an investigation of the relationship between esp learners’ vocabulary-learning strategies, successful intelligence, and academic performance

To reach a high level of proficiency in the target language, learning vocabulary is considered as a strategic factor for esp students. having a large number of vocabularies in general and specific domains is the indicator of communicative competence, which is one of the important aspects of successful academic performance. furthermore, with respect to personal features of the students like successful intelligence is a vital factor in language learning contexts. the present study intended to examine the relationship between the use of vocabulary-learning strategies by esp medical students, their successful intelligence and their academic performance. the participants of the study were 68 male esp medical students at islamic azad university, tabriz branch. the instruments were strategy inventory for language learning (sill) prepared by oxford (1990). in this questionnaire, the total numbers of measured strategies are six with 27 questions. the second instrument was successful intelligence questionnaire. sternberg and grigorenko developed this questionnaire in 2002 with 36 items. the reliability of this study was estimated by cronbach’s alpha; the results were 0.79 for successful intelligence and 0.82 for vocabulary learning strategy. the validity was ensured through content validity by consulting the experts in the field. furthermore, the students’ final exam scores were considered as the rate of their academic performance. pearson correlation coefficient and multiple regression was administered to analyze the data and see which of the components predict academic achievement more. accordingly, the obtained results exposed that there is a significant relationship between the students’ successful intelligence, vocabulary-learning strategy, and their academic performance. consequently, the findings of the current study provide numerous pedagogical implications that can be beneficial for both efl and esp teachers and learners.