Test Anxiety, Gender and English Language Performance

This book is designed for three purposes.First,is to determine the level of test anxiety among undergraduate proficiency students at Universiti Putra Malaysia. Second,to compare the level of test anxiety across gender,and finally,to investigate the relationship between test anxiety and English language performance. This study employed a survey design. 102 undergraduate ESL learners from Universiti Putra Malaysia participated in this study. Two instruments were used to gather data for this study. The first was The Suinn’s Test Anxiety Questionnaire, and the second, Standard Proficiency Test of English. The data were analysed using descriptive statistics, t-test and Pearson correlation. The findings revealed that there was a high level of anxiety among students in general. The study also reported no significant difference on the level of anxiety across gender. Finally, a statistically significant negative correlation was observed between test anxiety and English language performance. The findings suggest effective counseling for students to reduce the level of test anxiety and the use of strategies for helping teachers in addressing the test anxiety problem among the undergraduates.