Individual Differences in SLA: Anxiety

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• Individual Differences in SLA Anxiety
• Fundamental question How do people differ
  relative to anxiety, and how do these differences
  influence the process of and success in SLA?
• Facilitating v. debilitating anxiety
• Facilitating anxiety motivates the learner to
  fight the new learning task it gears the
  learner emotionally for approval behavior.
  Debilitating anxiety, in contrast, motivates the
  learner to flee the new learning task it
  stimulates the individual emotionally to adopt
  avoidance behavior -- Scovel, T. (1978). The
  effect of affect on foreign language learning A
  review of the anxiety research. Language
  Learning, 28, 129142, p. 139.

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• Individual Differences in SLA Anxiety
• Fundamental question How do people differ
  relative to anxiety, and how do these differences
  influence the process of and success in SLA?
• State v. trait anxiety
• State anxiety is relative momentary, associated
  with a particular situation giving a speech,
  for example. Trait anxiety is a more permanent
  predisposition to be anxious (Scovel, p. 137).

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• Individual Differences in SLA Anxiety
• Fundamental question How do people differ
  relative to anxiety, and how do these differences
  influence the process of and success in SLA?
• Interaction among Anxiety and other individual
  differences
• Interaction between level of anxiety and IQ
  level. Higher states of anxiety facilitate
  learning at upper levels of intelligence, whereas
  they are associated with poorer performance at
  lower IQ levels (Scovel, p. 136).

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• Individual Differences in SLA Affective Domain
• Anxiety is one of many affective factors that may
  influence SLA. Other affective factors include
• self-esteem
• risk taking
• sensitivity to rejection
• empathy
• motivation

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• Individual Differences in SLA Methods / Affect
• One dominant methodology for SLA studies of the
  affective domain Elkhafaifi is no exception
• Correlation research

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• Individual Differences in SLA Correlation
• In correlation studies, researchers
• develop an instrument / questionnaire to measure
  some aspect of difference (e.g., level of
  anxiety) this is called self-report data.
• test students on some aspect of language
  proficiency (vocabulary skills, e.g.), and
• examine the two for strength of correlation, as
  in

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• Individual Differences in SLA Instruments
• Instruments for affective SLA studies include
• For extroversion / introversion,
• Eysenck Introversion Extroversion Scale
• Marlowe Crowne Scale of Reserved Outgoing
  Personality
• For anxiety,
• Sarason Text Anxiety Scale
• Manifest Anxiety Scale
• Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale
• Foreign Language Listening Anxiety Scale
• For sensitivity,
• Mehrabian Sensitivity to Rejection Scale

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• Individual Differences in SLA Instruments
• Instruments for affective SLA studies include
• For empathy,
• Hogan Empathy Scale
• Micro-Momentary Expression Test (facial
  expressions)
• For tolerance of ambiguity,
• Budner Scale of Tolerance Intolerance
• For motivation,
• Attitude / Motivation Test Battery

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• Individual Differences in SLA Self-Report Data
• In correlation studies of SLA affect, informants
  provide information about themselves (about their
  anxiety, tolerance for ambiguity, motivation, and
  so on) by completing the instrument (a
  questionnaire). The results are called
  self-report data.
• What are the pros and cons of self-report data?
• Advantages they provide a fast and easy way of
  categorizing informants affective
  characteristics.
• We could categorize informants ethnographically
  (through observation), but this would require a
  considerable investment in time and resources.
• Self-report data represent a trade-off for
  researchers in time-energy-accuracy.

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• Individual Differences in SLA Self-Report Data
• Disadvantages
• Hawthorne effect Informants may provide data
  they think the researcher wants to receive.
• Self-flattery syndrome They may provide data
  that present themselves favorably, but which may
  be inaccurate.

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• Individual Differences in SLA Correlation
• Self-report data are then correlated with some
  measure of SLA success (test scores, typically),
  so that researchers can draw conclusions about
  the relationship between affect (extroversion,
  self-esteem, anxiety, and so on) and success in
  SLA.
• Remember what correlation is not
• Causation
• Correlation simply shows a relationship between
  two things, not that one causes the other. With
  that in mind, what is wrong with this
  statement?The majority of studies support the
  view that anxiety contributes to poor
  performance, not the reverse (Elkhafaifi, p.
  208).

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