Investigating the Relationship between Test-Taking Anxiety and Test-Takers’ Performance on the IELTS Test
No Thumbnail Available
Date
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Teacher Training and Education Faculty, Widya Gama Mahakam Samarinda University
Abstract
Description
Although there is a growing body of research indicating that anxiety relates to foreign language learning, the correlation between anxiety and learners’ performance on a high-stakes testing context has not been fully explored. To date, studies investigating the relationship between test-taking anxiety and test-takers’ performance are not only limited in number, but also partial in nature as most of them only looked at one aspect of test-takers performance, i.e. listening, speaking, or writing performance only. This study is aimed at investigating the relationship between test-taking anxiety and test-takers’ performance with a holistic view, taking into account the test-takers’ performance on the listening, reading, speaking, and writing modules of the International English Language Testing System (IELTS™) test. The participants in this study were 15 government officials taking an IELTS test preparation program. Two instruments were utilized in this study: (1) a set of test-taking anxiety questionnaire items to measure the level of anxiety and, (2) the official IELTS™ test to measure test-takers’ performance. The results indicated that there was a weak to moderate correlation between test-taking anxiety and the test-takers’ performance across different modules of the IELTS test. These results corroborate the findings from previous studies.
Keywords
anxiety, test preparation, IELTS, high-stakes test