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
24
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
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-
26

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
77
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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