Interactional Competence and Gender Impacts on EFL Learners’ Self-Perceptions of Its Sub-Constructs

Even though interactional competence (IC) has been in the center of attention recently, its constructs/sub-components and influencing factors still require a profound scrutiny. The features associated with IC have indeed been probed in various realms of language learning and teaching. However, the effect of language learners’ gender on their perception of IC remains to be addressed. To bridge this gap, the present research, as one of the stages of development and verification of the Learners’ Interactional Competence Questionnaire (LICQ) investigated how gender may affect IC and its sub-constructs as perceived by males and females. A total number of 407 male and female intermediate-level Iranian EFL learners, selected through convenience sampling from several language institutes, participated in the study and responded to LICQ. Subsequently, a two-group Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA) was used to measure the potential effects of students’ gender on perceived interactional competence, including conversational management, speech acts, register, nonverbal semiotics, and requests and complaints. The results showed that gender did have a small significant effect on learners’ perceived interactional competence as a whole; while scrutinizing sub-components, it was also revealed that this effect is not visible in conversational management. The study findings provide learners with a self-assessment scale to identify their present state of IC perception. Besides, language teachers could consider the different perceptions of male and female learners of IC as an influential aspect of IC realization and development in the language classroom setting.