Relationship between ambiguity tolerance and learners' gender, anxiety levels and language learning strategies choice

Ambiguities inherently exist in any language and foreign language learners encounter innumerable ambiguous situations while learning a language. Ambiguity tolerance is considered as an important personality trait which can influence foreign language learning. Taking into account this phenomenon, this study was performed to investigate the relationship between ambiguity tolerance and learners' gender, anxiety levels and choices of language learning strategies. The study was conducted with 202 vocational college students who studied in aviation related programs. The data of the study which was carried out in a foundation university located in Nevşehir, Turkey, was collected utilizing three surveys and a demographic questionnaire. The results of the study were obtained with descriptive and correlational analysis methods. The findings revealed that the learners' ambiguity tolerance is at a moderate level; male learners are more tolerant of ambiguities in the foreign language than female learners; ambiguity tolerance has a very low correlation with learners' anxiety levels; learners' choices of language learning strategies have no association with their ambiguity tolerance. The findings of this study are discussed within the compass of relevant studies existing in the literature.