The Relationship among EFL Learner's Left/Right Brain Dominance, Autonomy, and Reading Comprehension of the Academic and General Reading Modules of IELTS

The purpose of this paper was to see whether any significant relationship exists among EFL learners’ autonomy, left/right brain dominance, and reading comprehension of the Academic Reading and General Reading Modules of IELTS examination. To this end, 100 female EFL learners were randomly selected from those who were attending IELTS preparatory courses at a language school in Tehran. All participants filled out the brain dominance and learner autonomy questionnaire. However, 50 participants took the General Reading Module and 50 took the Academic Reading Module of IELTS. Correlation and regression analyses demonstrated that learner autonomy did not have a significant correlation with the participants’ performance on the General or Academic Reading Modules of IELTS. However, brain dominance significantly correlated and thus, predicted the participants’ performance on both the General and Academic Reading Modules of IELTS.