Paper Title
Factors Affecting English Reading Comprehension Ability: Investigating The Role Of Ei, Gender, And Major

Abstract
Thetopic of emotional intelligence(EI) is controversial. Debates rage on and critical questions continue to arise as to the concept of EI, as well as its definition, nature, measurement, and application. The construct is a relatively new concept with little empirical research.This study was an attempt to investigate the relationship between EI, gender, major, and reading comprehension ability of Iranian EFL learners. To achieve this end, 385Iranian studentsstudyingaccounting (114), architecture (113), and software engineering (158)took a reading comprehension test and completed the Bar-On EQ-i.It was found that females outperformed males in the reading comprehension test. However, no significant relationship was found between gender and major on one hand and reading comprehensions ability on the other hand.The relationship between major and reading comprehension ability was also statistically significant. Furthermore,it was found that there was no significant relationship between gender and major on one hand and EI in general on the other hand. The implications of the study are then discussed. Index Terms�EFL, EI, Emotional Intelligence, Gender, Major, Reading Comprehension