The Causal Relationship between HEXACO Personality Traits and English Language Anxiety with the Mediating Role of Positive Academic Emotions in Students

Emotions are the primary source of motivation and movement in humanbeings. Positive emotions help maintain and guide responses and behaviors. These emotional experiences, in academic situations, play an important role in shaping students' judgments, decisions, priorities, and behaviors by providing basic information. The aim of this study was to investigate the causal relationship between Hexaco personality traits and English language anxiety with the mediating role of positive academic emotions in students. This study was applied in terms of purpose, and considering how information and data were collected, it was descriptive-correlational.The statistical population included all 525 ninth grade female students of 10 public girl’s junior high schools in Babol, in the academic year 2020-2021. Using Krejcie and Morgan (1970) Table, 225 students were selected as the research sample through simple random sampling method. The instruments of the study included the HEXACO Personality Traits Questionnaire (De Vries & Van Gelder, 2013), Positive Academic Emotions Questionnaire (Pekrun et al., 2005), and English Language Anxiety Inventory (ALI, 2017).To analyze the data, Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin test, Bartlett’s test, correlation coefficient, regression, path analysis and structural equation modeling were used. The research model showed a very good fit.The findings showed that there is a significant relationship between the students’ personality traits, positive academic emotions and English language anxiety. In addition, personality traits and positive academic emotions have a direct effect on students' English language anxiety. Also, personality traits have a significant effect on students' English language anxiety through the mediating role of positive academic emotions.