On the relationship among reflective thinking, emotional intelligence, strategy use, and vocabulary development of Iranian EFL learners Abstract The current study sought to investigate the relationship among reflective thinking, emotional intelligence, vocabulary learning strategy use, and vocabulary development of Iranian EFL learners, as well as to explore which independent variable mentioned above predicted the participants’ vocabulary development more strongly. The participants included 300 junior and senior students majoring in English language at four different universities of Hamedan province. They took an already-validated TOEFL vocabulary test (developed and validated by ETS), and filled out three Likert scale questionnaires: The reflective thinking questionnaire (Kember et al., 2000), Bar- On’s (1997) emotional intelligence questionnaire, and Oxford’s Strategy Inventory for language learning (SILL). The results of four separate Pearson Product Moment correlation analyses revealed that there were statistically significant positive relationship between a) emotional intelligence and vocabulary development, b) reflective thinking and vocabulary development, c) strategy use and vocabulary development, and d) emotional intelligence and reflective thinking of Iranian EFL learners. Furthermore, the results of multiple-regression analyses indicated that among the predictor variables, reflective thinking was the strongest predictor of vocabulary development of Iranian EFL learners although emotional intelligence and strategy use also were found to significantly predict vocabulary development of the participants. The findings of the study might have some hands-on implications for EFL learners, EFL teachers, EFL syllabus designers and material developers which are discussed in detail in the paper. Keywords: reflective thinking, emotional intelligence, strategy use, Iranian EFL learners
