| Summary: | A pilot study was conducted for the purpose of validating a Writing Apprehension Questionnaire (WAQ) that was developed for use in a doctoral study. The WAQ used items adapted from existing writing anxiety scales, which include the Daly-Miller Writing Apprehension Test (WAT, Daly & Miller, 1975a), Second Language WAT (Gungle & Taylor, 1989) and Second Language Writing Apprehension Inventory (SLWAI, Cheng, 2004). The pilot test was conducted with 474 ESL students and Exploratory Factor analysis was employed to ascertain the multidimensional conceptualisation of the writing anxiety construct and to determine the final make-up of the WAQ. Specifically, the Principle Component Analysis extraction method was performed to examine the factor structure of the initial 38-item WAQ. Repeated analyses were conducted and comparisons of the outputs were
carried out with the aim of determining the number of factors to retain. The results of the analyses indicated that the scale has 32 items with four factors, i.e. Negative
experience/belief about writing, Concern about form/content, Positive experience with writing, and Fear of evaluation. The reliability analyses demonstrated that the total scale and its subscales had good internal consistency reliability. Thus, this pilot study confirms the multidimensionality of the scale, which makes it appropriate for the investigation into the relationships between the different facets of L2 writing apprehension and aspects of writing performance as set out in the main doctoral study.
|
|---|