“You women are so strange”: moderated mediation analysis of the link between Conscientiousness and L2 willingness to communicate

1 Introduction

Every individual is characterized by a specific way of thinking, behaving and feeling that constitute personality. In order to capture its complexity, a Big Five model has been proposed. According to it, every individual can be described on the spectrum of five broad, independent traits (dispositions): Openness to experience, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness and Neuroticism (OCEAN) (e.g., McCrae and Costa 2003). Conscientiousness is one of the Big Five traits we focus on in this study. According to its most popular definition, the personality trait of Conscientiousness is “socially prescribed impulse control that facilitates task-and goal-directed behavior, such as thinking before acting, delaying gratification, following norms and rules, and planning, organizing and prioritizing tasks” (John and Srivastava 1999: 121). For this reason, this personality trait is characterized by prioritizing non-immediate goals, such as the need for achievement and work commitment or dutifulness, as well as obeying rules, represented by moral thoroughness and carefulness (DeYoung 2015). It follows that highly conscientious individuals are demanding, righteous and self-disciplined. They also tend to be strong-minded, achievement-oriented and industrious, sometimes on the verge of ‘workaholism’ (Costa and McCrae 1992), as well as skilled in managing anxiety (Fan 2020). Conversely, the individuals low in Conscientiousness are regarded as careless, impulse-driven, unstable and lack self-discipline (McCrae and Costa 2003). Importantly, it is speculated that low levels of the trait are not only connected with negative self-perceptions, but also with a proneness to failures and poor coping that produce anxiety (Kotov et al. 2007).

In the academic domain, this personality trait is consistently viewed as the strongest predictor of academic performance, regardless of educational level (e.g., Theobald et al. 2018; Vedel and Poropat 2017). Conscientious students generally have better grades (Trautwein et al. 2015), and a better perception of abilities, leading to a positive attitude towards the specific subject, as well as an interest in it. They engage in effective academic behaviours – they put effort on their homework (Göllner et al. 2017), devote more time to studying, and follow deadlines (Tackman et al. 2017), demonstrating a positive attitude to school (Denissen et al. 2007). As far as gender is concerned, it is argued that in spite of similar levels of cognitive ability in men and women, females tend to demonstrate higher levels of Conscientiousness (e.g., Iimura and Taku 2018; Mac Giolla and Kajonius 2019). They have a greater inclination to value perfectionism, and score higher on the measures of order, self-discipline and dutifulness (Varanarasama et al. 2019). This difference is mainly attributed to biological (innate sex differences) and social-psychological causes (social expectations pertaining to the social roles) (Verbree et al. 2022). It is generally argued that as the trait seems important for maintaining positive interpersonal relationships, it may therefore be more evolutionally pronounced in females than in males (Iimura and Taku 2018).

Also, in the area of foreign language learning the benefits of Conscientiousness have been confirmed, mostly due to the fact that the hard work embedded in the trait is firmly related to a strong sense of competence, which appears to be especially important in language learning (Furnham et al. 2011). It follows that higher levels of the trait generally allow conscientious students to achieve more in the SLA field (Novikova et al. 2020), as they effectively acquire foreign language writing, reading, grammar, and spelling (Piechurska-Kuciel 2018), as revealed in their grades in English as a foreign language (Meyer et al. 2019). It follows that thanks to their planned and structured behaviour positively impacting the acquisition of FL skills, conscientious students also effectively manage their negative affect (Javaras et al. 2012). They experience lower levels of speaking anxiety (Babakhouya 2019; Vural 2019), and, consequently, greater levels of speaking confidence (Khany and Ghoreyshi 2013).

A factor of great importance for the development of FL proficiency is L2 willingness to communicate (WTC), often conceptualized as “a readiness to enter into discourse at a particular time with a specific person or persons, using a L2” (MacIntyre et al. 1998: 547). It needs to be borne in mind that foreign language communication, requiring the use of a language that has not been fully mastered, induces a growing number of negative experiences, and significantly limits the spontaneity embedded in the volitional character of interpersonal communication. For this reason, L2 WTC can be conceptualized as a language-specific phenomenon, operating across various timescales, viewed from dynamic (state) and trait-like perspectives (Henry et al. 2024). For the purpose of this paper, L2 WTC is viewed as a stable (trait-like) inclination to communicate in the foreign language, that is formed over time in the context of formal education. As proposed in the pyramid model of L2 WTC (MacIntyre et al. 1998), it is formed by a variety of influential factors of a proximal (e.g., desire to communicate and communicative self-confidence) and distal nature (e.g., intergroup climate and personality). Contrary to proximal influences, personality represents long-term, stable processes whose effects are partly established a prori, due to heredity (MacIntyre 2020). It operates in the background, exerting a distal and subtle influence on the communication in the foreign language.

The empirical research on L2 WTC as a particularly prominent variable underlying L2 use (see the pyramid model; MacIntyre et al. 1998) appears to confirm this claim to a great extent (e.g., MacIntyre et al. 1998 Shirvan et al. 2019). Viewed from the trait-like perspective, it has been demonstrated that L2 WTC facilitates foreign language use (Lee et al. 2022), helping students cultivate their communicative competence (Chen et al. 2022), as well as communicative confidence (Alrabai 2022). The concept in question also shows significant links to a variety of cultural, political, social, identity, motivational, emotional, and pedagogical issues (MacIntyre 2020). These include aspects of L2 motivation (Lao 2020), such as the ideal L2 self, that strongly predict L2 WTC due to its focus on an ideal image of a skilled language speaker (Shen et al. 2020; Teimouri 2017). Among other factors, the most influential are negative and positive emotions which underlie the psychological background for the FL use. A significant string of research has confirmed the negative relationship between L2 WTC and language anxiety (e.g., Kalsoom et al. 2020; Zhou et al. 2023). On the other hand, the positive affect, as represented by foreign language enjoyment is positively related to L2 WTC (Sadoughi and Hejazi 2023). It allows students to willingly participate in classroom interaction (Cao 2022), through neutralizing the negative effect of language anxiety (Bensalem 2022). As far as personality is concerned, a positive, though weak, relationship of Conscientiousness and L2 willingness to communicate has been detected, with the reservation that this personality trait holds no predictive power for the readiness to communicate in the foreign language (Šafranj and Katić 2019). It stands in opposition to the findings of Adelifar et al. (2016), who conclude that people with a great desire toward progress, discipline, responsibility and success focus on their own personal development, abstaining from communicating with others. Moreover, also no relationship between L2 WTC and Conscientiousness has been detected (Zohoorian et al. 2022). Finally, it appears that gender is a significant predictor of L2 WTC, with females who are more willing to communicate in the foreign language due to their positive attitudes, alongside various social and cultural stereotypes (Yetkin and Özer 2022). Nevertheless, certain qualitative, gender-specific differences have also been found, according to which females are willing to communicate with a focus on meaningfulness, and males – on competence (Amiryousefi 2018).

Language anxiety (LA) is another factor of great significance in the context of foreign language learning. It is conceptualized as “a distinct complex of self-perceptions, beliefs, feelings, and behaviours arising from the uniqueness of the language learning process” in the classroom (Horwitz et al. 1986: 27). The unique situation of learning a foreign language induces the activation of specific anxiety that significantly disrupts the quality and quantity of the SLA process. Repeated occurrences of anxiety taking place at the onset of the FL learning process have a tendency to solidify into a situational-specific anxiety (MacIntyre and Gardner 1989). Hence, this form of anxiety includes features of state anxiety (a response to an anxiety-producing stimulus), as well as trait anxiety (a relatively stable personality characteristic demonstrated as anxiety proneness) (Spielberger 2010). However, according to a recent meta-analysis, language anxiety should be treated more like a trait-like than state-like concept due to its stable nature that may vary with foreign languages, but not with age (Drakulić 2015) or measuring scales (Hsiao and Tseng 2022). The original theoretical model of anxiety views it as a product of three universal types of performance anxieties: communication apprehension, test anxiety and a fear of negative evaluation (Horwitz et al. 1986). Nevertheless, language anxiety cannot be treated as a sum of its parts, but as an independent construct, coupling performance concerns with distress of being unable to be authentic due to linguistic limitations (Horwitz 2017). Under the influence of anxiety, students fall victims to uncurbed worry over a looming fiasco, excessive distress about others’ opinion, and self-evaluation (Dewaele 2013). Other cognitive effects include diminishing enthusiasm and motivation, together with weakening one’s will to communicate in the foreign language (Piechurska-Kuciel 2008). Altogether, the negative effects of language anxiety are found to be numerous in relation to various aspects of student functioning, such as language learning and achievement. According to a recent meta-analysis that examined the variable measured with various instruments, the link between language anxiety and academic achievement in foreign language courses is moderately negative in reference to general and skill-specific achievement (Botes et al. 2020; Teimouri et al. 2019; Zhang 2019). Altogether, the link between anxiety and language achievement is found to be moderate with language anxiety accounting for learners’ performance by about 10–15 % (Hsiao and Tseng 2022). On the other hand, there are studies proving no effect between language anxiety and academic results (Tóth 2021).

As to the association of language anxiety and Conscientiousness, some studies confirm the link between the two variables, demonstrating the effectiveness of the trait in managing language anxiety (Bialayesh et al. 2017; Fan 2020; Lahuerta 2014). However, contradictory findings are also proposed, demonstrating that high Conscientiousness is related to high language anxiety (Gargalianou et al. 2015), as is also demonstrated in the case of perfectionism (Gregersen and Horwitz 2002). This research ambiguity is further augmented by study findings doubting the existence of this relationship (e.g., Hussain et al. 2022). As far as the link between language anxiety and gender is concerned, no effect is found (Marx 2019; Rabadi and Rabadi 2022; Wang and Zhang 2021). This finding is confirmed by a meta-analysis carried out by Piniel and Zólyomi (2022), who conclude that in spite of the female tendency to declare higher levels of language anxiety, gender does not play a significant role shaping the variable. In spite of that, significant gender differences are still reported (Bensalem 2019; Dewaele et al. 2016; Inada 2021; Piechurska-Kuciel 2012).

2 Research rationale

The main aim of the study is to investigate the links between Conscientiousness and L2 willingness to communicate, as mediated by language anxiety. An additional focus is to include the role of gender in controlling the focal relationship.

Our research was guided by several hypotheses. First, we speculated that Conscientiousness was positively connected with L2 willingness to communicate (H1), owing to the theoretical grounding of L2 WTC, whereby a distal influence of personality on L2 use immediately preceded by L2 WTC is speculated (MacIntyre et al. 1998). Conscientious individuals are hard-working and well-organized (Jackson et al. 2010), which means that their industriousness and self-discipline may be helpful in attaining higher proficiency levels in the lengthy process of foreign language learning. Consequently, their higher achievement, confirmed by several studies (e.g., Meyer et al. 2019; Novikova et al. 2020; Piechurska-Kuciel 2018) may be helpful in gaining higher levels of L2 WTC, as demonstrated in the study by Šafranj and Katić (2019).

In the same vein, we assumed that Conscientiousness was negatively related to language anxiety (H2.1). Our speculation was informed by the research on the positive effect of Conscientiousness on managing negative affect (Javaras et al. 2012), as well as on language anxiety (Fan 2020). The organization and discipline facets attributed to the trait may produce good study habits and a readiness to learn, that are in turn augmented by conscientious students’ metacognitive regulation, inducing their laboriousness, aspirations, energy, and determination (Öztürk 2021). Stamina, and self-regulation, beneficial for successful foreign language acquisition (He 2019; Jackson and Park 2019), may protect conscientious students from the anxiety produced by the risks embedded in the language learning process. At the same time, we predicted that language anxiety was negatively related to L2 WTC (H2.2). The experienced anxiety in the situation of communication in a foreign language causes an increase in the sense of failure probability or a sense of self-esteem threat due to focusing on the opinion of others towards oneself. This translates into a decrease in motivation to learn, and, in particular, to communicate in the foreign language (Botes et al. 2020; Dewaele 2013; Piechurska-Kuciel 2008; Teimouri et al. 2019; Zhang 2019).

Aside from that, we also expected that the LA levels would mediate the link between the trait and L2 WTC (H3). It has been proposed that personality traits do not impact foreign language-related phenomena directly, but through proximal constructs that are more closely related to behaviour (Ożańska-Ponikwia et al. 2020; Piechurska-Kuciel et al. 2024). For this reason, we believed that the influence of Conscientiousness on L2 WTC, even when inconspicuous, would be more consistently exposed by introducing into the equation a foreign language-specific construct of language anxiety. Its ties with Conscientiousness are not firmly established (Bialayesh et al. 2017; Fan 2020; Gargalianou et al. 2015), similarly to its links with another L2-specific construct, L2 WTC, that appear to be positive in terms of correlation (Šafranj and Katić 2019) or non-existent (Adelifar et al. 2016). For this reason, there is a need to clarify these relationships, positing that language anxiety attenuates the positive effects of Conscientiousness on L2 WTC.

Finally, the impact of gender on the above relationship must be taken into consideration. It is hereby proposed that the higher levels of this personality trait attributed to females (e.g., Iimura and Taku 2018) may give way to their greater sensitivity to negative emotions (i.e., language anxiety), harnessing their L2 willingness to communicate (H4). Females outperform males in the academic domain owing to their behavioural tendencies that underpin Conscientiousness, which is a beneficial trait for educational success, and which is often favoured by teachers (Verbree et al. 2022). Apart from that, females reveal a tendency to be more willing to communicate in the foreign language (e.g., Inada 2021; Yetkin and Özer 2022). However, we believed that these strong advantages of females may fail when impacted by language anxiety that wreaks havoc with their effective language acquisition. Below, all the mentioned hypotheses are presented, together with Graph 1 that shows a model of the relationships hypothesized in this study.

Graph 1:

Moderated mediation model for the relationship between Conscientiousness and L2 WTC with language anxiety as the mediator and gender as the moderator.

• H1: Conscientiousness is positively connected with L2 willingness to communicate.

• H2.1: Conscientiousness is negatively related to language anxiety.

• H2.2: Language anxiety is negatively related to L2 WTC.

• H3: LA mediates the link between Conscientiousness and L2 WTC.

• H4: Conscientious females experience higher L2 WTC, even when under the influence of language anxiety.

3 Methods

4 Results

The preliminary analysis of the results showed that gender does not differentiate the results obtained in terms of the link between Conscientiousness and WTC. However, there were statistically significant differences in the level of LA, where the females achieved significantly higher scores than the males. The effect obtained is strong (η² = 0.30) (see Table 1 for details). Regarding the correlation between the included variables, the analysis showed a significant negative relationship between Conscientiousness and LA (r = −0.19) and a positive relationship with WTC (r = 0.17). This means that with greater Conscientiousness, anxiety levels decrease and WTC increases. It should be noted, however, that although the obtained relationships are significant, the effect is small. In the case of LA, the association with L2 WTC is significant and negative (r = −0.31), suggesting that L2 WTC decreases with increasing anxiety. When the gender of the respondents is taken into account, the results are slightly different. The relationship between conscientiousness and L2 WTC is no longer significant in the group of males (r = 0.11), while the relationship between LA and L2 WTC is twice as strong in the group of females than males (r_F = −0.37 vs. r_M = −0.18). Detailed data is presented in Table 1.

In order to verify the hypotheses resulting from the theoretical model (see Graph 1), moderated mediation was conducted, where Conscientiousness was the independent variable, L2 WTC was the dependent variable, LA was the mediator, and the gender of the respondents – the moderator of the relationship between Conscientiousness and L2 WTC. The analysis showed that a higher level of Conscientiousness is associated with a larger level of WTC (β = 0.16; t = 3.04; p < 0.01; path c in Table 2). This result confirms the assumptions resulting from Hypothesis 1 (H1). Moreover, Conscientiousness is a significant and negative predictor of language anxiety (β = −0.15; t = −3.04; p < 0.01; path a in Table 2) and that language anxiety is negatively associated with L2 WTC (β = −0.33; t = −6.87; p < 0.01; path b in Table 2). This means that with a greater level of Conscientiousness, LA decreases but at the same time, a larger level of LA significantly reduces the level of WTC. The obtained result confirms both hypotheses – H2.1 and H2.2. The mediating effect of language anxiety on the relationship between Conscientiousness and L2 WTC was also confirmed (H3), as adding LA to the model reduced the strength of the relationship between the variables (β = 0.11; t = 2.18; p < 0.05; path c′ in Table 2). The last verified hypothesis was the assumption that the gender of students moderates the relationship between Conscientiousness and L2 WTC (H4). The conducted analysis showed that although the interaction effect is statistically insignificant (β = 0.23; t = 1.03; p = 0.31; path X*W in Table 2), in the case of females a significant conditioned direct effect of Conscientiousness on the WTC is established (β_F = 0.37; t_F = 2.36; p_F < 0.05 vs. β_M = 0.05; t_M = 51; p_M = 0.61; see Table 2 and Graph 2). This result supports the hypothesis that gender moderates the relationship of Conscientiousness with L2 WTC (when language anxiety is also controlled), as females with higher levels of Conscientiousness also have a higher WTC, while for males, levels of Conscientiousness have no significant relationship with the L2 WTC. Detailed results of the analysis are presented in Table 2. The graph above represents the relationship between Conscientiousness and L2 WTC in reference to gender (Graph 2).

Graph 2:

Conditional direct effect of students’ gender in the Conscientiousness-L2 WTC relationship.

5 Discussion

The primary aim of this paper was to verify several hypotheses, focusing on the relationship between Conscientiousness and L2 willingness to communicate, when mediated by language anxiety, and controlled by gender.

According to the first hypothesis, Conscientiousness was positively related to L2 willingness to communicate (H1). Indeed, the theoretical relationship, though distal (MacIntyre et al. 1998), is confirmed empirically. The results of our study partly corroborate the findings of Šafranj and Katić (2019), demonstrating a weak correlation between the two variables. For this reason, it can be reliably maintained that the abilities encompassed by Conscientiousness (carefulness, diligence, compliance, stamina, deliberation, and self-discipline) induce a readiness to communicate in the foreign language. The decision to enter into a communicative act performed in a language that one has not mastered is often likened to ‘crossing the Rubicon’ (e.g., MacIntyre 2020). The clash between one’s perceived communicative abilities and fear of being judged induces a conflicted state of mind, consisting of being attracted to danger and pushed away from it at the same time. It thus follows that conscientious students are likely to make positive attributions about the effectiveness of their own abilities of dealing with the danger connected with communication in a foreign language. It is also revealed in the study that Conscientiousness can be treated as a positive predictor of L2 WTC, contrary to the study by Šafranj and Katić (2019), where no prediction was detected. However, the effect is quite small (β = 0.16**), which tends to be a regular occurrence in SLA studies (Dewaele 2012). The manifestations of the direct effects of personality traits on FL classroom behaviour may appear obscure or insignificant due to the change of language, which is responsible for the constant reorganization of the individual’s sense of self through an identity construction (Jang 2009), as well as the ambiguity embedded in the process of foreign language learning. Its significance is embedded in the centrality of the requirement to actively use the foreign language in spite of one’s limited proficiency, which produces “ambivalent states of mind” with students feeling both willing and unwilling to communicate (MacIntyre et al. 2011: 81). Understandably, defining the relationship between Conscientiousness and L2 WTC can constitute a reliable point of reference for explicating the role of personality traits in SLA.

As to the next, dual hypothesis, we speculated that Conscientiousness was negatively related to language anxiety (H2.1), and that language anxiety was negatively related to L2 WTC (H2.2). Both predictors turned out negative and significant, though the strength of the predictive value of Conscientiousness is smaller in comparison to that of language anxiety. Again, this can be explained in reference to the value of general (Conscientiousness) versus foreign language learning-specific factors (language anxiety). These findings demonstrate the role of emotions in the foreign language learning process. In the case of Conscientiousness, connected with a lower average level of negative affect (Komulainen et al. 2014), it can be deduced that the trait allows for an effective management of language anxiety, due to its links with the ability to create more positive achievement-related experiences (Ching et al. 2014), like perseverance despite the fears and anxieties experienced. It appears that the trait, connected with regulating internal urges and developing self-discipline, allows students to consciously manage their language learning process, together with controlling negative affect, as represented by language anxiety. As to the impact of this negative emotion on L2 willingness to communicate, its effect on the L2 willingness to communicate is unquestionably considerable, as substantiated empirically in a string of studies (e.g., Botes et al. 2020; Teimouri et al. 2019; Zhang 2019). This result can be ascribed to several factors. First of all, both tested factors are foreign language learning domain-specific, which allows for an adequate measuring of the range of effects. Aside from that, the activation of anxiety is likely to augment ambiguity connected with the feelings of being un-/willing to communicate in the foreign language, depriving learners of chances to practise their communication skills. At the same time, language anxiety decreases L2 self-confidence, an immediate predecessor of L2 WTC, interfering with language comprehension and production. In effect, under the influence of this negative emotion, when the student’s linguistic abilities and reliance on them are decreased, the natural reaction is to withdraw the decision to initiate communication.

Aside from studying the independent effects of Conscientiousness and language anxiety on L2 WTC, we hypothesised that language anxiety would mediate the personality trait-L2 WTC link (H3). The mediation, though quite weak, was confirmed, proving that the impact of Conscientiousness on L2 WTC is still significant, though slightly weakened by the inclusion of the impact of language anxiety on this relationship. These results are not surprising, as even well-organized and disciplined students, such as those characterised by higher levels of Conscientiousness who suffer from language anxiety, may fall victims to the impact of negative emotions. As proposed above, the impact of personality traits on language FL-related phenomena may be reliably assessed by means of the mediation of other domain-specific constructs (Ożańska-Ponikwia et al. 2020; Piechurska-Kuciel et al. 2024). The inclusion of language anxiety has enabled the role of Conscientiousness in shaping the L2 WTC to be consistently assessed, verifying inconsistent, to-date empirical results (e.g., Adelifar et al. 2016; Fan 2020; Šafranj and Katić 2019). The present study results firmly establish that the indirect effect of Conscientiousness on L2 WTC is considerable (β = 0.25), proving that personality traits exert an unwavering impact even on FL-specific behaviour. Altogether, the characteristics embedded in Conscientiousness (competence, order, dutifulness, achievement-striving, self-discipline and deliberation) are helpful in effective language acquisition, exposing the value of organization and discipline, stimulating the production of self-regulated learning, good study practices and a readiness to learn (Piechurska-Kuciel 2020; He 2019; Jackson and Park 2020). It follows that impulse control, identified with Conscientiousness, can be treated as a serious predictor of beneficial FL-related behaviour, captured by achievement striving and the drive to excel (Mike et al. 2015), enabling the student to reach long-term and rule-based goals. In this way students can perceive themselves as agents of their FL development, able to endure challenges and setbacks, as well as the emotional pitfalls created by ubiquitous language anxiety, leading to ultimate success in learning the foreign language.

Last, but not least, we speculated that the links between Conscientiousness and L2 WTC, when mediated by language anxiety, are gender dependent (H4). The results prove that significant differences between the genders are observed. In the case of males, no effect is observed, whereas in the case of females – a serious alteration can be noted. They not only declare significantly higher levels of Conscientiousness, but also those of L2 WTC, which supports the existing findings devoted to the link between gender and the personality trait (e.g., Mac Giolla and Kajonius 2019; Varanarasama et al. 2019), especially in reference to facets related to increased organization and diligence (Wehner and Schils 2021). This tendency also pertains to the link between gender and L2 WTC, demonstrating higher L2 WTC in females (e.g., Inada 2021; Yetkin and Özer 2022). Nevertheless, in spite of females generally being more sensitive to anxiety (Hantsoo and Epperson 2017), the conflicting results pertaining to gender differences in levels of language anxiety (e.g., Inada 2021; Piniel and Zólyomi 2022; Rabadi and Rabadi 2022) appear quite perplexing, and require clarification. The results of the present study consistently demonstrate the significance of gender in the mediated link between Consciousness and L2 WTC. Thanks to the moderated mediation analysis, more nuanced relationships can be investigated, providing an opportunity to investigate contingent and indirect effects at the same time (Edwards and Konold 2020). Thus, the main merit of this study consists in proving that conscientious females are more willing to communicate in a foreign language, even when experiencing language anxiety. In spite of our expectations, even the higher language anxiety levels declared by them do not exert a harmful impact on this relationship. This finding confirms the importance of gender and personality for the successful development of the foreign language learning process. This study area is generally described to be dominated by women, especially in Western countries (Slik et al. 2015), who display certain advantages for verbal and written language in childhood (Burman et al. 2008), and in their later years (Parsons et al. 2005). Although the research on sex differences in SLA is still inconclusive (Montero-SaizAja 2021), high Conscientiousness levels can be regarded as a game changer, playing the role of a solid foundation for female superiority in this domain.

The study is not free from limitations that need to be addressed. The biggest weakness can be attributed to the significantly reduced possibility of generalizing the results. This is mostly caused by the cross-sectional nature of the research that analyzed the questionnaire responses of the participants. Although such data is reliable and legitimate, it did not cater for triangulation. Moreover, the studied cohort came from a single geographical location. For this reason, caution is necessary when generalizing the results to various educational settings. Moreover, the application of moderated mediation also limits interpretations to non-causal inferences. Another study limitation may call for a less biased participant selection procedure. Most respondents were city dwellers, which might allow them for a fuller access to a range of facilities that might assist them in a successful foreign language development, as well as in a more effective management of language anxiety (Piechurska-Kuciel 2012). Last but not least, the foreign language under our scrutiny was English – the language with greatest popularity in secondary grammar school in the country, which might have influenced our results.

6 Final comments

Our findings, supporting some aspects of the previous research studies, suggest a certain mechanism through which the factors under consideration may be related; however, longitudinal research is needed to determine whether the direction of the correlations may differ from what is assumed in our theoretical model. Assisted by experimental and longitudinal perspectives, more varied and nuanced research designs would help to clarify the suggested causal pathways. Additionally, including qualitative data would certainly enrich the understanding of the role of personality traits in the field of foreign language learning, as well as help to triangulate data. As our study examines factors of a stable, trait-like nature, it would be interesting to investigate the longitudinal effects of personality traits over a longer period of time, such as the whole length of secondary school education, to establish a temporal precedence. Thanks to this approach, causal processes that relate selected predictors to clearly cut outcomes could be established.

Despite several limitations, our findings can be regarded as a significant step towards a better understanding of the direct and indirect effect of personality traits on FL factors. Conscientious students appeared to be willing to communicate in a foreign language. At the same time, they suffered from lower levels of language anxiety that significantly suppressed that willingness. Nevertheless, it was conscientious females, who appeared to resist the negative influence of language anxiety, and remained ready to initiate communication in a language they had not fully mastered. Consequently, several pedagogical implications of the research results may be envisaged. As language anxiety is yet again found to be a destructive force hampering the foreign language learning process, as widely confirmed in the literature of the field, the beneficial effects of Conscientiousness for L2 WTC also suffer from its negative influence. As many anxiety interventions have not yet been scientifically verified, it may be speculated that the primary indication for lowering language anxiety levels through arousing more positive emotions, like enjoyment, can be regarded mostly favourable (MacIntyre and Wang 2022). Another valuable finding exposes Conscientiousness as a significant factor protecting females’ willingness to communicate from negative effects of language anxiety. Obviously, gender is beyond any pedagogical interventions; nevertheless, an exciting path for pedagogical interventions is offered by the finding that Conscientiousness can be altered through cognitive behaviour therapy (Magidson et al. 2014). Such intervention might be quite challenging for most foreign language teachers; nevertheless, a conscious focus on developing skills and practices embedded in Conscientiousness, e.g., thoroughness, organization or diligence, may enable especially male students to develop a more responsible, and at the same time reliable approach to foreign language learning.

The results increase our understanding of the importance of being conscientious in the process of second language acquisition, especially in reference to gender. As “[b]eing willing to communicate is part of becoming fluent in a second language, which often is the ultimate goal” for those who aspire to master a foreign language (MacIntyre and Doucette 2010: 1), conscientious females seem to have more chances for eventual success. However, to end on a good note, levels of Conscientiousness could be refined by completing a sequence of tasks over a regulated period of time, even when the individual is not motivated to change (Hudson 2021). Thus, it can be inferred that, in spite of female superiority in the area of language learning, consistent pedagogical interventions are likely to make a difference for all students.