Abstract

By conducting a principal component analysis on 254 Chinese oil agriculture and food processing engineer students’ answer to English Test Anxiety Scale (Dong, 2010), the current study examined the internal structure of their English Test Anxiety (ETA). Six dimensions were found, which were the ETA-Speaking, ETA- Reading and ETA-Writing, as well as the Interpersonal skill and Lack of practice. Cumulatively, the six components accounted for 55.6% of the total variance of the ETA. The component of ETA-Listening alone contributed to 21.79% of the total variance, which implied that ETA-Listening was an important part of the ETA. Besides, the identification of language skill-specific anxieties within ETA indicated that there possibly exists individual difference with regards to language skill-specific anxieties among test-takers. Series of paired t-tests on ETA- Listening, ETA-Speaking, ETA-Reading and ETA-Writing indicated that the sample test-takers experienced different levels of ETA-Listening and ETA-Speaking, but the same level of ETA-Reading and ETA-Writing.

Keywords:

English test anxiety, food processing engineer, oil agriculture, principal component analysis,

References

Competing interests

The authors have no competing interests.

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Copyright

The authors have no competing interests.