Investigating the Effect of Anxiety of Male and Female Iranian EFL Learners on their Writing Performance

Abstract

In an attempt to delve into the issue of affective variables related to language learning, the present study focuses on the relationship between anxiety and writing performance across Iranian EFL learners with the effect of gender. To do so, Second Language Writing Anxiety Inventory (SLWAI) developed by Cheng (2004) and writing performance test were applied to collect the data. 45 EFL learners were invited to participate in this study. T-test analysis revealed that significant difference was found in level of anxiety between male and female participants so that the male participants might experience relatively greater amoun t of anxiety. Additiontionally, the level of cognitive anxiety was higher in males. However, the level of somatic anxiety and avoidance behavior were not significantly different. Furthermore, significant differences were found in grammar and punctuation sub-scales of writing performance between male and female participants so that male was higher in two sub-scales than that of females. Various educational implications and recommendations for further works were proposed.

The relationship between writing anxiety, writing selfefficacy, and Spanish EFL students’ use of metacognitive writing strategies: a case study

“…doubting about the topic or the requirements of the task, thinking about how to organize their ideas, and having their minds going blank-, they dealt with them more calmly, with more confidence, and worrying less than lowlevel writers. These findings are consistent with the majority of the literature, which correlates a lower level of anxiety with a better writing performance (Lee and Krashen 2002;Huwari and Aziz 2011;Martinez et al 2011;Kara 2013;Meng and Tseng 2013;Jebreil et al 2014;Liu and Ni 2015;Stewart et al 2015;Ho 2016), but contrast with Entwistle and McCune (2004), who link writing anxiety with high academic performance. Likewise, the causes for participants' writing anxiety commented above are parallel to those described by Liu and Ni (2015) in their study on EFL Chinese university students.…”

“…These two issues have been commonly studied in isolation, but there is also research on the connection between emotional constructs and the final written outcome (Karakaya and Ülper 2011;Jebreil et al 2014;Kirmizi and Kirmizi 2015;Liu and Ni 2015;Ho 2016).…”

“…In the context of EFL learning, the vast majority of research on writing anxiety has been undertaken in university contexts, observing both how anxiety affects writing performance and which may be the reasons for writing anxiety (Huwari and Aziz 2011;Kara 2013;Meng and Tseng 2013;Jebreil et. al.…”

Foreign Language Anxiety in Academic Writing

“…Several studies were interested in exploring Foreign Language Anxiety (FLA) to the core skills in English language acquisition. First study comes from Jebreil et al (2015) where they investigate about the effect of gender aspect to Iranian writing's performance. As a result, they found that there is a significant different between males and female students' writing production in terms of grammar and punctuation.…”

Distinguish L2 Writing Tension from Anxiety

“…Jebreil, Azizifar, & Gowhary (2015) found male participants in their study might experience relatively greater amount of cognitive anxiety than female participants, especially in grammar and punctuation. On the contrary, Kırmızı & Kırmız (2015) found the male students in their study suffered less from writing anxiety because they had higher levels of writing self-efficacy.…”