Reflective Thinking, Self-Efficacy, Self-Esteem and Academic Achievement of Iranian EFL Students in Higher Education: Is there a Relationship?

The present study investigated the relationship between reflective thinking, general self-efficacy, self-esteem and academic achievement of Iranian EFL students. To this end, 132 Iranian EFL students from three state universities were recruited. To collect the data, the participants completed four questionnaires, namely background information questionnaire, the reflective thinking skills questionnaire (Kember et al., 2000), the general self-efficacy scale (Schwarzer & Jerusalem, 1995) and Rosenberg self-esteem scale (Rosenberg, 1965). The results of two correlation matrixes revealed that there were statistically significant positive relationships between general self-efficacy, self-esteem and academic achievement of Iranian EFL students, while reflective thinking had no significant relationship with self-esteem, self-efficacy and academic achievement of the participants; in addition, no significant relationship between the components of reflective thinking and academic achievement of Iranian EFL students was observed. Moreover, the results of multiple regression analysis showed that between self-esteem and self-efficacy, the former was a stronger predictor of academic achievement of the Iranian EFL students.