion compared with appraisal and expression of emotion. Educational policy-makers are recommended to consider students’ emotions during the process of learning.

Keywords:

Creativity , EFL learners , Emotional Quotient (EQ) , EQ subscales , Iran.