Abstract
The present study was carried out to investigate the effect of motivation and attitude towards learning English, learning style preferences, and gender on Iranian EFL learners’ proficiency. To this end, 154 Iranian EFL learners (male and female) participated in the study. Three instruments, namely, Oxford Quick Placement Test (OPT), Brasch Learning Style Inventory (BLSI) Questionnaire, and Motivation and Attitude Questionnaire were used to collect the data necessary for the study. Crosstab procedure, correlation, one way ANOVA and multiple regression analysis were utilized to analyze the data. The results indicated that visual and auditory learning styles are the most frequently preferred learning styles among the Iranian EFL learners. These learning styles were also the mostly preferred learning styles by both male and female EFL learners. According to the findings, there was no significant difference between gender and learning style preferences, and motivation and attitude towards learning English. Moreover, learning style preferences did not correlate with learners’ language proficiency. Finally, it was revealed that gender was the best predictor of language proficiency for Iranian EFL learners.
Key words: motivation, attitude, learning style, learning preferences, gender, proficiency.
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