The Effect of Indonesian EFL Senior High School Students’ Anxiety on Their Writing Achievement in Explanation Text
Karisma Kurniawati1, Syafi’ul Anam2 Universitas Negeri Surabaya, Indonesia Email: [email protected]1
Submitted: 16/06/2023 Revised: 12/07/2023 Accepted: 28/07/2023 E-ISSN : 2579-4574 P-ISSN : 2549-7359
Abstract. Writing is considered to be one of the most challenging skills to learn. Accordingly, some issues appeared and may be faced by the students while writing. One of the writing issues that can be a serious problem is writing anxiety. Hence, in this study, the researcher tried to find out the eleven graders students' writing anxiety levels and investigate the significant difference of writing anxiety on students' writing achievement in an explanation text writing. This study used quantitative approach with ex-post facto research design. The researcher conducted this study at one of the public senior high schools in Gresik. There were 30 eleven graders taken as subjects from one class. Then, to gather the data, two instruments were used. First were the Second Language Writing Anxiety Inventory (SLWAI) close-ended questionnaires. Second was students' writing scores in an explanation text writing. To analyze the data, the researcher used both descriptive statistics and inferential statistics (ANOVA). The results found that the eleven grades’ students had a moderate level of writing anxiety. And the somatic anxiety was dominant had by them. Another result revealed that there is no significant difference in each type of writing anxiety on the students' writing achievement in explanation text. And only cognitive anxiety had a moderate size effect on the student's scores. So, based on this study, the writing anxiety did not influence whether the students succeed in their explanation text writing.
Keywords: Writing Anxiety, Writing Achievement, Explanation Text
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INTRODUCTION
Writing is one of productive skills and considered as the most challenging skills to learn by the students (Oh & Lee, 2021; Sumarsono & Mbato, 2021). This is due to in writing, the students are required to go through some complex stages. For example, they have to think about the topic, read and find many sources related to the topic, generate and develop the idea into good sentences or even paragraphs, revise, and edit their writing (Oh & Lee, 2021). Thus, those complicatedness in writing often raise some problems for the students. For example, they are afraid if they cannot write correctly, doubt with their ideas whether it is correct or not, not believe with themselves whether they can or cannot do their writing task, or fear that they make mistakes and errors in their writing (Oh & Lee, 2021; Turkben, 2021; Yulianawati, 2019).
As a result, it makes the students can give up handily to do their writing task and even can lead to be more serious problems such as writing anxiety.
Cheng (2004) defined that writing anxiety is a fairly anxiousness condition linked to writing. It includes several kinds of disordered thoughts, increased physical excitement, and inappropriate behaviors. Likewise, it is a negative condition where students experience tension, nervousness, fear or even feel stomach cramps before or during the writing process since it relates to the students' psychological and physiological state (Başkan, 2021; Karahan, 2021; Syarifudin, 2020; Turkben, 2021).
Those conditions can be happened because several things (Wahyuni et al., 2019). For instance, first it based on the students’ internal feelings and emotions. In this case, the level of students’ optimism and beliefs contribute to be the main focus for students on learning second or foreign language writing skills. Second, it happens because the fear of criticism. It relates to the students’ psychosocial threat in which the students are afraid if their classmates would find out about their mistakes and dread of teachers' critical comments. Not only that, but the teaching strategies can also be considered as one of writing anxiety causes among EFL/ ESL learners. Cheng (2004b) for example, he found that the students felt anxious when given a strict deadline and forced to write on topics they are unfamiliar with, and had to concentrate on the grammatical and language used. Fourth, cognitive processes may potentially contribute to the emergence of writing anxiety. Due to their weak language ability and subpar writing abilities, students in this situation worry about writing. Therefore, it can be concluded that writing anxiety can occur not only because of the affective aspects since it connected to the students’ emotions, feelings, or motivation, but it also because of cognitive factors that link to the students’ understanding and knowledge in learning writing.
Apart from the factors that caused writing anxiety, several types of writing anxiety also have been found. Those are cognitive, avoidance behavior, and somatic.
First is cognitive anxiety. It associates with the students’ mental alterations. Cheng (2004) argued that cognitive anxiety refers to mental condition such as unfavorable expectations, performance obsession, and worry about other’ views. Second is avoidance behavior. It regards to actions that avoid something. In this case, the students avoid to write Cheng (2004). The last is somatic anxiety. It is anxiety that that emerges as physical symptoms, such as an uncomfortable feeling after experiencing anxiety issues. Hence, knowing the types of writing anxiety becomes an
important thing. If the students are aware in what types of writing anxiety that they are mostly have, they will be easier to decrease their negative feelings. conversely, if they don't know it then they will get stuck more in a bad condition. Because the more the students stand on all writing anxiety types, the more difficult for them to learn or even express their ideas into writing and the lower the score they will get.
In senior high school, several texts need to be written by the students. One of the texts is an explanation text. It is a text that explains the process of why and how something such as social and science phenomena happen (Garry, 1980; Winita et al., 2020). Moreover, this text is categorized as a short text. So, there will be around two or three paragraphs. Although the length of the essay is not too long for the students to write, the students often face some problems while writing the explanation text.
For instance, first, they cannot understand the concept of writing this text. Second, it is difficult to express ideas because they cannot develop their imagination. Third, the students are not familiar with changing some experiences or events into written form. Fourth, they are not motivated to learn. Then, they do not have enough skill to write (Winita et al., 2020). Moreover, some real issues found in one of public senior high school where this study conducted. The students could not comprehend the materials and the writing tasks well. Consequently, they could not differentiate between the explanation text and procedure text. Both texts are different because in explanation, the students are required to explain the process not just mention the stages or steps of the processes of something. Next problem is the lack of vocabulary used by the students. It was clear that there are many repetitions of words found in every explanation of the existing text. Thus, the students could not get a good score in their writing task.
Based on those explanations discussed above, some previous research has investigated students’ anxiety in writing. Başkan (2021) studied the relationship between writing anxiety and the Turkish students’ self-efficacy while learning Turkish as their foreign language. The researcher found that the students’ self-efficacy correlate significantly to their writing anxiety. It has been proven that the higher the students have self-efficacy, the less they get writing anxiety. Furthermore, Khabooshan et al (2022) explored the Iranian students’ types such as extrovert and introvert, the sense and intuition, the students’ thoughts and feelings, and the type of evaluating versus perceiving, and relating them to writing anxiety. The results of this study revealed that first, there is negative relationship between extrovert and writing anxiety although the statistical result showed it was significant. Otherwise, there is relationship that is positively significant between introvert students and writing anxiety. The researchers stated that the more extrovert the students, the less they feel anxious while writing. But, the more introvert the students, the higher their anxiety level they have in writing. Second, there is similar result between the students’ personality types and the sense versus intuition. The results showed that there is negative but significant relationship between the intuition and writing anxiety. However, the sense actually showed the significantly positive relationship with the writing anxiety. Third, there is positive relationship between students’
thought but negative in students’ feeling and writing anxiety even though both of them reach the significance value. Fourth, there is no relationship between the
perceiving type and writing anxiety. Then, there is significant correlation between the evaluating type and writing anxiety. Moreover, İpek & Karabuğa (2022)investigated the influence of Four-Square Writing Method on Writing Anxiety towards B2 Turkish students. The results indicated that the four-square writing method (FSWM) give significant impact to the students’ anxiety in writing. Not only that, but FSWM also play a big role for students since it can contribute to develop the students writing ability, promote the students’ psychological conditions, and motivate them to learn and write. Then, Park (2022) examined the L2 Korean pre-service teachers’ writing anxiety and the utility of freewriting in enhancing the L2 writing fluency. This study revealed that the level of pre-service teachers was middle. They mostly feel anxious because they did not have high self-confidence in writing. Hence, the use of freewriting became an effective way to improve the self-confidence level of pre- service teachers since they can choose the provided topic freely as they want. From that reason, their writing fluency increase better and their writing anxiety will decrease.
Besides, a study from Indonesia by Syarifudin (2020) researched the level, types, and causes of writing anxiety among EFL undergraduate students as state university in Mataram. This study showed that first, the students experienced writing anxiety on a high level. Second, the students are mostly having anxiety in cognitive anxiety rather than in somatic and avoidance behavior anxiety. Third, mostly, the students felt anxious because they got some problems in linguistic features and cannot understand the topic that they have to write. Moreover, Arindra & Ardi (2020) studied the writing anxiety and correlate it with the assessment rubrics. The results found that the students writing anxiety and the writing assessment rubrics used by the students were at moderate level. Not only that but this study also presented that there is strong but negative relationship between students’ writing anxiety and writing assessments rubrics. It implies that the use of writing rubrics helped them to reduce their anxiety in writing because they will use it as a guideline for measuring how good their writing is. So, they can predict their score in writing early than the one who do not use writing assessment rubric from the teacher.
Even though many previous researchers have been investigated the students’
anxiety in writing, they mostly researched the correlation between writing anxiety and another thing. Then, none of previous study especially studies from Indonesia that researched the effect of eleven graders’ writing anxiety on their writing achievement while writing an explanation text. Therefore, to fill the gaps, this study aims to find out the students’ writing anxiety level while writing explanation text and investigate whether the writing anxiety give significant difference on the students’
writing achievements. So, the researcher formulates two research questions;
1. To what extent do the students feel anxious while writing an explanation text?
2. Do the students with different levels of anxiety vary in their writing achievement?
RESEARCH METHOD
The researcher used quantitative research with ex-post facto as the research design. Ex-post facto is used for measuring causal links by taking note of the present situation and searching the past for potential causes. With this study design, the
investigation is conducted after the event without the researcher's involvement, making it less likely that the researcher will alter the independent variable because doing so would be immoral (Ary, Jacobs, Sorenson, and Walker, 2014). Hence, by using this ex-post facto research, the researcher could answer the research questions of this study. The subjects of this study were 30 eleven graders of an intact class at one of the public senior high schools in Gresik. Moreover, two research instruments were used by the researcher. The first was a close-ended questionnaire. Second was students’ writing scores in an explanation text writing. The researcher got the students’ scores from the teacher. To measure the students’ scores, the teacher gave the test sheets to the students. The students were asked to do the test by writing an explanation text based on the provided topic given by the teacher and had to do it according to the time limit. After that, they had to submit their test sheet and the teacher gave them scores. Thus, there was no intervention of the researcher in giving writing scores. Besides, The questionnaire was the Second Language Writing Anxiety Inventory (SLWAI) adapted from Cheng (2004) to find out the student’s level of writing anxiety while writing an explanation text. There are 22 items including three aspects of writing anxiety, namely cognitive (items no 1, 3, 7, 9, 14, 17, 20, 21), avoidance behavior (items no 4, 5, 10, 12, 16, 18, 22), and somatic anxiety (items no 2, 6, 8, 11, 13, 15, 19). The questionnaire had a good reliability, as indicated by the Cronbach alpha value of 0.75. Besides, the researcher used a Likert scale consisting of five scales. So, the students can choose whether they strongly agreed, agree, neutral, disagree, or strongly disagree. To collect the data, several steps were taken by the researcher. First, the researcher prepared the questionnaires. Second, the researcher distributed the questionnaire to the students as well as explained how to answer the questions in the questionnaire. Third, the researcher gathered the questionnaires answered by the students. Fourth, the researcher asked for the student’s scores in an explanation text writing to the teacher. After that, the researcher analyzed the data. In analyzing the data, there are two ways that the researcher took since there are two instruments used in this study. To answer the first research question, the researcher used descriptive statistics. Through descriptive statistics, the researcher could find out and describe the student’s level of writing anxiety in an explanation text writing. The researcher analyzed the data through SPSS. To know and classify the level interval of the students’ writing anxiety, the researcher computed the total average of the students’ writing anxiety from the questionnaires and used visual binning in SPSS. Therefore, the level interval could be taken. Finally, the researcher interpreted the findings.
Table 1. Classification of Students’ Writing Anxiety Level
Level Interval Interpretation
<=67 Low
68-74 Middle
>78+ High
Next, the researcher used inferential statistic to investigate the significance difference of writing anxiety on the students’ writing achievements. In this case, ANOVA was used by the researcher.
RESULT AND DISCUSSION
In this part, the researcher presented the findings and discussion of this study.
Students’ Writing Anxiety Level
To answer the research question 1, the researcher used descriptive statistics for investigating and describing the level of students’ writing anxiety while writing an explanation text.
Table 2. Descriptive statistics of Students’ Writing Anxiety Level
N Mean SD Range Minimum Maximum
Students’
Writing Anxiety Level
30 70.83 7.344 34 52 86
The results in table 2 and 3 revealed that from 3o students, the computation of students’ writing anxiety was 52-86 with (M= 70.83, SD= 7.344). Moreover, this study also found that there were three classification of students’ anxiety consisting of low, middle, and high. As it showed on the table below, there were 10 students who had low level, 11 students who were on middle level, and the rest experienced high level of writing anxiety. Since the M= 70.83, the frequency was 11, and the percentage is 36.7%, hence, the eleven grade students’ level of writing anxiety in this study were considered middle.
Table 3. Frequency Distribution of Students’ Writing Anxiety Level Level Interval Interpretation Frequency Percentage
<=67 Low 10 33.3%
68-74 Middle 11 36.7%
>78+ High 9 30.3%
∑ (Total) 30 100%
After that, to know the detailed of each aspect, the researcher calculated the average and standard deviation of each items of writing anxiety and the total items of questionnaires. First, the researcher found that in somatic anxiety, the total average was M= 3.54, SD 0.95. As it was presented in Table 4, there were seven items of somatic anxiety. The results reported that item number 2 had the highest mean (M=3.93, SD 0.58) while item no 19 had the lowest mean (M= 2.77, SD= 1.22). It indicates that from 30 students, they mostly felt that their heart beating when they
were asked to do the writing explanation text test with the specified time duration.
Although their heart beating fast, they did not usually feel their body freeze while they wrote their explanation text.
Table 4. Somatic Anxiety
Number Statements M SD
2 I feel my heart pounding when I write English (an explanation) text under time constraint
3.93 0.58 13 I often feel panic when I write English (an explanation
text) text under time constraint.
3.87 0.73 8 I tremble or perspire when I write an explanation text
under time pressure.
3.67 1.06 6 My mind often goes blank when I start to work on an
explanation text.
3.63 0.96 11 My thoughts become jumbled when I write an
explanation text under time constraint.
3.63 1.15 15 I freeze up when unexpectedly asked to write an
explanation text.
3.21 0.98 19 I usually feel my whole-body rigid and tense when I write
an explanation text.
2.77 1.22
Average 3.54 0.95
Moreover, the other aspect of writing anxiety was avoidance behavior. The total items in this aspect were seven. However, there were only three items such as item number 12, 22, 4, and 16 that had the high means. Besides, item number 5 and 10 had the same means (M=2.73) with slightly different standard deviation (SD= 1.20 and SD= 1.23). Meanwhile, the item that had the lowest mean was item number 18 (M=
2.10, SD= 0.98). Since the highest means of this aspect was item number 12 (M= 3.33, SD= 1.12), it means that most of the students preferred to use another language such as their first language if they were given some choices to choose the language used for writing an explanation text. Then, when all the average items were calculated, the results revealed that this aspect reached the lowest total average since in the table 5 showed M= 2.94, SD=1.16 although the total number of items in this aspect was same with the total items in somatic anxiety.
Table 5. Avoidance Behavior Anxiety
Number Statements M SD
12 Unless I have no choice, I would not use English to write text.
3.33 1.12 22 Whenever possible, I would use English to write. 3.13 1.19 4 I often choose to write down my thoughts in English. 3.03 1.21 16 I would do my best to excuse myself if asked to write
English text.
2.93 1.20
5 I usually do my best to avoid writing English. 2.73 1.20 10 I do my best to avoid situations in which I have to write in
English.
2.73 1.23 18 I usually seek every possible chance to write English text
outside of class.
2.10 0.98
Average 2.94 1.16
Next, the third aspect of writing anxiety was cognitive anxiety. The findings of this research showed that the total average was M= 3.19. It became the second highest total average after somatic anxiety as it can be seen in Table 6. Different from the total items number of the previous aspects, the cognitive anxiety had a greater number of items and statements. Hence, there were eight items in this aspect. The most dominant items of cognitive anxiety chose by the students was items number three with M= 3.60 and SD= 0.77. In this case, the students often felt worried if they knew that their explanation text will be evaluated by their friends and teacher.
However, the minor item chose by the students was item number one since the mean was M= 2.73, SD= 0.97.
Table 6. Cognitive Anxiety
Number Statements M SD
3 While writing an explanation text, I feel worried and uneasy if I know they will be evaluated
3.60 0.77 9 If my explanation text is to be evaluated, I would worry
about getting a very poor grade.
3.53 1.07 17 I don’t worry at all about what other people would think
of my English writing.
3.33 1.12 20 I’m afraid of my explanation text being chosen as a
sample for discussion in class.
3.27 1.17 7 I don’t worry that my writing is a lot worse than others. 3.17 1.11 21 I’m not afraid at all that my explanation text would be
rated as very poor.
3.00 0.83 1 While writing an explanation text, I’m not nervous at all 2.87 0.97 14 I’m afraid that the other students would deride my
explanation text writing if they read it.
2.73 1.04
Average 3.19 1.01
Then, the researcher examined in what type of writing anxiety that mostly had by the students. The results showed that they have high level of anxiety in somatic anxiety. It can be seen that the frequency of students in somatic anxiety is 9 and it is higher than the frequency in cognitive (8) and avoidance behavior (7). However, the students experienced low level of writing anxiety on cognitive anxiety. It happens because the highest frequency number of low levels is 13 when it was compared to other low frequency number based on each writing anxiety type. The results can be seen as it follows in figure 1:
Figure 1. Students’ Writing Anxiety Aspect
Those findings above are similar with Arindra & Ardi (2020) and Park (2022) reported that EFL and ESL learners have moderate level in writing anxiety. They confirmed that the learners mostly feel anxious because they are not confident with themselves when they are writing. Not only that Park (2020) also stated that the reason why the students feel anxious were fear that their writing will be evaluated by other students. It is aligned with this study since the cognitive anxiety was on the second place after somatic anxiety according to the highest frequency. However, the results of this study are opposite with Syarifudin (2020) showed that the most dominant writing anxiety type had by the students was cognitive anxiety.
Students’ Writing Achievement across Different Anxiety Levels
Next, the researcher investigated the effect of writing anxiety on eleven graders’ writing achievements in an explanation text writing. In this study the researcher reported each type of writing anxiety and examined whether there were significant differences of the explanation text writing achievements among students with varying levels of anxiety.
Somatic Anxiety on Student’s Writing Achievement of an Explanation Text
Prior to run the ANOVA, the researcher found that there were three levels of somatic anxiety such as high, middle, and low. There were nine students who had high level of somatic anxiety with M= 60.0, SD 10.80. Then, ten students had middle level of somatic anxiety. The total mean of this level was M= 61.6, SD= 8.73. And the rest eleven students had low level in this anxiety aspect by M= 57.6, SD= 3.29. As it was presented in Table 7 below.
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14
Somatic Anxiety Avoidance Behavior Anxiety
Cognitive Anxiety
Students' Writing Anxiety Aspect
Low Middle High
Table 7. Descriptive Results of Somatic Anxiety on Students’ Writing Achievement of an Explanation Text
Descriptives
WritingScore
N Mean
Std.
Deviation
Std.
Error
95% Confidence Interval for Mean
Minimum
Maximu m Lower Bound Upper Bound
low 11 57.64 3.295 .993 55.42 59.85 53 63
middle 10 61.60 8.733 2.762 55.35 67.85 53 80
high 9 60.00 10.805 3.602 51.69 68.31 40 77
Total 30 59.67 7.906 1.443 56.71 62.62 40 80
After that, a one-way between-groups ANOVA was conducted to examined the effect of students’ writing anxiety (somatic anxiety) on students’ writing achievement. There was no significant difference of somatic anxiety on students’
writing achievement. It showed that p >.05 level for three conditions [F (2, 27) = 0.65, p= 0.528]. Although the results did not reach the statistical difference, the actual effect size still tested in mean scores between the groups. And the result was small.
The effect size, calculated using eta squared, was .04.
Avoidance Behavior Anxiety on Student’s Explanation Text Writing Achievement Similar with the somatic anxiety, the results in Table 8 reported that there were high, medium, and low level of avoidance behavior anxiety. The total number of students who had high level of anxiety was seven and the mean was M= 62.2, SD=
9.46. Moreover, eleven students were at middle level with M= 58.1, SD= 9.56.
Meanwhile, the students who were at the low level was 12 with M= 59.5, SD= 5.10.
Table 8. Descriptive Results of Avoidance Behavior Anxiety on Explanation Text Writing Achievement
Descriptives
WritingScore
N Mean
Std.
Deviation
Std.
Error
95% Confidence Interval for Mean
Minimum Maximum Lower Bound Upper Bound
low 12 59.50 5.108 1.475 56.25 62.75 53 73
middle 11 58.18 9.569 2.885 51.75 64.61 40 80
high 7 62.29 9.464 3.577 53.53 71.04 53 77
Total 30 59.67 7.906 1.443 56.71 62.62 40 80
Besides, a one-way ANOVA used to the effect of Avoidance Behavior anxiety on students’ writing achievement. There was no significant difference of avoidance behavior anxiety on students’ writing achievement. It showed that p >.05 level for
three conditions [F (2, 27) = 0.56, p= 0.576]. Based on the findings, it did not reach the statistical difference. Then, the researcher calculated the actual effect size in mean scores between the groups. And the result was small. The effect size, calculated using eta squared, was .04.
Cognitive Anxiety on Student’s Writing Achievement in Writing an Explanation Text Not only examined the significance difference and the effect of somatic and avoidance behavior anxiety on the students’ writing score, but the researcher also examined whether there is significant difference and effect of cognitive anxiety on students’ writing score or not while writing an explanation text using a one-way Analysis of Variance. But, before running ANOVA, the researcher found that the means of low-level cognitive anxiety was M= 57.3, SD= 75.3 with 13 students, the means of middle level was M= 60.0, SD= 8.30 and the students at this level was nine.
Then, for the eight students who had high level of cognitive anxiety, the means showed M= 63.0, SD= 7.76. As it was shown in Table 9.
Table 9. Descriptive Results of Co
gnitive Anxiety on Student’s Writing Achievement in Writing an Explanation Text Descriptives
WritingScore
N Mean
Std.
Deviation
Std.
Error
95% Confidence Interval for Mean
Minimum Maximum Lower Bound Upper Bound
low 13 57.38 7.534 2.089 52.83 61.94 40 73
middle 9 60.00 8.307 2.769 53.61 66.39 53 80
high 8 63.00 7.764 2.745 56.51 69.49 57 77
Total 30 59.67 7.906 1.443 56.71 62.62 40 80
Furthermore, the results of ANOVA showed that there was no significant difference of cognitive anxiety on students’ writing score. It showed that p >.05 level for three conditions [F (2, 27) = 1.28, p= 0.293]. It means that this study did not gain the statistical difference. Next, the researcher analyzed the actual effect size in mean scores between the groups. And the result was moderate. The effect size, calculated using eta squared, was .08. This result was different from both actual effect size of somatic and avoidance behavior that had small effect.
The Effect of Students’ Writing Anxiety on the students’ writing achievement
The last, the researcher examined the effect of students’ writing anxiety (all types) on the students’ writing achievement. Since there were three levels of writing anxiety, the results in Table 10 revealed that N= 10 at low level with M= 58.1, SD= 3.07, N= 11 at middle level and the means M= 59.6, SD= 10.53 whereas N= 9 at the high level of writing anxiety by M= 61.4, SD= 8.39.
Table 10. Descriptive Results of All Aspects of Writing Anxiety on Students’
Explanation Text Writing Achievement Descriptives
WritingScore
N Mean
Std.
Deviation
Std.
Error
95% Confidence Interval for Mean
Minimum Maximum Lower Bound Upper Bound
low 10 58.10 3.071 .971 55.90 60.30 53 63
middle 11 59.64 10.538 3.177 52.56 66.72 40 80
high 9 61.44 8.398 2.799 54.99 67.90 53 77
Total 30 59.67 7.906 1.443 56.71 62.62 40 80
Next, A one-way of ANOVA was used again. The results reported that there was no significant difference of students’ writing anxiety on students’ writing score.
It showed that p >.05 level for three conditions [F (2, 27) = .40, p= 0.67]. It is clear that all type of students’ writing anxiety did not gain the statistical difference too.
Furthermore, the researcher also computed the actual effect size of students’ writing anxiety (all types) in mean scores between the groups using eta squared. And the result was categorized small because the effect size was .02.
In short, all those results that answer the second research question showed that the somatic, avoidance behavior, and cognitive anxiety did not give significant difference and effect on the students’ explanation text writing achievements. It is proven that writing anxiety did not affect the students’ writing ability. Although the students have moderate level while they are writing an explanation text, they were still got the good score. It implies that fear, nerve, or avoidance of a writing task did not quite influence the way the students do their writing task. They still can write well. It suggests that students’ scores indicated the opposite. Hence, it can be said that the level of anxiety is not a benchmark for student success in achieving a high score because even students who are psychologically unwell still can prove that they are skilled in writing. Unfortunately, those findings above were not in line with the previous studies. For instance, those ideas countered Daud, Shidrah, Nuraihan and Kassim (2005) and Syarifudin (2020) claimed that the lower anxiety level of the students in writing, the better their performance in their writing and doing the language-related tasks. They believe that when students have a low level of anxiety, they will have more confidence in themselves and this will have an impact on linguistic
aspects such as vocabulary mastery and text structure. When they don't feel excessive anxiety, the vocabulary they already have and the writing techniques they have previously acquired will work and be implemented much better so that it helps them to write easier. Conversely, if their anxiety level is high, this can often prevent them from channeling their ideas and thoughts into writing. As a result, the output they get is not optimal. And this study is also opposite with Pratiwi (2021) showed that the lower level of writing anxiety enhance the students’ performance and competence in writing well. She argued that the students with low anxiety tend to be more able to control themselves by reducing their fear of making errors and increasing their confidence that they can work according to the allotted time. Thus, their performance in writing will be in line with the level of anxiety they have whether it is good or bad. Not only that, this study also showing different result from Karahan (2021) asserted that the writing anxiety had a significant difference on the students’
writing grade and the students who have anxiety in a high level. Therefore, it can be concluded that no matter how high and low the students’ anxiety level in writing, if they still have really good writing ability and understanding, they will always perform greatly in doing their writing tasks. Even so, the level of student anxiety is necessary and an important thing to be paid attention and considered by both teachers and students. So, the more aware the students and teachers about writing anxiety, the quicker they can find the appropriate writing strategies and techniques.
CONCLUSION
This study showed that the students felt anxious while writing explanation text. It can be proven that their writing anxiety level was at a moderate level. Then, the highest writing anxiety type that the students had was somatic anxiety. It means that they often get uncomfortable symptoms such as stomachache, tremor, difficult at breathing, nervous, and so forth while they wrote the explanation text. Moreover, when the researcher investigated whether there is significant difference of students’
writing anxiety type on their achievement in writing explanation text, there results found that there was no significant difference of writing anxiety based on each type (somatic, avoidance behavior, and cognitive) and the overall students’ writing anxiety on their writing achievement in an explanation text. However, there was found a moderate effect size on the students’ cognitive anxiety although other types of writing anxiety only showed a small effect size. It can be said that no matter the writing anxiety type and level, the student’s writing score was not affected by them.
Therefore, this study rejected the assumption that the different levels and types of students’ writing anxiety give an effect on the students’ writing achievement in writing specifically in an explanation text. Furthermore, the limitation of the study had small number of participants, and used convenience sampling, so the findings should be read with caution especially related to generalizability of the findings.
Further studies, therefore, should have greater number of sample and randomly sampled. In addition, future studies using qualitative approach would be useful to provide in depth understanding of the students’ anxiety when writing an English text.
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