THE IMPACT OF ACADEMIC ANXIETY ON UZBEK EFL UNIVERSITY STUDENTS ESSAY WRITING ABILITIES
Keywords:
Academic anxiety; Academic writing; EFL university students; Uzbek learners; Affective factors; Second language writingAbstract
Writing academic essays in English presents both linguistic and psychological challenges for a large number of Uzbek university students. Even though students may possess adequate knowledge of grammar and vocabulary they frequently suffer from severe academic anxiety when they have to write for assessment. Their capacity to arrange concepts, formulate arguments and employ language correctly may be hampered by this anxiety. However there has not been much research done in the Uzbek EFL context on how academic anxiety affects English essay writing.This study investigates the connection between academic anxiety and academic essay writing proficiency among Uzbek EFL university students. At a public university in Uzbekistan data were gathered from undergraduate students using a quantitative correlational design. Students completed a timed argumentative essay and an academic anxiety questionnaire. An analytical writing rubric measuring content development coherence lexical resource and grammatical accuracy was used to evaluate the essays.
The findings indicate a strong inverse relationship between writing performance and academic anxiety. While students with lower anxiety levels showed better control over academic language and structure those with higher anxiety levels produced essays that were less developed coherent and linguistically incorrect. These results imply that emotional and cognitive pressure during writing assignments in addition to limited language proficiency is a contributing factor in academic writing difficulties among Uzbek EFL learners.
The study suggests that lowering academic anxiety can be a major factor in raising students academic writing quality and emphasizes the necessity of psychologically supportive writing instruction in Uzbek universities.
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