Investigation of University Students’ Efl Writing Apprehension: A Longitudinal Study in Croatia

Abstract

Writing apprehension defines a person's ability to write under various stress types. Depending on a situation, an average person might perform below expectations, or be less apprehensive about writing than a professional. The purpose of this research is to investigate Croatian University students' English as a foreign language writing apprehension. For the purpose to determine if the variables of students' gender and academic level (age) play a role in their writing apprehension, we adapted WAT (Writing Apprehension Test) so this would be tailored to our study population. A longitudinal study was conducted among the students who were studying at the University of Juraj Dobrila, Pula. The participants were tested twice: in the first and in the third year. The results of the study indicated that, in contrary to respondents' gender, academic level was significant variable in their estimates of writing apprehension. In accordance with the findings stated above, a number of recommendations for handling writing apprehension were set.

Writing Apprehension Among English as a Foreign Language Postgraduate Students

“…Most of the studies that belong to the second set are among the ones that have been carried out among non-native writers of English whose high apprehension of their females in writing ascribes to the dominant role of men, females' hypersensitivity to negative evaluation, appropriation of voice, and education in the context of those studies. Nevertheless, our finding is confirmed in the literature by a number of studies that detected no significant differences (Abu Shawish & Abdelraheem, 2010;Al Asmari, 2013;Kostić-Bobanović, 2016;Popvich & Masse, 2005;Zerey, 2013).…”

“…Yet inconsistently, other research observed no statistically significant differences between males and females in writing apprehension. A recent longitudinal study by Kostić-Bobanović (2016) showed that gender did not have any role in writing apprehension among Croatian EFL undergraduate students neither in their first year nor in their third year. He thought that the causes that make them feel anxious in writing seem to be the same.…”

“…Thus, having accurate judgments about themselves is as significant as their competence in writing. One significant implication of prior studies is that when any academic level of students is compared with freshmen students, a statistically significant difference can be detected in favor of the higher academic level, as is the case in Kostić-Bobanović (2016) and Marshall and Varnon (2009). This might be related to the problems that freshmen students encounter during their first year that is a totally new environment for them.…”

“…Writing apprehension is referred to in the literature as composition anxiety, writing anxiety, and writing block (Onwuegbuzie et al, 1999). Writing apprehension is not pervasive, that is, it is not present in every aspect of someone's writing life (Kostić-Bobanović, 2016). For instance, someone might not be apprehensive while writing a report on the sociology of gender but delete and start over several times when writing a paper on a novel.…”

“…A high number of studies have investigated writing apprehension among undergraduate students in various contexts reporting that the majority of their participants experienced a moderate or a high level of writing apprehension (Huwari & Abd Aziz, 2011; Kim, 2006; Kostić-Bobanović, 2016; Rezaei & Jafari, 2014). This assumes that most of the difficulties encountered by students in writing seem to be associated with the affective states of writers such as stress, apprehension, and lack of self-confidence and self-esteem, among others.…”