Predictors of Foreign-Language Anxiety: Examining the ...

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English majors’ self-appraisal of their TL competence was only moderately accurate,having an overlap of 28.62%.This indicates that participants under- or overestimated themselves to a considerableextent. Underestimated proficiency may have contributed to a lower L2-self-image and higher anxiety, while overestimated proficiency may have boostedstudents’ L2-self-image and lowered their anxiety, since subjective proficiency wasfound to play a very important part in shaping learners’ L2-self-concept, as evidencedby the strong correlation between the two constructs (r = .880, p < .0005).In other words, learners with the same level of TL proficiency may have experiencedhigher or lower levels of anxiety, depending on their subjective feelingsconcerning their competence, which may be an explanation for the primacy of L2-related self-perceptions over proficiency in predicting FLA.As far as the other personality characteristic, perfectionism, is concerned,bivariate analysis indicated a rather small but significant role for this learner variable,as evidenced by the low correlation (r = -.210, p = .03) between participants’perfectionism and anxiety scores. However, with the influence of the other learnervariables taken into account, multiple regression analysis indicated an evenweaker effect for perfectionism, actually the weakest of all six learner characteristics,as a result of which it was not included in the final model. This indicates thatperfectionism, in this sample of first year English majors, did not make a uniquecontribution to explaining differences in anxiety level.It was an unexpected finding of the study that correlational analysis indicateda negative relationship between participants’ perfectionism and FLA scores, as itappears to contradict the findings of two interview studies reporting perfectionisttendencies among highly anxious FL learners (Gregersen & Horwitz, 2002; Price,1991), as well as earlier suggestions in the literature, according to which perfectionistlanguage learners, who pursue an idealized rather than a realistic level ofproficiency and who cannot take L2 imperfections in stride, are more likely to experiencehigh levels of FLA (Foss & Reitzel, 1991; Horwitz, 1990, 1996; Phillips,1992). Logical though this reasoning is at an intuitive level, further research is requiredto clarify the role of perfectionism in FLA for several reasons. To start with,the present study has been the first quantitative investigation into this issue, previousstudies have all been qualitative inquiries involving a small number oflearners (eight in Gregersen & Horwitz, 2002, and ten in Price, 1991), whichdocumented rather than measured perfectionist tendencies in learners. Therefore,there is no knowing to what extent, if at all, participants’ FLA was attributable toperfectionism.Second, the items of the scale for measuring perfectionism in this study weredeveloped on the basis of certain symptoms of perfectionism as described in qualitativestudies, rather than an exact, theoretically well-based definition of the construct,consequently they will have to be validated by future studies with differentgroups of learners and in different instructional contexts.Third, as evidenced by the construct validation of the questionnaire for motivationaland other learner characteristics (Tóth, 2007), it is rather difficult to drawthe line between perfectionism and a motivational characteristic: ambition to achievea high standard of a given L2. For this reason it is not unimaginable that certain ten-140 UPRT 2007: Empirical studies in English applied linguistics
dencies, attitudes labelled as perfectionist, thus interpreted as negative from thepoint of view of FLA in the studies referred to above, may in fact be factors motivatinglearners to have an increasingly high level of competence in the FL, which,in turn, may result in more confidence and less anxiety. This scenario may explainthe negative correlation revealed in this study between students’ perfectionismand FLA scores. Fourth, the results of the present investigation may also suggestthat perfectionism plays a different role for learners at various levels of proficiency.My hypothesis would be that perfectionism is more of a problem for beginners,for whom pursuing an idealized level of L2 proficiency, approximating thatof native speakers, may well be a source of anxiety, as for them such a goal mayindeed be unrealistic. However, the same goal on the part of advanced learners,especially would-be experts of the L2, may not be so unrealistic and unattainable,which may also be an explanation for the weak association in this study betweenperfectionism and FLA.Two of the examined learner variables, FL aptitude and strength of motivation,were not found to be predictors of first year English major participants’ FLA, neitherby themselves, nor in the company of the other learner characteristics. As forthe former, it was in response to a call for further research into the relationshipbetween FL aptitude and FLA that this study examined first year English majors’ability for FL learning as a potential predictor of the anxiety they experienced inEnglish classes and in other L2 situations (Ganschow & Sparks, 1996; Sparks et al.,2000). The findings of the present investigation did not confirm the hypothesisthat “a language aptitude instrument such as the MLAT might predict anxietyabout language learning just as well as an affective instrument such as theFLCAS” (Ganschow & Sparks, 1996, p. 208). Consequently, the assumption thathigher or lower levels of FLA are merely a consequence or manifestation of languageaptitude differences cannot be accepted in general terms. However, the caseof first year English major participants in this study does support the claims ofresearchers who, in contrast with the proponents of the LCDH, argue for the existenceof FLA independent of linguistic aptitude differences, saying languagelearners may experience anxiety about FL learning and communication for variousreasons other than language learning ability (MacIntyre, 1995 a, b; Horwitz, 2000).As far as strength of motivation is concerned, although no previous study hasspecifically inquired into the relationship between motivation and FLA, some researcherssuggested a reciprocal relationship between the two affective constructs,relying on the results of correlational and factor analytic studies usually indicatinga negative association between various indices of motivation and language learninganxiety (Gardner & MacIntyre, 1993b). At the same time, others proposed apotential positive relationship between the two learner variables, based on cases ofstrongly motivated language learners with high levels of anxiety (Horwitz, 1996;Jackson, 2002; Kitano, 2001). In the present study, though a very weak positiveassociation was found between participants’ FLA scores and the strength of theirmotivation for learning English, it did not reach a significant level, and the multipleregression analysis did not indicate a significant effect for this variable either.Tóth, Zs. Predictors of foreign-language anxiety 141
Page 2 and 3: have been investigated, no previous
Page 4 and 5: Pohlman, & Bishop-Marbury, 1991; Ga
Page 6 and 7: Besides self-perceptions of TL comp
Page 8 and 9: InstrumentsSelf-report instruments
Page 10 and 11: CompetitivenessTo assess how compet
Page 12 and 13: Table 1: Correlations between cogni
Page 14 and 15: large effect size. The estimated co
Page 16 and 17: As for the other significant predic
Page 20 and 21: The findings concerning the non-sig
Page 22 and 23: ReferencesAida, Y. (1994). Examinat
Page 24 and 25: Horwitz, E. K. (1996). Even teacher
Page 26: Wine, J. D. (1982). Evaluation anxi

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