Zheng and Cheng Language Testing in Asia (2018) 8:13

https://doi.org/10.1186/s40468-018-0065-4

RESEARCH Open Access

How does anxiety influence language

performance? From the perspectives of
foreign language classroom anxiety and
cognitive test anxiety
Ying Zheng1* and Liying Cheng2

* Correspondence:
ying.zheng@soton.ac.uk Abstract
1
Faculty of Humanities, University of
Southampton, Avenue Campus, This study examined the relationships between students’ foreign language classroom
Southampton SO17 1BF, UK anxiety and cognitive test anxiety and their College English Test Band 4 (CET-4)
Full list of author information is performance. A questionnaire was distributed to 921 Chinese university students to
available at the end of the article
understand the nature and degree of the examined relationships. Follow-up interviews
with 12 students were used to shed further light on uncovering mechanisms of
relationships found in the survey. Results revealed three factors of anxiety, explaining 43.
14% of the total variance examined in the quesionnaire items. Means, standard
deviations, the internal consistency for each factor, and zero-order correlations among
the three factors were calculated. Correlation and multiple regression of the anxiety
factors and test scores were then conducted. Results confirmed that cognitive test
anxiety factor was a significant negative predictor of language achievement. Interview
results did not fully support the relationships found in the survey. Most students did
not perceive themselves to be very anxious in their university settings, either in
classrooms or in testing situations. However, they did express their anxiety toward
English speaking skills in the classroom. The differential perspectives of anxiety revealed
from both analyses indicate that a better understanding of language classroom anxiety
and cognitive test anxiety can help students and teachers optimize their foreign
langauge learning and teaching practices.
Keywords: Language classroom anxiety, Cognitive test anxiety, CET-4, Test
confidence, Factor analysis, Language skill-specific anxieties, Test taking strategies,
Academic anxiety

Introduction
Trait anxiety, situational anxiety, and state anxiety are generally recognized as three
categories of anxiety, which vary from stability to transient incidences of anxiety
arousal. Research demonstrates that elements that trigger anxiety differ across lan-
guage processes and language skills. Anxiety can disrupt complex learning, test-taking,
and effective thinking (Covington et al. 1986; Gregersen et al. 2014).
Our current knowledge of language and test anxiety benefits from an understanding of
the relationship between anxiety and culture in language education. Cultural influences,
such as teacher/student stereotypes and expectations regarding the nature of classroom
© The Author(s). 2018 Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
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indicate if changes were made.
Zheng and Cheng Language Testing in Asia (2018) 8:13 Page 2 of 19

interaction, differ widely between cultures. Lim (Lim HY: Effects of task values, attribu-
tions, and cultural constructs on foreign language use anxiety among international teach-
ing assistants, unpublished) found that learners from Asia (particularly Chinese and
Korean learners) had a higher level of anxiety around foreign language use than those
from North American or Europe. Scholarly traditions in Chinese culture may also have
shaped or influenced the learning of English as a foreign language in China. Examples of
these traditions are the emphasis on rote memorization, the central role of textbooks and
grammar, the influence of Confucian doctrines, and the perception of teachers and
parents as authority figures, all of which are potential causes of culture-specific anxiety
(Yan X: An examination of foreign language classroom anxiety: Its sources and effects in
a college English program in China, unpublished).
The importance of understanding and incorporating contextual factors in examining
test anxiety are emphasized in cross-cultural research (Bodas, 2005). Cultural differ-
ences are claimed to exist because socialization practices and parental expectations can
differ between cultures. These factors may put excessive pressure on students to
achieve. Different high-stakes testing systems might also generate high levels of test
anxiety (Cheng et al. 2014; Crocker et al. 1988).
Understanding anxiety, as one of the pervasive psychological emotions, is a prerequisite
to providing the necessary support to anxious second/foreign language learners (Zheng
2008). An understanding of language anxiety within different contexts provides a rationale
for a careful investigation of English learners in China. This study examines the nature of
anxiety (both in the foreign language classroom and testing situations) and its relationship
to language test performance by using a mixed-methods approach. The purpose of the
study was to better understand the nature and effect of anxiety in the context of
high-takes testing for Chinese university students learning English as a foreign language.

Literature review
Foreign language classroom anxiety
Anxiety in the context of the foreign language classroom is a form of anxiety that is
usually aroused by a certain type of situation (e.g., speaking a foreign language). In a
broader research context, MacIntyre (1998) observed that language anxiety is a form of
situational anxiety, and emphasized that research on the topic should employ measures
of anxiety experienced in specific second language (L2) contexts, e.g., in classroom set-
tings. He conceived of language anxiety as ‘the worry and negative emotional reaction
aroused when learning or using a second language’ (p. 27). Horwitz (1986) also recog-
nized that situation-specific anxiety triggered by learning or using a foreign language
was largely independent of other situation-specific anxieties. They developed a
self-report instrument called the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS),
aiming to assess communication apprehension, test anxiety and fear of negative evalu-
ation associated with language anxiety. This instrument, eliciting responses of anxiety
specific to foreign language classroom settings, triggered an avalanche of similar stud-
ies, demonstrating firmly that language anxiety has a debilitating role in the L2 class-
room in different contexts.
Foreign language classroom anxiety is attributable to a variety of causes.
Price (1991) maintained that levels of difficulty in some foreign language clas-
ses, students’ personal perceptions of their own language aptitude, certain
Zheng and Cheng Language Testing in Asia (2018) 8:13 Page 3 of 19

personality variables (e.g., perfectionism or fear of public speaking), and

stressful classroom experiences were all possible causes of anxiety. Learners’
individual personality traits, such as introversion or extraversion, are associ-
ated with anxiety arousal (Brown et al. 2001; Gregersen and Horwitz 2002).
Young (1991) identified six potential sources of language anxiety from three
areas of arousal: the learner, the teacher, and the instructional practice. He
claimed that language anxiety is caused by (1) learners’ personal and interper-
sonal anxiety, (2) learners’ beliefs about language learning, (3) instructors’ be-
liefs about language teaching, (4) instructor-learner interactions, (5) classroom
procedures, and (6) language testing.
The cognitive component of anxiety was emphasized early in the literature
(Eysenck 1979). Eysenck believed that ‘worry’ and ‘emotionality’ constituted
two categories of anxiety. For him, the ‘worry’ component includes cognitive
manifestations, such as comparing personal performance to that of peers, con-
sidering the consequences of failure, low levels of confidence in performance,
and excessive worry over evaluation. The emotionality component refers to the
concomitant negative feelings caused by physiological functioning, such as in-
creased galvanic skin response and heart rate, dizziness, nausea, and feelings
of panic. Eysenck argued that anxious learners were more often engaged in
task-irrelevant cognitive processing than their non-anxious counterparts;
hence, the task-irrelevant processing activities ‘preempt some of the available
effort and capability of working memory’ (p. 378). In other words, anxious
learners may be anxious about their being anxious, thus hampering the
capacity of their working memory. To be more specific, anxious learners are
usually more easily distracted, and the defense mechanism triggered by anxiety
will interfere with the cognition threshold in learning.
Additionally, with more and more emphasis on communication-oriented language
competence, MacIntyre (1998) pointed out that there emerges a pressing need to
develop anxiety-reduction strategies and programs. A call for the amelioration of
language anxiety was also suggested by Young (1994) and Alrabai (2015). Young
(1994) claimed that ‘unnatural’ classroom procedures—the teacher’s error-correcting
methods, for example—and the way the teacher interacted with the students were
aspects that might arouse students’ anxiety. Therefore, pedagogical considerations
in course planning need to take into account students’ emotional states. Elkhafaifi
(2005) stated that teachers should provide class structures that ensure that their
students’ basic need to feel safe is met, and they should also make clear that lan-
guage learning entails making mistakes, and mistakes are not demonstrations of
failure, but a process of learning. Similarly, teachers should avoid turning the lan-
guage classroom into a testing or competitive environment, but rather, create a
supportive space conducive to learning comfortably. Alrabai (2015) further explored
the influence of teachers’ anxiety-reducing strategies on learners’ foreign language
anxiety. The findings revealed that teachers’ anxiety-reducing strategy intervention
led to significantly decreased levels of learners’ foreign language anxiety. Kruk’s
(2018) recent investigation showed that language anxiety changes not only over a
longer period (i.e., a semester) but also during a single class and from one lan-
guage lesson to another.
Zheng and Cheng Language Testing in Asia (2018) 8:13 Page 4 of 19

Cognitive test anxiety

Test anxiety is ‘a set of phenomenological, physiological, and behavioral responses that
accompany concern about possible negative consequences or failure on an exam or
similar evaluative situation’ (Pintrich and Schunk 2002, p. 300). In testing situations, it
is argued that test anxiety may represent a bias that conceals students’ true potential
(Meijer 2001). Some researchers have further argued for the 4-construct model: ten-
sion, test irrelevant thinking, bodily symptoms, and worry (e.g., Sarason 1984); or
worry, emotionality, interference, and lack of confidence (e.g., Stober 2004). Disagree-
ment among these researchers arises as to how each component of test anxiety impacts
test performance.
The effects of test anxiety have been reported in a variety of studies in general
education as well as in second/foreign language education (Hembree 1988; Greger-
sen et al. 2014; Sawyer 2005; Vitasari et al. 2010). Hembree’s (1988) meta-analysis
of 562 studies found that test anxiety did cause poor performance and that anxiety
was inversely related to students’ positive self-esteem and directly correlated to
their fear of negative evaluation and their defensiveness. Strong test anxiety jeopar-
dizes attention span due to the fact that anxious feelings can occupy parts of the
working memory needed in problem solving (Eysenck 1988). Covington et al.
(1986) proposed that the worry component of anxiety might interfere with test per-
formance by diverting the individual’s attention from the task at hand. They
claimed that anxiety worked as a mediator of performance ‘where the particular
conditions of learning and evaluation are sufficiently threatening to disrupt test
taking’ (p. 72). At the risk of being overly simplistic, they formulated the following
relationship:

perceived threat→anxiety arousal→impaired performance

In the field of second/foreign language learning, language tests are often used as
screening mechanisms in selecting potential candidates for educational institutions. An
example is the use of English-as-a-Foreign-Language test scores (e.g., IELTS scores,
TOEFL scores) as one of the criteria for the admission of international students into
English-speaking universities. This kind of practice creates anxious feelings for language
learners for whom English is not their first language (Cheng et al. 2014). MacIntyre et
al. (1997) posited that the interrelation between anxiety and language learning out-
comes forms a vicious circle; that is, high anxiety levels lead to poor learning outcomes,
and poor learning outcomes lead back to higher anxiety levels. Zin and Rafik-Galea’s
(2010) investigation indicated that the majority of the low proficiency Malay ESL
learners experienced a moderate level of reading anxiety, which in turn influenced their
reading performance significantly.
The measurement of language test anxiety was included as one of the three
components of Horwitz et al. (1986) well-known language anxiety concept, to-
gether with communication apprehension and fear of negative evaluation. How-
ever, an examination of their questionnaire, the Foreign Language Classroom
Anxiety Scale (FLCAS), revealed that only one item touched upon the compo-
nent of test anxiety. A search of the relevant studies also confirmed that not
only has there been insufficient validation of questionnaires on this topic but
also that little attention has been paid to the effects of test anxiety on language
Zheng and Cheng Language Testing in Asia (2018) 8:13 Page 5 of 19

test performance (In'nami 2006). It seems that Horwitz et al.’s (1986) theory of
language anxiety, with its emphasis on communication apprehension and fear of
negative evaluation, together with Cassady and Johnson’s (2002) model of test
cognitive anxiety, are most suitable for the investigation of anxiety issues re-
lated to second/foreign language learning and testing in this study.
In the context of Chinese university students learning English as a foreign
language, the high level of importance that has been placed on English lan-
guage competence for tertiary-level English learners has dramatically influ-
enced anxiety levels, both in their English classes and their tests (Cheng
2008). A knowledge of English is obligatory and achieving competence in the
language is a prerequisite to graduate or for getting a good job. With this
pressure in mind, learners are more likely to experience anxiety in the class-
room (Liu 2006; Mak 2011). Admittedly, the underlying rationale for studying
English in China is essentially economic, since it is seldom studied for its own
sake. Chinese students are obliged to learn English if they hope to gain a bet-
ter position in a global economy where English is the lingua franca (Gan et al.
2004; Yong and Campbell 1995).
This study examined students’ perceptions of their anxiety levels, including
foreign language classroom anxiety and test anxiety, and the relationships to
their test performance on CET-4. Two research questions guided the study:

1) What is the nature of foreign language classroom anxiety and cognitive test
anxiety?
2) How do these anxiety factors influence language test performance?

Methods/Experimental
Researchers noted that certain research contexts can particularly benefit
from a mixed-methods approach (Yoshikawa et al. 2008). Such contexts in-
clude investigating aspects of individual behavior or contextual characteris-
tics that are difficult to understand using a single method, conducting
integrated studies of beliefs and practices in human development, and ex-
ploring causal associations and their mechanisms. The examination of the in-
fluence of anxiety, a psychological state, and its relationship, in this case to
the learning of English as a foreign language, is a typical research situation
that might benefit from a mixed-methods approach.
The survey method is used to understand the prevalence of foreign lan-
guage classroom anxiety and test anxiety and to estimate the direction and
magnitude of causal influence on test performance exerted by these phenom-
ena; the interview method is used to shed light on mechanisms of cause and
effect, if any, and to provide an explanation of any prevalence or discrepan-
cies found. In addition, total scores and sub-scores for the CET-4 partici-
pants were obtained from the registrar’s office in the participating university.
The total full test score is 710 with a mean of 500 and a standard deviation
of 70. There are four sections in the test: listening, reading, cloze, and
writing and translation.
Zheng and Cheng Language Testing in Asia (2018) 8:13 Page 6 of 19

Survey instrument
The survey instrument consists of two primary constructs: Foreign Language
Classroom Anxiety and Test Anxiety. The Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety
Scale (FLCAS), developed by Horwitz et al. (1986), was used to assess
students’ anxiety levels in the classroom context. The FLCAS contains 33
items, each measured on a 5-point Likert scale, with responses ranging from
‘strongly agree’ to ‘strongly disagree.’ Higher scores indicate more anxiety in
language-learning behavior. For example, for positively worded items, ‘strongly
agree’ receives 5 points, and ‘strongly disagree’ receives 1 point, while for
negatively worded items, the inverse applies. Total scores can range from 33
to 165. Internal reliability of the FLCAS (Horwitz 1986) shows a reliability co-
efficient of .93. Horwitz et al.’s (1986) FLCAS was revised according to Aida’s
(1994) study with Japanese university students. Items from the FLCAS were
trimmed to avoid unnecessary redundancy based on the qualitative evaluations
of the researchers in this study. For this current study, 17 of the 33 items in
the FLCAS were retained. All negatively keyed items were re-coded for the
data analyses. These items were named as FLCAS1 to FLCAS17.
To measure test anxiety, this study adopted the Cognitive Test Anxiety Scale
(CTAS), which was developed by Cassady and Johnson (2002) to assess students’
cognitive test anxiety levels. The original CTAS contains 27 items, each measured
on a 4-point scale, with responses ranging from ‘not at all typical of me’ (4 points)
to ‘very typical of me’ (1 point). This unidimensional scale of cognitive test anxiety
(Cassady and Johnson 2002) has high internal consistency (.91) and has proven its
concurrent validity through comparison with Sarason’s (1984) Reaction to Tests.
For this current study, items from the CTAS were trimmed following the same
procedures used for FLCAS. Twenty of the 27 items in the CTAS were retained in
the study, adopting the 5-point Likert scale as with the FLCAS. All negatively
keyed items were re-coded for the data analyses. These items were named as
CTAS1 to CTAS20.

Participants
The survey questionnaire was distributed to 921 participants from 32 classes in
one south-eastern university in China. They were asked to describe their percep-
tions of anxiety from the perspective of foreign language classroom anxiety and
cognitive test anxiety. Twelve consenting survey participants were given further in-
terviews. These interviewees represented a balanced sample in terms of gender (six
males and six females), their university major (six from Arts programs and six
from Science), and their self-reported English competence (four from each level:
high, medium, and low). They were interviewed in order to understand in more
depth their perceptions of their own foreign language classroom anxiety and cogni-
tive test anxiety in relation to their CET-4 performance. They were also asked
about their perception of test anxiety in different language skills and possible rea-
sons for such anxiety.
Interviewees’ pseudonyms were chosen to reflect their genders and their university
programs; within each category, the names are presented in a sequence of their
Zheng and Cheng Language Testing in Asia (2018) 8:13 Page 7 of 19

Table 1 Interviewee profile

Programs of Gender Self-reported proficiency level
study
High (01) Medium (02) Low (03)
Arts programs Male Alan Alex Adam
Female Alice Anna Amy
Science programs Male Simon Scott Steve
Female Susan Sara Sally

self-reported proficiency levels from high to low. All six students from the Arts
programs were named with an initial A, while those studying Science were allotted
the initial S. In addition, in data reporting, interviewees with high self-reported
proficiency levels were assigned a number of 01, those who had a medium profi-
ciency level were assigned a number of 02, and those with a low proficiency level
were assigned the number 03 (see Table 1).

Data analyses
Survey findings were analyzed using statistical methods. Descriptive statistics were
first reported, followed by exploratory factor analysis (EFA). Direct oblimin was
used as the rotation method, thus permitting factors to be correlated. The EFA re-
sults were analyzed from factor structure, scree plot, model fit, as well as factor in-
terpretability perspectives.
Several steps were followed in analyzing the interview data. First, to
organize and prepare the data for analysis; interviews were transcribed verba-
tim in Chinese and then translated into English. Items relevant to the re-
search questions were identified and highlighted. Inductive analysis was used
to uncover themes and patterns in the students’ perceptions of Foreign Lan-
guage Classroom Anxiety and Cognitive Test Anxiety. Open coding was used
to help build ideas inductively and remain more attentive to what the inter-
viewees had to say, rather than imposing pre-existing ideas or the findings
from the statistical analyses on this part of the data analysis. Next, constant
comparative method (Merriam 1998) was used to juxtapose responses from
other interviewees.

Results
Results from the survey and the interviews were interpreted separately first and trian-
gulated at a later stage to see if the results from the two sources supported each other
in the discussion section.

Survey findings
Table 2 below shows the average frequencies at the sub-questionnaire level. The de-
scriptive statistics indicate that the average for FLCAS is slightly higher than that of
CTAS, while the standard deviation demonstrates the opposite, which means that
students’ reported Cognitive Test Anxiety has a wider spread than their reported
Zheng and Cheng Language Testing in Asia (2018) 8:13 Page 8 of 19

Table 2 FLCAS and CTAS average frequencies and descriptives

Items Avg SD Strongly Disagree Undecided Agree Strongly Missing
disagree agree
FLCAS 2.893 0.038 5.256 36.669 24.700 30.167 3.056 0.869
CTAS 2.848 0.041 5.620 36.535 26.675 26.760 3.435 0.950

Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety. Frequency statistics and descriptive statistics

at the item level can be found in Appendices 1 and 2.
The survey results were further analyzed using exploratory factor analysis
(EFA). The rotation converged in 10 iterations (see Table 3). Since only fac-
tor loadings larger than .3 are reported here, factor loadings lower than that
threshold were deleted without being displayed in the results table, resulting
in three items being deleted from further analysis (i.e., FLCAS12, 1 CTAS1,
and CTAS12).
Scree plot (see Fig. 1), model fit (see Table 4), and factor interpretability
were used as criteria to understand the factor structures. The scree plot from
the reduced correlation matrix indicated that the last major drop occurs fol-
lowing the third eigenvalue, suggesting that there should be three common
factors. Further, using chi-square and degree of freedom obtained from max-
imum likelihood factor analysis, root mean square error of approximation
(RMSEA) was calculated with 90% confidence intervals for different models
using the FITMOD program (see Table 4). The 3-factor model had a RMSEA
of .056 with a 90% confidence interval from .054 to .059, indicating a better
model fit than the 2-factor model (RMSEA of .068 with a 90% confidence
interval from .065 to .070). RMSEA in the 3-factor model suggested a good
model fit. In addition, RMSEA decreased by .012 from the 2-factor model to
the 3-factor model. The 3-factor model performed nearly as well as the
4-factor model, but RMSEA had a decrease of only .005, from .056 (3-factor
model) to .051 (4-factor model). This minimal reduction indicated that the
3-factor model met the criteria for a trade-off between an adequate fit and
model parsimony.
Furthermore, guided by factor interpretability, and coupled with the results
from the scree plot and the model fit analysis, three factors were generated.
The factors were named based on the characteristics of the loaded items on
each factor: class anxiety, test confidence, and test anxiety. One item (‘I feel
confident when I speak in English class’) was found to have double loadings
on both factor 1 (class anxiety) and factor 2 (test confidence). The loading
on class anxiety was negative (−.59), and the loading on test confidence was
positive (.31). After re-coding, this item loaded only on class anxiety (.59).
An examination of the characteristics of the items loaded on these two fac-
tors indicated that factor 1 was mostly about students’ perceptions/feelings
in the classroom, and factor 2 was mostly about their perceptions/feelings
toward specific testing situations. Therefore, this item was categorized under
the first factor, class anxiety. No other cross-loadings or double loadings
were found.
Zheng and Cheng Language Testing in Asia (2018) 8:13 Page 9 of 19

Table 3 Factor structure of the anxiety items

Questionnaire Factor
items
1 2 3
FLCAS 2 .78
FLCAS 14 .74
FLCAS 1 .73
FLCAS 8 .71
FLCAS 6 .70
FLCAS 17 .68
FLCAS 11 .67
FLCAS 9 .62
FLCAS 10 .59
FLCAS 7 .53
FLCAS 3 .52
FLCAS 16 .50
FLCAS 13 .45
FLCAS 4 .40
FLCAS 15 .38
CTAS 11 .88
CTAS 10 .82
CTAS 2 .49
CTAS 5 .44
FLCAS 5 .33
CTAS 8 .71
CTAS 7 .67
CTAS 4 .61
CTAS 13 .60
CTAS 3 .60
CTAS 9 .59
CTAS 15 .59
CTAS 6 .56
CTAS 16 .54
CTAS 17 .53
CTAS 19 .50
CTAS 14 .37
CTAS 20 .32
CTAS 18 .30

One item (FLCAS5) from the FLCAS loaded on test anxiety. This item was
presented as: ‘I am usually at ease during tests in English class.’ As the only
item from the FLCAS that measured test anxiety, it was reasonable to expect
that it would load on factor 3, test anxiety. The other two components of
Foreign Language Anxiety—communication apprehension and fear of nega-
tive evaluation—could not be differentiated statistically from this dataset.
These three factors explained 43.14% of the total variance examined in the question-
naire items. To understand the tendency of students’ anxiety patterns as well as the
Zheng and Cheng Language Testing in Asia (2018) 8:13 Page 10 of 19

Fig. 1 Scree plot for anxiety items

relationships between these constructs, means, standard deviations, the internal

consistency for each factor, and zero-order correlations among the three factors were
calculated; they are presented in Table 5. The factor analysis assumed that the factor
matrix was correlated (non-orthogonal). Indeed, the factor correlation matrix showed
that these factors were correlated (−.38, .54, and − .43). Factor 1, class anxiety, included
15 items from the FLCAS scale; this factor had an internal consistency of .88. Factor 2,
test confidence, contained five items loading onto it, with four items from the CTAS
scale and one from the FLCAS scale; it had an internal consistency of .80. Factor 3, test
anxiety, contained 14 variables loading onto it from the CTAS scale; it had an internal
consistency of .87.
Factor scores from test confidence, test anxiety, and class anxiety were used to pre-
dict students’ CET-4 test scores. Table 6 shows the results from multiple regression.
The results indicated that test confidence was a positive predictor of students’ test
scores, and test anxiety was a negative predictor of students’ test scores. Class anxiety
was not a significant predictor in the presence of the other two factors.

Interview findings: English classroom anxiety and English test anxiety

The interview findings looked further into students’ perceptions of anxiety from two
perspectives: first, their perceptions of English learning in classrooms, and second, their

Table 4 Model fit for instrumental orientations

Model RMSEA 90% confidence interval
1-factor model 0.085 < 0.083; 0.087>
2-factor model 0.068 < 0.065; 0.070>
3-factor model 0.056 < 0.054; 0.059>
4-factor model 0.051 < 0.048; 0.054>
Zheng and Cheng Language Testing in Asia (2018) 8:13 Page 11 of 19

Table 5 Descriptive statistics, reliabilities, and zero-order correlations of anxiety factors

Factor No. of Variables Mean SD Reliability Correlation
F1 F2 F3
Class anxiety (F1) 15 43.69 9.77 .88
Test confidence (F2) 5 16.17 3.40 .80 − .38
Test anxiety (F3) 14 37.42 7.96 .87 .54 − .43

perceptions of English test anxiety in the context of the CET-4. The latter includes stu-
dents’ assessments of their anxiety levels in each of four different language skills.

English classroom anxiety

None of this group of university students perceived him or herself to be particularly so-
cially anxious, except for Sally. She described herself as an ‘unsocial person’ and did not
want to interact with unfamiliar people. Six of the 12 interviewees reported that they
had some degree of anxiety in the English classroom, especially when they were called
upon to answer questions in their class and they did not have the answer. However,
one student said: ‘When I do know the answer, I expect the teacher to call me’
(Simon_01_072).
Sally mentioned that she not only felt anxious in the English classroom,
but she felt anxious in any similar classroom situation. She summarized the
situation by saying that ‘looking back at my experience as a student, I have
always had some sort of academic anxiety’ (Sally_03_04). She explained that,
whenever it came to academic settings, especially when she was asked to an-
swer questions related to unfamiliar topics, she felt anxious. Sally’s view of
academic anxiety was echoed by Amy, who expressed a similar kind of anx-
iety, occurring only in academically related settings. She mentioned that,
since elementary school, she had always been afraid of entering a teacher’s
office, and when she was called upon to answer a question that she was not
sure about, her face tended to turn red, and sometimes she froze
(Amy_03_18).
Some other student participants reported that they generally did not feel
any sort of anxiety in the classroom because they had a high level of
self-confidence regarding their English abilities and their teachers were
friendly. Alex said that usually ‘nothing too unexpected would happen in the
classroom’ (Alex_02_25). Another student, Anna, saw a close relationship be-
tween her English proficiency levels and her self-confidence level
(Anna_02_27). For example, during group discussions in class, if she could

Table 6 Predicting CET-4 performance

Unstandardized coefficients Standardized coefficients t Sig.
B Std. error Beta
Test confidence 3.38 .58 .23 5.85 .00
Test anxiety − 1.22 .26 − .19 − 4.964 .00
Dependent variable: CET-4 total score
Zheng and Cheng Language Testing in Asia (2018) 8:13 Page 12 of 19

not understand certain vocabulary that other students used, she would feel
frustrated and anxious, but if she considered that she could have a fluent
conversation with others in English, she felt happy and confident.
In summary, academic anxiety, mainly reported by female students, seemed to be
a phenomenon that they had experienced whenever they felt pressure to succeed
academically. In addition, an association between language anxiety levels and their
own perception of their competence in English was observed among this group of
students.

English test anxiety

When it came to English test anxiety, the feelings of different students were quite simi-
lar to those regarding English classroom anxiety: 11 of the 12 students reported that
they did not feel test anxiety. Two major factors accounted for this phenomenon. First,
they felt that language abilities were relatively stable: if you did not know the answer,
you did not know the answer and test cramming over a short period would not help
much (Scott_02_13; Susan_01_39). Second, the students commented that they had
grown up in an environment in which they were constantly being tested with all kinds
of tests. They regarded themselves as very good at taking tests; otherwise, they would
not have been admitted to the university.
The only student who mentioned that he had some kind of test anxiety was
from the low proficiency group of participants. Adam reported that he had
test anxiety not only in relation to language tests but also with other tests.
He reported that, when he was taking a test, his body would get warm and
his brain would try to dissociate from his surroundings (Adam_03_37). He
concluded that his level of anxiety in different tests was partly dependent on
the stakes of the test. He actually felt more anxious during English final ex-
aminations at university because students were only given one chance, and
the credits awarded for the English course were very high. In the case of the
CET-4, however, he felt less anxious because in his university students could
take the test as many times as they wished until they passed the test or were
satisfied with the score. Furthermore, this student noted that his anxiety
level was often high at the beginning of a test, but as he progressed through
the test, he was able to calm down and concentrate better.
Alice, Alan, and Simon regarded themselves as test-takers with adept
test-taking skills, and the ability to guess at multiple-choice questions (as is
the format for CET-4) with a high success rate, even if they were not sure of
the answers (Alice_01_22). Some of the reading materials in English covered
topics similar to those they had read about in Chinese, which made the test
less anxiety-provoking (Alan_01_32). For Simon, the fixed mode of the Eng-
lish tests made him less anxious; he knew what kind of test content and test
formats he could expect in the test (Simon_01_07). Additionally, compared
to the English tests in high school, tests in universities focused less on gram-
mar and more on overall understanding of the assigned paragraphs. These
students generally regarded this change in focus as positive because they per-
ceived that this would demand an overall understanding of reading materials,
Zheng and Cheng Language Testing in Asia (2018) 8:13 Page 13 of 19

rather than grammar or sentence structure, something which might be more

applicable to their future use of English.
As for anxiety related to different language skills, the students’ opinions differed
slightly. Scott considered both listening and speaking as anxiety-provoking, while read-
ing was not. With reading, one could practice by oneself without involving other
people. With speaking, the lack of opportunities to practice oral English prevented the
students from improving their proficiency, which, in turn, led to more anxiety when
they had to speak in English (Scott_02_13). Alice felt most anxious in listening because
the listener could not control the speed of the conversation and the choice of words
used (Alice_01_22). However, in the case of speaking, the speaker was in control of
both the speed and the vocabulary, and could sometimes use body language to facilitate
the expression of their ideas (Sally_03_04).
Anna felt she suffered more anxiety in speaking and writing because both skills re-
quired her to produce something (Anna_02_29), whereas, in listening and reading, she
could receive information passively. Two high-proficiency students, Alan and Susan,
regarded listening as anxiety-provoking, but not writing. They both realized that, in
writing, especially writing in English tests, there were expected writing formats; as long
as they memorized and followed certain writing formats and used some complex or
more sophisticated vocabulary, their writing scores would be fine (Alan_01_32;
Susan_01_40).
Adam, however, felt he had the least confidence in writing and the most confi-
dence in reading. He attributed his low English writing abilities to his low Chinese
writing abilities (Adam_03_37), as he always had difficulty in organizing his
thoughts and putting them into a written form. Alex, who had a strong accent in
Chinese, reported that he felt most stressed when speaking English (Alex_02_25).
He said he was from a remote rural area, where people usually had difficulty dif-
ferentiating certain sounds in Chinese pronunciation, e.g., the ‘h’ and ‘f ’ sounds. He
did not become aware of this problem until he came to university. He said that he
now realized that even his English teacher at high school could not differentiate
certain sounds he made. He concluded that the Chinese accent that had been with
him all his life had had a bad influence on his English accent, and it made him
feel very frustrated because it seemed extremely difficult for him to correct those
sounds in his English pronunciation at this stage.

Discussion and conclusions

The presence and influence of Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety on performance
has often been reported in the literature (e.g., Cubukcu 2007; Horwitz et al. 1986; Liu
2006; MacIntyre and Gardner 1991). Gardner and MacIntyre (1993) claimed that lan-
guage anxiety was the best single correlate of achievement. In a similar vein, Ganschow
et al. (1994) study demonstrated that students with high levels of anxiety exhibited
poorer language skills. Ganschow and Sparks (1996) also reported that students with
low anxiety levels outperformed those with high anxiety levels overall. This study iden-
tified three interrelated constructs: class anxiety, test confidence, and test anxiety, and
supported a negative association between class anxiety and test confidence, as well as
between test anxiety and test confidence. Both forms of anxiety are closely correlated,
with cognitive test anxiety being a significant negative predictor and test confidence
Zheng and Cheng Language Testing in Asia (2018) 8:13 Page 14 of 19

being a significant positive predictor of the test scores. Foreign language classroom
anxiety, however, does not significantly predict test performance. Hence, this study
managed to break down the language anxiety concept and looked at different effects of
the anxiety facets on language performance. This result is a step further from previous
correlational studies, for example, in Salehi and Marefat’s (2014) correlation investiga-
tion, they found both foreign language anxiety and test anxiety had a statistically sig-
nificant negative correlation with the exam grades. The two sub-concepts in the
FLCAS (communication apprehension and fear of negative evaluation), however, are
not identifiable statistically.
Interview results indicated that most students did not perceive themselves to be very
anxious in their university settings, either in English classrooms or in English testing
situations, irrespectively of their self-reported language proficiency. In addition, these
students considered themselves to be experienced test-takers and were adept at
test-taking. However, they did express their anxiety toward oral English, especially
speaking skills in the classroom, a result that is in line with previous researchers’ find-
ings on the effects of students’ anxiety on oral test performance (Hewitt and Stephen-
son 2012; Phillips 1992). These studies support a moderate inverse relationship
between language anxiety and performance: students who expressed more foreign lan-
guage anxiety tended to receive lower exam grades than their less anxious counterparts.
However, because the CET spoken test is not included in the regular CET-4, which was
the focus of this study, and students need to obtain a certain score or higher in their
CET-4 in order to be able to take the spoken test, the actual relationship between anx-
iety and oral test performance was not investigated here.
The literature on anxiety in second/foreign language learning indicates that anxiety
interferes with the processes of language encoding, storage, and retrieval (MacIntyre
1995). Cognitive processes through which anxiety might interfere with test performance
were not, however, revealed from the survey and interview results in the current study.
The one student who reported high anxiety in testing situations stated that he could
manage to calm down after several minutes and concentrate on the test. The cyclical
relation between anxiety and performance, that is, as students experience more failure,
their anxiety level tends to increase, was not confirmed in this study. One thing to note
is that interviews were conducted a few days after the test, not before or during the
test, which might account for test anxiety being reported less frequently than one might
expect.
Cross-cultural studies and studies conducted in Asian contexts have indicated that
the view that Asian students were more likely to be anxious was a stereotype held by
many people. For example, Crystal et al. (1994) reported on a cross-cultural study
evaluating the popular stereotype that students in high-achieving Asian countries such
as Taiwan and Japan experienced a higher degree of psychological distress than did
their lower-achieving American counterparts. Their findings did not support this belief:
the high-achieving Chinese students did not report higher psychological distress than
their American counterparts.
Although general foreign language anxiety has been found to be independent of tar-
get language, levels of some specific categories of anxiety (e.g., reading anxiety) are
found to vary by target language and seem to be related to the specific writing systems
(Saito et al. 1999). The interview findings from this study supported the notion that
Zheng and Cheng Language Testing in Asia (2018) 8:13 Page 15 of 19

teachers’ perceptions of students’ language anxieties may sometimes be incongruent

with students’ own perceptions (Levine 2003). Students would attribute their
skill-specific anxieties to a variety of factors, not necessarily related to gender, program
of study, and/or English proficiency. An understanding of this incongruence and those
specific types of language anxiety along with students’ respective coping strategies
should be within the repertoire of every language teacher.
A better understanding of language anxiety threshold can help learners and teachers
to be aware of a student’s comfort level, so as to avoid harmful feelings of anxiety, and
carry out instructional interventions (e.g., coping strategies, tailored programs) when-
ever necessary to maximize learning. However, it has to be admitted that the threshold
representing a person’s uppermost limit of language anxiety is anything but fixed.
Therefore, it is important to situate an individual’s language learning in his/her specific
context, while understanding or assessing his/her language anxiety threshold and en-
courage enjoyment in learning a language (Dewaele and Alfawzan 2018).
Oxford (1999) noted that ‘behaviours vary across cultures, and what might seem like
anxious behaviour in one culture might be normal behaviour in another culture’ (p.
64). Horwitz (2001) contended that, when considering the issue of language anxiety
and classroom practice, it is important to keep cultural differences in mind. Some prac-
tices perceived by one group of learners as comfortable may prove stressful for learners
from a different cultural group who are used to different types of classroom
organization.
Perspectives gleaned from research on the causes and effects of language anxiety in-
form us that language anxiety is multifaceted and occurs under different instructional
conditions. Generally speaking, there are two options for language teachers in dealing
with anxious students: first, they can help students learn to cope with the existing
anxiety-provoking situation; and second, they can make the learning context less stress-
ful. To make the first option possible, individualized instruction and proper learning
and testing accommodation should be provided whenever necessary to assure quality
language education; to enable the second option, teaching resources might be tailored
to mirror the research results on language anxiety. Meaningful yet less
anxiety-provoking materials should be employed to promote students’ language learn-
ing at an optimal level. The level of task difficulty should be appropriate in order to
motivate and challenge students’ language development, while at the same time,
minimize the arousal of unwelcome anxiety.

Endnotes
1
The three deleted items were ‘The more I study for an English test, the more con-
fused I get’ (FLCAS12); ‘I have less difficulty than average college students in getting
English test instructions straight’ (CTAS1); ‘During the CET-4, I have the feeling that
I am not doing well’ (CTAS12).
2
The interviewee ID codes consist of three parts connected by underscores: (1) a
pseudonym with a first letter A from the Arts programs or S from the Science pro-
grams; (2) a 2-digit number ‘01, 02, or 03’, where 01 represents an interviewee with a
high proficiency level, 02 represents an interviewee with a medium proficiency level,
and 03 represents an interviewee with a low proficiency level; (3) a 2-digit number
referring to the page number in the interview transcripts.
Zheng and Cheng Language Testing in Asia (2018) 8:13 Page 16 of 19

Appendix 1
Table 7 Anxiety frequency table
items Missing Strongly disagree Disagree Undecided Agree Strongly agree
% % % % % %
FLCAS1 .7 4.1 26.7 25.9 38.4 4.2
FLCAS2 .7 6.0 46.3 22.4 22.2 2.4
FLCAS3 1.2 6.9 50.2 19.2 20.8 1.8
FLCAS4 .9 4.0 28.8 27.0 35.5 3.8
FLCAS5 .9 2.0 23.0 24.4 43.9 5.6
FLCAS6 .8 3.4 20.4 19.2 52.2 4.0
FLCAS7 .8 6.8 49.5 22.0 18..8 2.1
FLCAS8 .9 4.9 25.3 22.0 42.9 4.0
FLCAS9 .8 5.8 42.7 23.3 24.4 3.1
FLCAS10 1.1 3.2 33.6 39.2 19.4 3.5
FLCAS11 1.1 3.2 24.8 26.3 40.9 3.8
FLCAS12 .9 7.3 50.2 25.1 14.8 1.6
FLCAS13 .7 4.3 32.0 29.6 29.6 3.8
FLCAS14 .7 5.1 38.7 29.1 23.9 2.6
FLCAS15 .9 7.3 46.5 20.0 23.4 1.9
FLCAS16 .8 8.8 49.2 20.4 18.9 1.8
FLCAS17 .7 5.1 25.5 26.0 39.7 3.1
CTAS1 .7 1.9 11.5 24.9 53.2 7.8
CTAS2 .9 1.8 19.9 26.1 45.2 6.1
CTAS3 1.2 12.3 52.6 16.1 15.9 1.9
CTAS4 .7 10.9 57.0 19.7 10.2 1.4
CTAS5 .8 1.6 16.8 43.5 32.5 4.7
CTAS6 .9 6.7 46.2 24.4 19.3 2.5
CTAS7 .9 11.6 54.3 20.8 10.7 1.6
CTAS8 .9 10.2 56.3 19.5 11.8 1.3
CTAS9 1.3 12.1 52.5 18.6 13.9 1.6
CTAS10 1.1 1.5 26.2 31.1 34.2 5.9
CTAS11 .9 1.8 24.4 35.5 31.8 5.5
CTAS12 1.1 4.0 22.3 24.8 44.2 3.6
CTAS13 .8 6.1 44.1 27.1 19.9 2.0
CTAS14 .7 3.8 27.6 32.8 30.7 4.5
CTAS15 .9 5.5 47.9 23.6 20.2 1.8
CTAS16 .9 3.5 36.7 30.3 26.2 2.4
CTAS17 1.1 3.6 33.3 35.6 23.7 2.7
CTAS18 1.2 4.3 37.1 28.4 26.3 2.6
CTAS19 1.1 5.3 40.5 28.0 22.4 2.7
CTAS20 .9 3.9 23.5 22.7 42.9 6.1
Zheng and Cheng Language Testing in Asia (2018) 8:13 Page 17 of 19

Appendix 2
Table 8 Descriptive table
N Minimum Maximum Mean Std. Skewness Kurtosis
Items Statistic Statistic Statistic Statistic Statistic Statistic Std. error Statistic Std. error
FLCAS1 824 1 5 3.12 .987 − .233 .085 − .885 .170
FLCAS2 824 1 5 2.68 .957 .417 .085 − .733 .170
FLCAS3 820 1 5 2.59 .943 .508 .085 − .670 .171
FLCAS4 822 1 5 3.05 .973 − .134 .085 − .928 .170
FLCAS5 822 1 5 3.29 .938 − .348 .085 − .814 .170
FLCAS6 823 1 5 3.33 .954 − .665 .085 − .553 .170
FLCAS7 823 1 5 2.58 .926 .543 .085 − .501 .170
FLCAS8 823 1 5 3.15 1.006 − .380 .085 − .896 .170
FLCAS9 823 1 5 2.76 .977 .311 .085 − .859 .170
FLCAS10 821 1 5 2.87 .874 .311 .085 − .378 .170
FLCAS11 821 1 5 3.13 .874 − .311 .085 − .378 .170
FLCAS12 821 1 5 3.16 .951 − .314 .085 − .856 .170
FLCAS13 822 1 5 2.53 .882 .599 .085 − .172 .170
FLCAS14 824 1 5 2.95 .966 .032 .085 − .858 .170
FLCAS15 824 1 5 2.79 .939 .240 .085 − .771 .170
FLCAS16 822 1 5 2.65 .971 .381 .085 − .854 .170
FLCAS17 823 1 5 2.55 .949 .506 .085 − .558 .170
CTAS1 824 1 5 3.10 .981 − .319 .085 − .872 .170
CTAS2 824 1 5 3.54 .862 − .717 .085 .219 .170
CTAS3 822 1 5 3.35 .915 − .398 .085 − .648 .170
CTAS4 820 1 5 2.40 .952 .675 .085 − .215 .171
CTAS5 824 1 5 2.33 .842 .795 .085 .491 .170
CTAS6 823 1 5 3.22 .833 − .132 .085 − .222 .170
CTAS7 822 1 5 2.64 .936 .470 .085 − .539 .170
CTAS8 822 1 5 2.36 .870 .728 .085 .295 .170
CTAS9 822 1 5 2.36 .857 .752 .085 .228 .170
CTAS10 819 1 5 2.39 .923 .670 .085 − .076 .171
CTAS11 821 1 5 3.16 .932 − .017 .085 − .855 .170
CTAS12 822 1 5 3.15 .907 .008 .085 − .708 .170
CTAS13 821 1 5 3.22 .959 − .495 .085 − .673 .170
CTAS14 823 1 5 2.65 .919 .387 .085 − .597 .170
CTAS15 824 1 5 3.03 .950 − .042 .085 − .724 .170
CTAS16 822 1 5 2.64 .912 .464 .085 − .660 .170
CTAS17 822 1 5 2.86 .917 .166 .085 − .869 .170
CTAS18 821 1 5 2.88 .895 .132 .085 − .668 .170
CTAS19 820 1 5 2.84 .941 .177 .085 − .874 .171
CTAS20 821 1 5 2.76 .938 .301 .085 − .729 .170
Zheng and Cheng Language Testing in Asia (2018) 8:13 Page 18 of 19

Availability of data and materials

Data and materials are available.

Authors’ contributions
Both authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Competing interests
The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Publisher’s Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Author details
1
Faculty of Humanities, University of Southampton, Avenue Campus, Southampton SO17 1BF, UK. 2Queen’s University,
Kingston, Ontario K7L 3N6, Canada.

Received: 11 April 2018 Accepted: 19 June 2018

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