THE RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN EGO IDENTITY, GOAL ORIENTATION AND AGE AMONG EFL LEARNERS

This study particularly aimed at investigating the relationships of ego identity, goal orientation and age of the students among EFL university students. Ego identity is the core element through psychological issues and it sets social and cognitive structure of individuality. Goal orientation is a sign of personal issue and considered as a kind of motivation that guides the learners to their future actions. Four universities were randomly sampled. Participants were 217 students of whom 158 were females and 59 were males. The students responded to scale of the EOM-EIS and AGQ. SPSS was run, using Cronbach's alpha and Pearson correlation coefficient were applied. The results revealed all four subscales of ego identity except for identity-foreclosure, had a significant relationship with total goal orientation and age of the students. The results also demonstrated that total goal orientation had a significant relationship with age of the learners. Consequently, ego identity, and goal orientation are influential in academic achievement of the students. The current study revealed that identity achievement plays an important role in the locus of identity formation and it could be more crucial in their academic courses than the other learners who were more concerned with the other subscales of ego identity. Students who were more inclined to mastery goals were more oriented to progress