How does anxiety influence language performance? From the perspectives of foreign language classroom anxiety and cognitive test anxiety

Abstract

This study examined the relationships between students' foreign language classroom anxiety and cognitive test anxiety and their College English Test Band 4 (CET-4) performance. A questionnaire was distributed to 921 Chinese university students to understand the nature and degree of the examined relationships. Follow-up interviews with 12 students were used to shed further light on uncovering mechanisms of relationships found in the survey. Results revealed three factors of anxiety, explaining 43. 14% of the total variance examined in the quesionnaire items. Means, standard deviations, the internal consistency for each factor, and zero-order correlations among the three factors were calculated. Correlation and multiple regression of the anxiety factors and test scores were then conducted. Results confirmed that cognitive test anxiety factor was a significant negative predictor of language achievement. Interview results did not fully support the relationships found in the survey. Most students did not perceive themselves to be very anxious in their university settings, either in classrooms or in testing situations. However, they did express their anxiety toward English speaking skills in the classroom. The differential perspectives of anxiety revealed from both analyses indicate that a better understanding of language classroom anxiety and cognitive test anxiety can help students and teachers optimize their foreign langauge learning and teaching practices.

Foreign Language Anxiety and Communicative Performance

“…The structural equation modeling run to answer the first question of the study indicated that all components of speaking were lower than 0.30, showing significance and they all, were in a negative and significant correlation with anxiety, the sample size was adequate for running the model and the structural regression model enjoyed a good fit to show that the components of speaking had significant contributions to their latent variable and all components of speaking performance were in a negative correlation with anxiety. These results are consistent with those of other researchers (Mazouzi, 2013;Thornbury, 2005;Woodrow, 2006;Brown, 2000;Mahripah, 2014;Tanveer, 2007;Kayaoğlu & Sağlamel, 2013;Hanifa, 2018;Baran-Łucarz, 2013;Mahmoodzadeh, 2012;Suleimenova, 2013;Dewaele & Ip, 2013;Leong & Ahmadi, 2017;Subekti, 2018;Zheng & Cheng, 2018;Liu, 2018), which found significant negative relationships between the anxiety and speaking performance. Conversely, the other two components of vocabulary and grammar as components more related with writing should take a different route and not be so affected by anxiety.…”

Association between Oral Error Corrections of University Teacher and English Majors’ Language Anxiety in Philippine Higher Education Context

“…Anxiety is identified as a distinct affective variable in second language research. According to Tanveer (2007) as cited by Zheng and Cheng (2018) that feeling of anxiety is one of the commonly expressed by second/foreign language learners in the learning speaking a second/foreign language and also considered to exert a negative effect on communication to the target language.…”

Examining the Roles of Self-Efficacy Beliefs, Self-Regulated Learning and Foreign Language Anxiety in the Academic Achievement of Tertiary EFL Learners

“…Horwitz, Horwitz and Cope (1986) defined foreign-language classroom anxiety as "a distinct complex of self-perceptions, beliefs, feelings, and behaviours related to classroom language learning arising from the uniqueness of the language learning process" (p. 128). Studies in the literature have reported a negative correlation between high levels of anxiety and language achievement and performance (Demirdaş & Bozdoğan, 2013;Hewitt & Stephenson, 2012;Salehi & Marefat, 2014;Woodrow, 2006;Zheng & Cheng, 2018). The influence of FLA on academic performance in a foreign language is quite complex, that is, students with high levels of FLA generally exhibit a lower level of proficiency in English, whereas low achievement could be also a cause of FLA (Trang, Baldauf Jr., & Moni, 2013).…”

“…In the current study, three different measures were used to reflect students' learning-related beliefs and strategies, and it was hypothesised that these constructs would help us to predict the attendance rates and academic performance which students have at the end of the autumn term. A vast number of studies have identified FL self-efficacy (Bai et al, 2019;Ferla, Valcke & Cai, 2009;Honicke & Broadbent, 2016;Mills et al, 2007;Sarıçoban & Behjoo, 2016) and FLA (Hewitt & Stephenson, 2012;Woodrow, 2006;Zheng & Cheng, 2018) as predictors of academic performance. Based on the findings of some studies from different educational settings (Bai et al, 2019;Honicke & Broadbent, 2016;Raoofi et al, 2012), it was also hypothesised that selfefficacy would be the strongest predictor of academic achievement.…”