Personality traits and academic motivation as predictors of success in foreign language learning among high school girls in medical training and female psychology students in the university educational environment

This work is dedicated to the problem of studying the correlation between the individual-personal and motivational characteristics of female students and high school girls with their success in learning a foreign language. The aim of the research is to identify the peculiarities of the relationship between academic motivation and personal traits with academic success in studying a foreign language among high school students and university female students. The first part presents a review of the scientific literature on the research problem. The second part describes the procedure, methodologies, sample, and results of the empirical study. A survey was conducted with 60 students from the 10th and 11th grades of the medical profile at GBOU School No. 1354 in Moscow: 60 girls; the age of students ranges from 16 to 18 years; 60 female students, including 30 girls from the Faculty of Philology at the People's Friendship University of Russia named after Patrice Lumumba, majoring in Psychology (37.03.01), and 30 girls from the Faculty of Psychology at the State University of Education, majoring in Psychology (37.03.01); the age of the students ranges from 18 to 30 years, followed by regression analysis, which allowed identifying predictors of success. Psychodiagnostic methods: the "Five-Factor Personality Questionnaire," which is an adaptation of the NEO FFI questionnaire by P. Costa and R. McCrae, carried out by M.V. Bodunov and S.D. Biryukov; the "Academic Motivation Scale" developed by T.O. Gordeeva et al.; and the average academic performance in foreign language studies according to expert evaluations from teachers. The practical significance of this work lies in the possibility of using the obtained data for psychological and pedagogical support for high school students and university students during the learning process of foreign languages. The study found that there is specificity in the relationship between individual-personal and motivational characteristics and success indicators among female students and high school girls when learning foreign languages. Currently, in the theory and practice of teaching foreign languages to female high school students and students of non-profile majors, it is necessary to consider the fact that personal traits do not serve as clear predictors of success, while motivation influences success in learning foreign languages, and this must be taken into account by teachers working with these categories of students.