Chapter 1 Introduction引言

1.1 Background of the Research研究背景

在現代社會里，測試給人的評價幾乎無處不在。它是在工業，政府在教育中的廣泛應用，與其他部門來幫助做出決定的。當人們考慮測試的多種用途，其中測試可以確定他們的生活方式，他們經常感到焦慮。焦慮突出的文學作為一個在周圍的心理教育測試#p#分頁標題#e#正在進行的戲劇性的循環。Testing is almost ubiquitous in this modern society which is always used to makeevaluation on people. It is widely used in education and by the industrial, government,and other sectors to help make decisions about people. When people consider the manyuses of tests and the ways in which tests can determine their lives, they often feel anxious. http://ukthesis.org/jyx     Test anxiety figures prominently in the literature as one of the villains in the ongoingdrama surrounding psycho-educational testing. Therefore, the past half century, there hasbeen a lot of interest in test anxiety research, including a lot of aspects, such as listeningand speaking. On the whole, the 50-year research projects have developed from smallscale to large scale and from unsystematic experienced-based projects to systematictheory-based projects. However, there are sill quite lots of issues remain unresolved.

1.2 Significance of the Research研究意義

In China, the importance of English is obviously seen from the fact that English isone of the required subjects for College Entrance Examination apart from Chinese andmathematics. English is a main subject for students from primary schools to colleges, andwriting is one of the most important skills in English learning. During English testprocess, students have often been troubled by the phenomenon of test anxiety. Whenstudents experience test anxiety, they fear poor test results, which leads to negativeevaluation and in turn has a negative impact on language learning. That is why more andmore researches about English test anxiety have been concluded. Although there are lotsof theories and hypotheses about the impact of test anxiety on test performance in China,there are sill quite lots of issues remain unresolved.First of all , the English writing test anxiety of college students has seldom beentouched http://ukthesis.org/jyx/ by the researchers. In China, for college students, English is one of the mostbasic subjects. Therefore, it is easier for them to feel nervous when they take Englishexam. Besides the facts mentioned above, English writing test anxiety in colleges hascaught few researchers' eyes.Furthermore, the actual effect of writing test anxiety on English writing testperformance still remains untapped. Researches just did a lot of researches on therelationship between test anxiety and general test scores of general subjects. They did notdo the research on the relationship between English writing test anxiety and Englishwriting test performance. This is what we are going to tackle in this study. The presentstudy aims to answer the following questions:Question 1: What's the situation of English writing test anxiety among college students?What factors affect students' English writing test anxiety?Question 2: Is there any difference of English writing test anxiety among students indifferent levels, grades and genders?Question 3: Is there any relationship between English writing test anxiety and students'English writing performance?The results are expected to unveil the potential impact of English writing testanxiety upon outcome of English acquisition as evaluated by students' measured Englishperformance, and thus provide suggestions for English learning and teaching. Andfindings are expected to be helpful for English teachers to make a fairer judgment and forstudents to reduce writing test anxiety.

1.3 Organization of the Thesisdissertation結構

The thesis consists of five chapters. The main contents are as follows:Chapter 1 is a brief introduction to the present study. The background, significanceand aims of the research are presented.Chapter 2 provides a detailed literature review, on which the present study is based.It presents the key definitions of this thesis. A brief historical test anxiety developmentand the theories on test anxiety development are presented. Language learning anxietyand test anxiety are also examined as they are closely related to each other.Chapter 3 introduces the research methods. The subjects and instruments used in theexperiment and the whole process of the experiment are described in details. Theobtained data is processed with SPSS.Chapter 4 analyzes and discusses the result of the experiment. Moreover, thischapter summarizes the findings of the research and discusses the different factorsaffecting English writing test anxiety of college students.Chapter 5 gives a conclusion to the whole thesis. The pedagogical implications,limitations and further studies of the present research are put forward.                                   

Chapter 5 Conclusions結論

5.1 Major Findings主要成果

在測試的情況下，焦慮是我國教育體系中一個普遍的問題。高校學生，考試焦慮也是一個問題，這影響了他們的#p#分頁標題#e#測試成績。如今，英語是大學生的主體。當他們面對英語測試時，讓他們有壓力，這是很自然的。本研究的目的是探討在英語測試的大學生考試焦慮，以各種級別的焦慮情緒的變化，在不同的學校的焦慮之間的關系的差異，英語考試焦慮與考試成績之間的關系和英語測試焦慮、測試任務。Anxiety in testing situations is a widespread problem in our educational system. Forcollege students, test anxiety is also a problem, which influences their test performance.Nowadays, English is a main subject for college students. When they are faced withEnglish tests, it is natural for them to have pressure. The purpose of the study has been toinvestigate the college students' test anxiety in English tests, with special references toanxiety changes in various grades, the anxiety differences among different schools, therelationship between English test anxiety and test score and the relationship betweenEnglish test anxiety and test tasks. Through the empirical study, we have obtained severalfindings, which are the responses to the three questions.Finding 1: The survey of the status of English writing test anxiety suggests that Englishwriting test anxiety is prevalent in college students, just in different degrees. Thesituation of English writing test anxiety among college students is very serious. Thenumber of students who have English writing test anxiety covers 52.60% of the totalnumber. And the number of students with high English writing test anxiety has reachedabout 9.74% of the total number.Finding 2: The English writing test anxiety is influenced by four factors, including"concerns about poor studies","negative elements of test environment ", "concerns fortest results", "interference of unexpected events". They are closely related. Furthermore,the results of this study show that the four factors are correlated with each other.Finding 3: There are no significant differences of English Writing Test Anxiety betweeenstudents in different grades and levels, but girls tend to be more anxious than boys inEnglish writing test. Firstly, the reason may be that both freshmen and sophomoreshaven't got any pressure from jobs or further study, so they do not pay much attention tothe writing test. Moreover, after one-year study, sophomores have made some progress,but the requirements for them are higher than that for freshmen. Therefore, the writingtest anxiety of sophomores is relatively similar to that of freshmen. Secondly, those topstudents may also worry about the writing test results and are afraid of negativeevaluations of others. They have higher expectation of themselves. Consequently, theyare also anxious about the writing test. Thirdly, maybe girls are less confident than boysand they care more about test results than boys do.Finding 4: There is a strongly significant negative correlation between students' Englishwriting test anxiety and their English writing test scores. According to the tables, Englishwriting test anxiety and English writing test scores are highly correlated. Also, we canknow that there is a negative relationship between English writing test anxiety andEnglish writing test scores. That is to say, the higher the English writing test anxieties,the lower the English writing test scores. The correlation between English writing testscores and English writing test anxiety is significant at the level of 0.01 in Grade l and0.05 in Grade 2. It indicates there is a negative significant correlation between theEnglish writing test scores and English writing test anxiety. It is reasonable because testanxiety plays an important role in any kind of tests; it also has the same influence inEnglish tests. Generally speaking, the higher test anxiety the candidate has, the more hisor her performance will be influenced.Finding 5: Students' English writing test anxiety is significantly correlated with theirEnglish writing accuracy. Overall, the mistakes in students' writings can be divided intoseveral types, including spelling mistake, misuse of personal pronoun, collocation,incoherence, Chinese English, and all that.#p#分頁標題#e#

5.2 Pedagogical Implications啟示性含義

Some pedagogical implications would be beneficial in the English writing education.The findings of this study are applicable to a wide range of research areas includingEnglish testing and English teaching pedagogy. Implications for TeachersFirstly, English writing test anxiety has an indirect or direct effect on students'English writing test scores. The relationship between English writing test anxiety andEnglish writing test scores is negative, the higher the test anxiety, the lower the testscores. So the school administrators, teachers and students' parents should pay specialattention to students' writing test anxiety so that the students can get high-test scores inEnglish writing test. On the one hand, English teachers should know that most of thestudents are still unconscious of their own anxious reactions and the potential impact ontheir writing performance. It is the teacher's duty to inform the students about moreanxiety knowledge and help them to develop their awareness to resolve anxieties andprovide more suggestions concerning the correct coping strategies.Secondly, as students' performance has been found vulnerable or susceptible toanxious feelings, English teachers should avoid overstressing the competitive andselective.importance of the writing test and consequently imposing excessive pressure onstudents before, during and after tests. And also, teachers should always consider thepossibility that test anxiety is responsible for students' poor test performance beforeattributing the deficit scores to a lack of ability, inadequate background or poormotivation. Teachers should change the misconception of "higher pressure, higherefficiency" and guide the students to properly estimate their ability, set proper goals,maintain appropriate pressure, pay attention to the learning process instead of the testresults and develop the habit that treat the examination as homework and treat thehomework as the examination.Thirdly, another reason of writing test anxiety is that students do not have goodstudy habits of absorbing and extracting information. Poor learning ability, and notknowing how to deal with exams lead them to fear of the examination. This requiresteachers to develop students' good study habits, that is reducing the test anxiety byeffective learning strategies. O'Malley and Cohen's studies have shown that the learningstrategies can help students improve their learning. Thus, teachers can consciously trainthe students to apply writing strategies to deal with the writing task. For example, useassociation, classification to memorize words, often make summaries of oral or writtenmaterials and so on. In addition, teachers should train students to make self-monitoring,self-assessment, be aware of their own writing pros and cons. Then they can plan theirstudies and improve their writing and reduce the writing test anxiety.Fourthly, teachers ought to try their best to avoid those negative elements of the testenvironment in order to offer students a quiet and pleasant test environment. Implications for StudentsDuring the writing test, if students experience high test anxiety, they can take deepbreath, imply themselves to relax. When they don't know how to express their idea inEnglish, or can't remember some words or phrases, they can use other simpler words orphrases to replace.The second way is to listen to music and do some sports which makestudents relaxed. The third method is to talk to teachers, friends or parents about the testanxiety. This helps students face the reality, develop their advantages and achieveconfidence. Lastly but most importantly, Students have to make good preparations forwriting tests. The first way is to make practice in writing. As a saying goes, practicemakes perfect. So enough practice can efficiently reduce students' test anxiety.All in all, both teachers should adopt a correct attitude to writing test anxiety. Theyshould pay enough attention to it, but not over-emphasize it. As teachers, they shouldguide the students to properly estimate their ability, set proper goals, maintainappropriate pressure, and pay attention to the learning process instead of the test results.As students, they ought to develop good study habits of English writing, practice a lotand make good preparations for writing tests.#p#分頁標題#e#

5.3 Limitations of the Research研究的局限性

Several limitations are drawn from the present study. First, the study is aimed toinvestigate the writing anxiety phenomenon in English tests among college students. Thewhole sample is relatively small, because we just research on freshmen and sophomores,without investigating juniors and seniors who may be also under certain writing testanxiety. Therefore, cautions should be taken while generalizing the findings to a widerextent. Further conclusions can be drawn only when a larger scale of survey is coductedcovering a broader range of subjects.Second, in the study, the quantitative method is used to investigate the relationshipbetween English writing test anxiety and English writing test scores. However, theanxiety scales and obtained scores might not equally explain the real levels of anxietystudents experience. The results would seem to be more convincing with extended timespan. In other words, a qualitative experiment could present a different perspective on thetopic. It might give more insights to look into the relationship deeper in length. Therefore,interview and class observation can be helpful to have a clearer picture for future studies.5.4 Further StudiesIn the study, we conducted a comprehensive study to measure students' Englishwriting test anxiety, to study factors affecting the English writing test anxiety, to find outdifferences among different grades and different levels and different genders in Englishtest anxiety, and to study the correlation between students' English writing test anxietyand their writing test performances.http://ukthesis.org/   Further researches can be resumed to find out thestatus of English writing test anxiety of juniors and seniors. In addition, English writingtest anxiety may be influenced by different writing tasks or the importance of writing test.All these quetions need to be proved by further research.