Does personality matter in group oral performance?

Pervious research that examined personality and linguistic performance mostly relied on psychometric analyses of certain personality traits and analytic or overall score data drawn from subjective ratings of test performances. This study which looks at one dimension of personality, extroversion-introversion, views learners? Oral linguistic performance as discourse constructed through interactions, and relies on calculating various discourse-based linguistic measures for assessing learners? Oral performance. The data for the present study are video-tapes of secondary school students participating in group oral assessment. An in-depth discoursal analysis of these students? Actual oral performance was conducted using a wide range of linguistic measures. These measures were then studied in relation to participants? Degree of extroversion which was measured by the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire. The findings indicate no significant correlation between extroversion and the linguistic measures. Further case studies of the discourse and interaction of an extrovert and an introvert, however, revealed that the extrovert demonstrated a more active and responsive participation in the assigned assessment task, reflecting stronger desire to communicate and a tendency to lead the interactions.