THE INTERPLAY OF PERFECTIONISM AND ATTENTION SPAN AMONG IRANIAN EFL MAJORS AND PERSIAN LITERATURE MAJORS

The present research aimed at identifying any possible relationship between perfectionism (positive and negative) and attention span among EFL and Persian literature students from both state and private universities (Payam Noor University, Azad University, and Shiraz University) of Shiraz, Fars province. One hundred and fifty six EFL and Persian literature students (male and female) were selected non-randomly. Terry-Short, Owens, Slade, and Dewey‘s (1995) Positive and Negative Perfectionism Scale (PANP) and Brown and Ryan’s (2003) Mindful Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS) were used as research instruments for collecting the necessary data. Data were analyzed using correlation coefficient and independent-samples t-test. The Results indicated that there were significant relationships between negative perfectionism and attention span while there is a non-significant relationship between positive perfectionism and attention span of EFL learners. Persian literature learners showed just the reverse results. Finally, no differences were found between male and female participants in terms of positive/negative perfectionism and a very small difference was found regarding their attention span

Keywords:

Attention span , Perfectionism , Positive perfectionism , Negative perfectionis