Creativity and Its Relationship with Vocabulary Learning Strategy Use of EFL Students

Abstract

The relationship between SLA and individual differences has been investigated by many scholars and examining the psychological variables, one of which is creativity, seems to be a trend. The number of studies on vocabulary learning strategies (VLS) is much more than the size of research on the relationship between psychological factors and such strategies. The present study takes a step toward the clarification of whether the psychological parameter of creativity plays any significant role in the use of VLS by EFL students. Therefore, this paper aims to explore the relationship between Iranian EFL students’ creativity and their use of vocabulary learning strategies. Also, there is an attempt to find out if gender plays any role in this relationship. For measuring the creativity of a group of 101 medical students at Shiraz University of Medical Sciences (SUMS), the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking (Torrance, 1990) was conducted. Subsequently a VLS questionnaire (Jones, 2006) was given to the participants to identify their VLS employment. The results revealed that the participants possessed a high level of creativity but there was no significant difference in this regard according to gender. A significant correlation was found between creativity and the overall VLS use of female students, but not for males. However, the correlation observed between creativity and the overall VLS use of the participants was statistically significant in general.