A study of the anxiety of the 12th graders before the english test in the national upper secondary graduation examination at huynh thuc khang high school

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYỄN THỊ HỢP A STUDY OF THE ANXIETY OF THE 12 TH GRADERS BEFORE TH

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-

GRADUATE STUDIES

NGUYỄN THỊ HỢP

A STUDY OF THE ANXIETY OF THE 12 TH GRADERS BEFORE THE

ENGLISH TEST IN THE NATIONAL UPPER SECONDARY GRADUATION EXAMINATION AT HUYNH THUC KHANG HIGH SCHOOL

(Nghiên cứu về sự băn khoăn, lo lắng của học sinh lớp 12 trước khi làm

bài thi môn Tiếng Anh tại kỳ thi tốt nghiệp Phổ thông trung học Quốc Gia tại trường THPT Huỳnh Thúc

Kháng)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-

Gia tại trường THPT Huỳnh Thúc Kháng)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111

Supervisor: Assoc Prof Dr Trần Xuân Điệp

I certify that I myself write this thesis entitled “A study of the anxiety of the 12 th graders before the English Test in the National Upper - Secondary Graduation Examination at a School in Hanoi.” It is not a plagiarism or thesis written by others I

assure that I wrote anything related to others‟ works in quotation If then thepronouncement proves wrong, I am ready to accept any academic punishment,including the withdrawal or cancellation of my academic degree

Hanoi, May 2017

Nguyêñ Thi Hợpp

I would like to express my sincere appreciation to many people supporting

me to complete this current study

Firstly, I would like to show my deepest gratitude to my respectful supervisor,Assoc Prof., PhD Tran Xuan Diep, who gave me a lot of professional advice onthe thesis writing I am grateful to his kind consideration, tender guidance, criticalfeedback, and insightful suggestions Without his care, I could not have been able

to finish this study

Secondly, I would also like to acknowledge my gratefulness to theparticipants of this study the 12 grader students at Huynh Thuc Khang high school.This study could not have been conducted but for their willingness to complete thequestionnaires and participate in the interviews

Finally, I wish to express my deep thanks to my dear family, especially myhusband for their love, encouragement, immeasurable support, and concrete helpfor me to complete this research

Test anxiety plays a significant role in one‟s educational, professional, andemotional life Therefore, it is not surprising that the testing environment causesanxiety to a number of individuals This study carried out aimed at investigatingmain causes of anxiety and some possible solutions Data collected from theparticipants (class 12A and 12B at Huynh Thuc Khang high school with 84students) by employing quantitative (questionnaires) and qualitative (interviews)methods as research instruments including study skills, perceived threat of tests,and performance attributions The results are interpreted to propose that somecauses believed to contribute to students‟ anxiety were also identified, amongwhich the difficult content, the poor preparation and the difficulties in selecting therelated materials seemed to be most highly considered by the students Moreover,The results revealed that giving a clear introduction for the difficult types of theexercises, providing well-designed samples of tests and doing exercises fromdifferent sources were offered to help students acknowledge, cope with and reduceanxiety as well as select an appropriate method of learning to take the actualEnglish Examination with the lower anxiety

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ii

ABSTRACT iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iv

LISTS OF ABBREVIATIONS vii

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES viii

PART A: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Rationale for the research 1

1.2 Aims and Objectives of the study 2

1.3 Research questions 2

1.4 Scope of the study 2

1.5 Methods of the study 2

1.6 Organization of the study 3

PART B: DEVELOPMENT 4

CHAPTER 1 LITERATURE REVIEW 4

1.1 Theoretical background 4

1.1.1 Definitions: Anxiety and Test anxiety 4

1.2.2 Kinds of anxiety 4

1.1.3 Causes of test anxiety 5

1.1.4 Solutions to anxiety 7

1.2 Review of previous related studies 8

1.3 Summary 9

2.1 The context of the study 10

2.1.1 Research settings 10

2.1.2 Research participants 10

2.2 Research methodology 10

2.2.1 Definition of Survey Research 10

2.2.2 Advantages of Survey Research 11

2.2.3 Main steps in conducting Survey Research 12

2.2.4 Data collection instruments 12

2.2.5 Data collection procedures 15

2.2.6 Data analysis 15

2.3 Summary 16

CHAPTER 3 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 17

3.1 Descriptive statistics 17

3.1.1 Descriptive statistics of causes related to knowledge content and personal barrier 17

3.1.2 Descriptive statistics of some factors concerning studying habits and gathering related materials 17

3.1.3 Descriptive statistics of causes related to poor preparation and performance beyond control 18

3.1.4 Descriptive statistics of solutions to anxiety 18

3.2 Quantitative description of results from the questionnaire and qualitative description of results from semi-interview 19

3.2.1 Causes related to knowledge content and personal barrier 19

3.2.2 Causes related to studying habits and gathering related materials 24

3.2.4 Solutions to anxiety 32

3.3 Summary 40

PART C: CONCLUSIONS 41

1 Recapitulation 41

2 Implication from the study 42

3 Limitations and suggestions for further study 43

REFERENCES 44 APPENDICE 1 I

APPENDIX 2 VI

APPENDIX 3 IX

APPENDIX 4 XI

LISTS OF ABBREVIATIONS

TAS : Test Anxiety Scale

SPSS : Statistical Package for Social Sciences

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Page

Table 1: Reliability Statistics 17

Table 2: Reliability Statistics 17

Table 3: Reliability Statistics 18

Table 4: Reliability Statistics 18

Table 5: KMO and Bartlett's Test 19

Table 6: Causes related to knowledge content and personal barrier 20

Table 7: Causes related to studying habits and gathering related materials 24

Table 8: Causes related to poor preparation and performance beyond control 29 Table 9: Solutions to anxiety 33

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1.1 Rationale for the research

Nowadays, the significance of tests and academic achievements tends to bedrawn much more attention by society Hence, it puts pressure on students to

“succeed,” which leads students to have high anxiety and stress and then affects theindividuals‟ results It is urgent that anxiety and the immediate need for treatmentdraw more and more attention of educators, not only for today but also for thefuture Anxiety is becoming one of the most common and wide-spreading mentalillnesses The need for treatment should be drawn more attention and the school hasbecome a wonderful place to treat anxiety (Masia -Warner et al., 2005)

In Vietnam, nowadays test is becoming a growing issue to the societyespecially to the students and parents respectively, simply because there have been

so many changes in the examination regulation in recent years in a short time

At Huynh Thuc Khang high school, where I have been teaching English for along time, in some classes, students expressed negative attitude towards the change

in English Test format in the National Upper-Secondary Graduation Examination.From my personal observation and professional experience, I realized that studentswere unable to work out all of the answers to the questions in the samples of teststhey had to do in class and at home Therefore, they seemed to be tired when doingthe samples of the English Tests In addition, students were confused about selectingthe best ways to prepare for the actual examination Moreover, I was aware thatstudents spent a great deal of time discovering exercises from a variety of sourcesbut they seemed to fail, because they did not have enough abilities to find out whatmaterials were suitable for their revisions As an English teacher, the researcherfeels anxious about finding the proper teaching method to help the students to have

a better orientation of examination Such a situation has inspired the author to carry

Test in the National Upper-Secondary Graduation Examination at Huynh Thuc Khang high school.”

1.2 Aims and Objectives of the study

The aim of the study is to do research on causes of anxiety and some possiblesolutions to the 12th graders before the English Test in the National Upper-Secondary Graduation Examination The objectives of the study were:

1. To find out the main causes of anxiety among the 12th graders before the English Test in the National Upper-Secondary Graduation Examination

2. To suggest some solutions to anxiety

2. What are some possible solutions to anxiety?

1.4 Scope of the study

The researcher focused on the subjects‟ anxiety of the English Test in theNational Upper-Secondary Graduation Examination with its causes of anxiety andsolutions before the examination Moreover, due to the pressure of the time, thisstudy carried out at the mid-term of school year 2016-2017 only involves a smallnumber of the 12th graders (two classes with 84 students) at Huynh Thuc Khanghigh school

1.5 Methods of the study

The data serving the research analysis collected by employing bothquantitative (questionnaires) and qualitative methods (interviews) provided thestudy with information and evidence

1.6 Organization of the study

The thesis consists of three main parts

Part A is the INTRODUCTION, which consists of rationale, aims, and objectives ofthe study and research questions It also covers scope, methods, and organization ofthe study

Part B is the DEVELOPMENT separated into three chapters:

+ The first chapter provides the basic theoretical background related to anxiety, testanxiety, and kinds of anxiety Especially, this chapter mentioned possible causes ofanxiety and solutions, which are the main issues of the study and the previousstudies in brief

+ The second chapter is concerned with methodology used in the study In the firstplace, author restates the research questions and emphasizes the context, settings,participants, instruments, data collection, and analysis procedure in the process ofconducting the study

+ The third chapter shows the main content with findings as well as discussions based on the results from questionnaires and interviews

Part C is the CONCLUSION offering a summary of the mentioned issues, the implication for the study and the limitations and suggestions for further study

PART B: DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER 1 LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter aims to shed light on the theory and research findings related toanxiety and test anxiety and the previous related studies of this issue that theresearcher utilized to construct the conceptual framework for the present study Thetheoretical background covers the following topics: definition of anxiety and testanxiety, types of anxiety, main causes of anxiety and its solutions

1.1.1.2 Definitions of test anxiety

Test anxiety is a strong emotional response in which an individualexperiences before and during an examination (Akca, 2011) Usually, situations inwhich personal evaluations is allowed by individuals are defined as situationalevaluation, will possibly cause high levels of performance

1.2.2 Kinds of anxiety

1.2.2.1 Trait Anxiety

Brown (1994) shared opinions that Trait anxiety occurred when there was alikelihood of an individual becoming anxious in any situation

Jonassen and Grabowski (1993) reported that the trait anxiety perspectivewas productive in reporting effects of generalized anxiety and it has been applicableacross situations.

1.2.2.2 State Anxiety

Spielberger (1983),Chen and WU (2004) regarded state anxiety asunsatisfactory temporary emotional state or condition, activated by the individuals‟nervous system such as the experiences in apprehension before taking a test

Jonassen and Grabowski (1993) revealed that it depends on an event orcombination of events experienced at the time It shows a transient emotional mood

or condition According to them, state anxiety determined by the interaction of traitanxiety may cause individual to perceive situational threat perceive, and so isresponsive to situational factors An individual who generally responds to anynumber of situations with low anxiety may react to high anxiety if there are multipleanxiety-causing conditions present

1.1.3 Causes of test anxiety

MacDonald (2010) found out that there were a variety of factors affectingtest anxiety among which there were bad attitude of teachers to the applications indoing test, responses of the students towards learning, the inabilities of the testamong students, being under fear of negative evaluation, having experience inexamination terribly, being under pressure of time Besides, the fact that content wascomplicated and parental expectations to children‟s taking exams were clearlyshown as some of factors leading to anxiety

Hills & Benlow, (2008) indicated that there was a correlation between learningmethod and anxiety, because it can make a person study and pass examinations muchmore easily Insufficient and inefficient studying can contribute to increasing the testanxiety experienced by a student (Cassady, 2010) Peleg, (2009) stated that students‟poor performance on test may firstly due to insufficient studying and preparations;

designed tests may make students experience pressure, loss of concentration andinattention, difficulties in memory during the following tests

In other words, Hills & Benlow, (2008) and Cassady, (2010) Peleg, (2009)showed that a suitable studying skill is considered as a better quality of testperformance It means that the more students prepare knowledge with anappropriate method, the better their test results are By contrast, from the point ofMacDonald‟s view, a set of causes of test anxiety were found out like bad attitude ofteachers to the applications in doing test, students‟ attitude towards learning, fear ofnegative evaluation, bad examination experiences, time limitation, difficult coursecontent and parental expectations when conducting his research

Gettinger and Seibert (2002) believed that there was a close relationshipbetween academic competence, the knowledge, and application of effective studyskills According to them, students having good study skills are more likely toachieve academic competence They make out task demands, and are able toperform flexible, effective strategies to succeed academically Thus, both of theresearchers hold the idea of effective study skills introduced to improve academicperformance, strategic knowledge, and affective responses among students withlearning problems across multiple academic domains (Harvey & Goudvis, 2000)

According to them, studying habit is one of the causes of test anxiety Inother words, if students know how to apply their knowledge to the test together with

an effective studying habit, the better results they can obtain In addition to thestudying habit, some other researchers identified another cause such as locus ofcontrol described as the cause of success or failure (Barzegar, 2011) In the samevein, Bostic (2010) found out that there is a significant difference in academicachievement of students According to him, students that have internal locus ofcontrol are more successful than those who have external locus of control

In general, the researcher‟s concern is to find out some causes of anxietyamong the 12th graders before the English Test in the National Upper - Secondary

Examination at a school in Hanoi, and whether these findings tend to be consistentwith MacDonald (2010).

1.1.4 Solutions to anxiety

Gonzalez (1995) stated that improving their testing skills would decreasetheir anxiety and make their scores better When preparing for standardized tests, itwas recommend by Carter et al (2005) and Conner (2003) that if we increase skills

in doing actual test, we should practice the same samples as the actual test Besides,Carter et al (2005) added that providing students with an explanation for eachstrategy, a set of opportunities to watch someone model the strategy, repeatedopportunities for students to practice and applying the strategies by using practicetests could be considered the ways to reduce test anxiety

Woodard (2004) indicated that teachers could also apply techniques toprevent and reduce anxiety in class Providing students with clear explanations andsuggested knowledge for revision was the solutions to anxiety To be more specific,

it is useful to teach the students to acquire critical thinking and enthusiasm about thesubject Moreover, giving feedback and partial credit, reviewing for exams, andoffering alternative testing times may be the ways to decrease anxiety Oxford &Vordick (2006) reported that although solutions to anxiety were incomplete, it mightassist teachers in incorporating greater structures into the lesson plans, andencourage an interactive classroom that will stimulate questions

Generally, appropriate learning strategies can also help student recall, store,and apply the knowledge while they are studying However, which strategies andhow are applied effectively is referred in the study with a view to reducing thestudents‟ test anxiety before the test In particular, the solutions to anxiety in thestudies of (Woodard, 2004) and (Oxford & Vordick, 2006) considered to conductthis study with the author‟s participants to find out the suitable ways to reduce testanxiety before the English Test in the National Upper-Secondary GraduationExamination

1.2 Review of previous related studies

In fact, the studies of anxiety and test anxiety have drawn much attention ofresearchers in Vietnam as well as other countries

Antwi-Danso, Amissah and Effrim (2015) carried out a survey of therelationship between test anxiety and academic achievements of third-year seniorhigh school students in the Agona Municipality of Ghana with 270 participants Theresults revealed that students should be orientated towards study skills acquisition aswell as anxiety reduction strategies for better results

Olaitan and Moroluyo (2014) aimed at investigating how the test anxiety,studying habits, and locus of control affected the academic performance amongcollege students with 508 participants by employing questionnaire The studyascertained that there was a close relationship between academic performance, non-

cognitive and socio-psychological changes Therefore, early intervention and

immediate prevention programs were developed and applied, which would aid toreduce students‟ anxiety Particularly, good study strategies such as evaluating theunderstanding level, making sense of the information from the textbook andrealizing the aim of learning a particular thing were developed

Augustina Dubem Nwajei (2013) conducted the study of “Test anxiety,

depression and academic performance: Assessment and arrangement usingrelaxation and cognitive restructuring techniques” with a view to investigating thechanges in degrees of anxiety among 420 participants at senior secondary Theresults show that test anxiety, trait anxiety, and depression existed together and have

a positive relationship, and they had negative effect on academic performance.Besides, it is better to combine the relaxation with the cognitive restructuringtreatment to reduce anxiety and depression instead of relaxation treatment alone.The findings thus present the effectiveness of cognitive therapy in controllinganxiety and depression and improving academic performance

In the context of Vietnam, Hoang Thi Mai Hoa (2011) was concerned aboutfactors affecting the students‟ English oral presentation skills by usingquestionnaire instrument to carry out the study at Hanoi Tourism College with the

106 participants She drew conclusion from the findings that the expressions of theideas with words was pronounced exactly, the fluency in presentation and creating agood manner were three of the factors having influence on the skills of oralpresentation in English Besides, she believed that poorly - prepared plan was alsoone of the factors of the students‟ English oral presentation skills

Ho Thi Anh (2013) did a survey of students‟ anxiety conducted in five year classes with the participants of 50 students in speaking class at Academy ofpolicy and development The main instruments of the study were interview andquestionnaire These findings showed that personal and interpersonal problems werecauses of anxiety in speaking among students

first-From the previous studies related to the research problems, the writerconducted the study on the 12th grader students at a school in Hanoi as the targetpopulation

CHAPTER 2 METHODOLOGY

2.1 The context of the study

2.1.1 Research settings

The study was conducted at Huynh Thuc Khang high school when allstudents at the school prepared knowledge for the National Upper-SecondaryGraduation Examination for the university entrance or other purposes The students

at school have English three lessons (periods) which mainly based on the textbook aweek and the contents of the lessons of textbook are chiefly taught in the morning

In addition, the 12th graders did several of samples of the English Test to reviseknowledge for the compulsory examination 8 periods per week (45 minutes each).The number of the 12th students at Huynh Thuc Khang high school is estimated at

200 students with differences in levels of English Particularly, the students arefacing many difficulties in preparing for an examination

2.1.2 Research participants

The participants in this study were 84 students of the class 12A and 12B inthe academic year 2016-2017 After the Ministry of education and training hadprovided the 12th students with the sample of tests, the teacher-researcher wonderedhow the learners should do to master skills and knowledge for an actualexamination Hence, the researcher selected them as the participants in the SurveyResearch to find out causes of anxiety and solutions for helping the students to dothe actual examination with the flying colour

2.2 Research methodology

2.2.1 Definition of Survey Research

Survey Research Design (SRD) defined

“A survey research is a study of a large group (a population) through direct study of

a subset of that group (a sample)”.

(Johnson D.M, 1992:104)

A survey design uses various data collection procedures to enable theteacher-researcher-educator-educator (TREE) to investigate a construct by askingquestions of either fact (descriptive) or opinion (explanatory) from a sample of a

population with a view to generalizing to the population The term survey is an

umbrella term that allows for many data collection procedures includingquestionnaires, interviews, and observations

2.2.2 Advantages of Survey Research

Survey design can generate not only descriptive summary but alsogeneralized statements based on large databases (Cohen, Manion, & Morrison,

2000, p 171)

Survey design is good for providing information for curriculumdevelopment, including needs analysis and program evaluation, as well asresearching certain topics (Brown, 1997)

It is also good at collecting data on groups too large to observe directly(Babbie, 2004) Furthermore, the data collection instruments (questionnaires) used

to gather data in a relatively short time to get the results analyzed statistically

Based on the definition mentioned, Survey Research is appropriate for thisstudy Firstly, this aim of the research was to find out the causes of anxiety byasking the students designed questions concerning opinions or attitude of thelearners towards the problem done by the researcher Secondly, the researcher did asurvey with a small sample of the class 12A and 12 B mainly before the actualexamination Therefore, with the good points of the Survey Research provided by(Cohen, Manion, & Morrison, 2000, p 171), (Brown, 1997), and Babbie, 2004), theresearcher selected the survey research to gain the expected results

2.2.3 Main steps in conducting Survey Research

1. Planning survey project

2. Designing survey instrument

3. Gathering & compiling survey data

4. Analyzing survey data statistically

5. Analyzing survey data qualitatively

6. Reporting survey results

(Brown J.D, 2005, p.8)

2.2.4 Data collection instruments

2.2.4.1 Survey Questionnaires

Part

2.2.4.1.1 Perceived Threat of Tests

Lay, Edwards, Parker, Endler (1989), Schwarzer and Jerusalem (1992)

presented that students who suffered from high-test anxiety tended to perceive tests

as threatening events because they saw the next evaluative situations as a stressful

event

Bandalos, Yates, Thorndike-Christ (1995) Schutz, and Davis (2000) provided

Students‟ explanations for this perceived threat are that they have a generalized

low-self efficacy for testing or the specific subject matter is complex and difficult

Students‟ perceptions of testing events were evaluated prior to taking the test

with the 6 items Perceived Threat of Tests developed for the purposes of this study

(See Appendix 1) focuses on the awareness of the next test as threatening, either due

to general difficulty of course content or personal barriers to success on the test.Participants respond to a five -point Likert type scale, with responses ranging from

“strongly disagree” to “strongly agree.”

2.2.4.1.2 Study skills

Everson, Smodlaka, and Tobias (1995) revealed that students experiencedhigh-test anxiety when they had deficits in encoding and storage processesassociated with reading materials during preparation for tests

Culler & Holohan (1980) and Wittmaier (1972) claimed that the inability toemploy effective study skills prevented students with test anxiety from cognitiveprocesses Furthermore, they showed that students with high-test anxiety studiedmuch more than their low anxiety peers but the study methods were highlyrepetitive and less effective

Study skills include a set of six items regarding the habits and skills studentsused to prepare for exams or gather the materials related to the exams Participantsrespond to a five-point Likert - type scale, with responses ranging from “stronglydisagrees” to “strongly agree.” (See Appendix 1)

2.2.4.1.3 Test performance attributions

Schwarzer and Jerusalem (1992) represented that as students experiencedsituations involving internally based attributions for failure, it assured that theupcoming tests were likely to be threatening In other words, students would movebeyond the motivational „„Challenge Stage‟‟ and progress into a stage where threat

is dominant In cases where the students develop attributions that have the locus ofcontrol externalized, the development of a „„Loss of Control‟‟ perspective isprompted

Students‟ perceptions and beliefs about performance were gathered with 5items Participants responded to these items using the five-point Likert - type scale,ranging from „„strongly disagree‟‟ to „„strongly agree” Test performanceattributions focuses on the poor preparation and performance beyond the control.( See Appendix 1).

In general, to avoid being constrained by the use of a second language, theresearcher translated all of the questions in the survey into Vietnamese, because thelevels of English are not good enough to understand all the contents of thequestions

2.2.4.2 Interviews

The interview for students consists of five items conducted in Vietnamese,which were open enough to allow the interviewees to be free to express themselvesand assists the participants to express fully their views of being constrained by theuse of a second language Then all their answers to the questions were translatedinto English to use in this study

There are three parts in the interview In the first part, question 1 related toattitude towards anxiety was raised The purpose of this part was to find out whetherstudents had experienced the feelings of anxiety or not The second part withquestion 2 focused on the main causes of anxiety among the 12th graders before theEnglish Test in the National Upper-Secondary Graduation Examination The thirdpart with question 3, 4, and 5 aimed to finding solutions to this problem The datafrom the interviews analyzed aimed at providing the researcher with a deep

understanding of the problems, on which the researchers based to find possiblesolutions to anxiety.

The interview for teachers is composed of five items The interview carriedout in Vietnamese for the teachers to express more and more opinions in a short oftime Afterwards, all their answers to the questions were translated into English with

a view to using in the study

The interview consists of three parts The first part (Question1) designedconcentrated on finding out whether students were nervous or not The second partwith question 2, 3, and 4 was to explore causes of anxiety The last one (Question 5)was to find out the possible solutions to anxiety

2.2.5 Data collection procedures

The study included four steps First, the author translated the statements inthe scale into Vietnamese in order to overcome the incapability of self-expression inEnglish Secondly, the author sent it to the supervisor to correct the mistakes intranslations Thirdly, the researcher delivered questionnaires measuring the causes

of anxiety and solutions to participants as soon as they entered the exam hall It tookthe participants a maximum of 30 minutes to answer the questionnaire containingtwo major parts: asking questions to find out causes of anxiety and solutions (SeeAppendix 1).And then interviews (10 random students) (See Appendix 2) werecarried out two days later Finally, the researcher conducted the interviews 7 ofrandom teachers (See Appendix 3) 5 days later

To make description convenient, as for interview for students and teachers,the researcher used pseudo-initials for each student (A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, K, andI) and each teacher (A, B, C, D, E, G and H) respectively.

2.3 Summary

This chapter presented the research settings, the participants, followed bySurvey Research definition, the major steps of survey Next, the chapter gave thedetails about description of data collection instruments, data collection proceduresand data analysis procedures The following chapter will give the details about thefindings and results of the study

CHAPTER 3 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 3.1 Descriptive statistics

3.1.1 Descriptive statistics of causes related to knowledge content and personal

barrier

Cronbach's Alpha

As can be seen from the table above of reliability statistics and (See Table 1,

Appendix 4), the value of Cronbach's Alpha = 0.863 > 0.6 Furthermore, Corrected

Item-Total Correlation of coefficients > 0.3 Cronbach's Alpha if Item Deleted

values of numbers was lower than the values of Corrected Item-Total Correlation

There were no redundant items Consequently, all the questions were suitable and

all the answers of the students were reliable enough to analyze

3.1.2 Descriptive statistics of some factors concerning studying habits and

gathering related materials

Cronbach's Alpha

Table 2: Reliability Statistics

It is clear that the value of Cronbach's Alpha = 0.895 > 0.6 based on the table

above of the reliability statistics, Corrected Item-Total Correlation of coefficients >

0.3 (See Table 2, Appendix 4) In addition, Cronbach's Alpha if Item Deleted values

of numbers was lower than the values of Corrected Item-Total Correlation No

items became redundant As a result, all the questions were suitable and all the

answers of the students were reliable enough to analyze

3.1.3 Descriptive statistics of causes related to poor preparation and performance

beyond control

Cronbach's Alpha

It can be seen from the table above that the value of Cronbach's Alpha =

0.894 > 0.6 And Corrected Item-Total Correlation values of the coefficients > 0.3

(See Table 3, Appendix 4) The Cronbach's Alpha if Item Deleted value of numbers

was lower than Corrected Item-Total Correlation values so there were no redundant

items As a result, all the questions were suitable and all of the answers by the

students were reliable enough to analyze

3.1.4 Descriptive statistics of solutions to anxiety

Cronbach's Alpha

As it was seen from the table above that the value of Cronbach's Alpha

=0.869 > 0.6 The Corrected Item-Total Correlation values of the coefficients > 0.3

(See Table 4, Appendix 4) The Cronbach's Alpha if Item Deleted value of numbers

was lower than Corrected Item-Total Correlation values so there were no redundant

items As a result, all the questions were suitable and all of the answers by the

students were reliable enough to analyze

Kaiser-Meyer- Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy.

Approx Chi-SquareBartlett's Test of

df

Sphericity

Sig

Table 5: KMO and Bartlett's Test

It is clear that Reliability statistics KMO shows the value of KMO = 0.765 >0.7 and Reliability statistics Barlett indicates result was significant (sig = 0.000 <0.01) As a result, Component Analysis was suitable

According to the statistics of the Total Variance Explained (See Table 6,Appendix 4), three sorts of major suitable causes (Eigenvalues = 2.37 > 1) wereselected after having been analyzed The Eigenvalues = 2.37 > 1 accounting for66.414% variance of the total 17 items

Based on Rotated Component Matrixa (See Table 8, Appendix 4), there maintypes of causes were gathered

- The causes involving knowledge contents and personal barrier from 1 to 6

- The causes involving studying habits and gathering related materials from 7

I feel anxious when I do

idioms and phrases

I feel nervous when I do

samplesspecial vocabularies

have 3 English lessons a week

I feel anxious when I am not

English exams much

Table 6: Causes related to knowledge content and personal barrier

Items 1 and 2 refer to causes related to knowledge content The data in table

believed that the difficult content of the exams made them anxious Particularly,they had to do many samples of tests with words and structures that they had notlearned before For item 1, approximately 88.1% agreed and completely agreed withthe view above, in comparison to 21.4% partly agreeing and 2.4% disapproving andcompletely disagreeing Besides, they felt anxious when they had to do readingcomprehension with too many new words For item 2, only around 11.9% ofstudents partly approved of the idea mentioned while approximately 85.7%approved and completely approved of it.

Items 3, 4, 5 and 6 refer to causes related to personal barrier includingpressure of time to prepare for examination, ability of concentration and lack ofconfidence Of all the causes, the students at Huynh Thuc Khang high school feltnervous when they did not have enough time to prepare for an actual examination.They found that having English lessons 3 times a week is not enough to obtainrequired knowledge for the examination Moreover, they believed that they wereanxious when the time they spent on preparations passed too fast: onlyapproximately 15.5% of the students partly agreed and 1.2% disagreed

The findings from questionnaire show that the difficult content and pressure

of time on preparation of knowledge for English examination were the two majorcauses of anxiety

From the interview for students, several students claimed that it was ratherdifficult for them to deal with all the questions They tended to be exhausted whenfacing the content of the English examination, which made them anxious Inparticular, students always looked forward to others help them do exercises because

of their exhaustion Moreover, students shared the ideas that they have never knownsome structures and vocabularies in the samples of tests before Students B, C, E, F,

G, and H said that the complicated content prevented them from working out thecorrect answer effectively (See question 2, Appendix 2)

May be, I seemed not to study hard for the examination; I only spend 5 dayspreparing for it Moreover, working out so many difficult questions in Englishexams makes me exhausted If so, I usually select the answers randomly (StudentC)

Preparing knowledge for the test takes me up not much time In fact, I expectothers to help me In addition, the content seems to prevent me from offering theanswers a great deal I often spend the breaks among the lessons getting ready forthe English samples made by the teachers (Student F)

I seem never to meet with the structures and some new words I find themrather new to me Therefore, I choose the answer randomly, Sometimes, I also findmaterials for extra samples, but I do not know which ones and authors suitable forthe English exams Moreover, there are too many compulsory subjects for thenational exams so I have to separate the amounts of time for each subject And Ifind myself have not much time for it (Student G)

When doing the samples given by the teacher, I only complete it at about half

of the allotted time May be, the content is also a barrier to me Sometimes itchallenges me a lot Actually, I really want to improve it but I do not what andwhere I can find the best extra books for it (Student H)

The results from the interview for students reveal that the difficulties inknowledge content were a barrier to them In other words, they were nervous whenthe content was too complicated

From the interviews for teachers, six out of seven teachers hold the idea thatstudents at Huynh Thuc Khang high school were anxious when they had to so manysamples of tests containing many new words and difficult structures In other words,they skipped the difficult ones or chose the answer randomly As a result, they took

no interest in doing the next samples of tests

The students felt rather anxious They were tired of doing this kind of testsamples Sometimes, they did not do the difficult exercises because they thoughtthese questions were out of their abilities (Teacher A).

In my opinion, my students were confused when facing questions related tovocabularies such as phrasal verbs, idioms, and collocations They said to me thatthey tried to do the questions except for the ones associated with the vocabulariesand reading comprehension (Teacher B)

According to me, my students felt nervous when they had to do types ofquestions containing difficult contents They seemed to complete three questions ofreading comprehension They chose the answers to the rest randomly As a result,they did not seem to take pleasure in the next samples of tests (Teacher C)

According to me, doing reading comprehension with so many new wordsseemed to make the students uninterested in doing the samples of tests Therefore,they did not want to try more (Teacher D)

From point of my view, my students were anxious when meeting with thesamples of tests with too many new words They confided in me that they onlymade their efforts to work out the answers to the questions concerning grammar andstructures (Teacher E)

The results from the interviews for teachers show that the complex content ofknowledge was one of the causes of students‟ anxiety

In conclusion, the results of questionnaire and interviews for teachers andstudents reveal that the complex content was the potential source of the students‟anxiety before the examination in the group

3.2.2 Causes related to studying habits and gathering related materials

24

Items 8, 10, and 12 (See Appendix 1) refer to causes associated withgathering related materials The results of the item 8 in the table 7 show that the rate

of the students at Huynh Thuc Khang high school who found collecting thematerials for the exams fairly complicated was the highest It is clear that this figureaccounted for 78.5% (66 participants) in the 84 participants By contrast, thenumbers partly agreeing was approximately 16.7% and those who did not share theopinions and did not completely share the opinions with the item were similar, just

up to 2.4%

Items 7, 9, and 11 (See Appendix 1) refer to causes related to studying habits

It can be also seen that a wide range of the students expressed positive opinions ofthe item 7.The rate of the students agreeing and completely agreeing with the itemexperienced a relatively high trend reaching up to 77.4%, whereas the number of thestudents partly agreed and disagreed approximately 19.0% and 3.6% respectively

The findings of questionnaire indicate that the difficulty in selecting extraexercises from a suitable source was the major cause of anxiety of this group

Based on the students‟ answers in the semi-interview (See question 2,Appendix 2), three out of ten students shared the views that they found themselvesnot studious enough for the English exams In addition, they had several hardships

in selecting the best materials close to the content of the English examination duringthe period of revision Student A admitted that A did not spend much time revisingthe knowledge and shared the idea that A often felt under pressure of time Besides,she only spent 2 or 3 hours a week on it

The main one is that I have not spent much time revising the knowledgecontents before the English examination I myself find not concentrate on selectingthe answer Sometimes, I had trouble preparing for the exams, simply becausecontent is rather difficult to understand such as sentence concerning vocabulary I

do not seem to do it Another is that I only spent 2 or 3 hours a week revisingknowledge (Student A).

The cause is that I tend not to acquire knowledge for the exams In otherword, I lack confidence After finishing the English Test about half of time I oftenreplaced the correct answer with false one because I could not control ofknowledge In addition, content is difficult for me In addition to this, I could knowmeanings of words but I did not know how to use it Hence, I chose the incorrectanswer (Student E)

Of all the sample of test designed by teacher, I only can do some questions.Especially, I do not seem to be interested in it In addition, of course, I myself findunable to do it If I try, I tend to be tired and anxious, and I feel stressed for the nextone Moreover, I am not concentrated on revision and I took no pleasure in doingthe samples of tests In other words, I am too lazy to prepare knowledge and skillsfor the English Exams (Student I )

Besides, students A, B, C, D, E G, H, and K also added some other ideasshowing that it was not easy for them to select the best documents (See question 2,Appendix 2)

May be, I do not seem to study hard I only spend 5 days preparing for it.Moreover, working out difficult questions in English Test makes me exhausted If

so, I usually choose answer randomly In addition, I have many difficulties lookingfor a variety of exercises from other sources (Student C)

I often lose the control of knowledge before the exams My heads seems to

go blank before it Furthermore, sometimes I hope to acquire further knowledge but

I did not know which books are suitable for me I bought some One is difficult Theothers are easy I feel confused and uninterested in it (Student D)

I also found out materials for extra samples of tests but I did not know which

there were too many compulsory subjects for the national exams I had to separatethe amount of time into each subject And I found that I did not spend much time onrevision for the English Test (Student G).

During the period of samples by teachers, I only completed approximatelyhalf of the questions Perhaps, content was a barrier to me Sometimes, It challenged

me a lot Actually, I really wanted to improve it but I did not know where I couldfind the best extra books for the English examination (Student H)

The results of interviews for students show that not finding which kinds ofexercises they had better do to prepare knowledge for an actual examination was themain cause of anxiety

Based on teachers‟ answers from interviews for teachers, 5 out of 7interviewed teachers shared their ideas that the students at Huynh Thuc Khang highschool had hardship selecting suitable materials Some students tried to find sources

of books to get ready for an actual examination but they failed, others only tried to

do the exercises provided by the teachers Hence, they did not seem to have a rightskill to do the samples of tests

Almost all of my students felt nervous about making the choice of materialsorientation for the actual examination There were so many English practice tests bythe different authors that they could not decide which ones were good for theiractual examination (Teacher A)

My students were anxious about selecting the books to practise at home.Some of them shared the opinions that they tried to find exercises on the Internetbut they failed because they found that several exercises were difficult while otherswere not They seemed to lose control of making choice of the suitable exercises forthe actual examination (Teacher B)

Sometimes, they were tired when they could not find which materials were

they felt that to finding materials containing all the contents related to bothvocabularies and structures of the textbook was too difficult for them to do.(Teacher C).

Almost all of my students felt bored with collecting related materials for theirrevision They expressed that they found a variety of sources of exercises on theInternet Nevertheless, they did not make decision on which ones were suitable forthem They did not know what types they should follow because they had noorientation for English knowledge of the examination (Teacher D)

Most of my students were anxious about deciding on suitable materials forthe knowledge preparation Some of them told me that they spent a few days going

to the bookstores to buy some books to practise English tests at home However,they did it in vain They could not find any books They also shared that when theyglanced at the contents of books, some of books seemed to be easy but the restseemed to unfamiliar to them (Teacher H)

The results of the interviews for teachers indicate that the difficulties incollecting related materials were one of the main causes of students‟ anxiety

In all, the results of the questionnaires and students and teachers interviewsreveal that lack ability of selecting related materials was the leading causes ofanxiety

3.2.3 Causes related to poor preparation and performance beyond control

I feel anxious when I do not

into each part suitably

I feel nervous when I am not

knowledge contentexamination

Table 8: Causes related to poor preparation and performance beyond control