Development of the Writing Exam Anxiety Scale for Students Learning Turkish as a Foreign Language

Abstract

It is important to improve the literacy skills of students who learn Turkish as a foreign language. Especially the development of writing skills has a vital role in gaining literacy skills. Therefore, the aim of this study is to develop a scale that can measure the writing anxiety of students who learn Turkish as a foreign language. For this purpose, firstly the literature was reviewed. As a result of the review, a pool of 43 items was created. After examining the expert and student opinions, a trial scale with 41 items was generated and administered to the students. The participants consisted of the students studying at İnönü University in the spring semester of 2019 at B2 and C1 levels. SPSS 20 program was used to examine the validity and reliability of the scale, which was applied to 189 students on a voluntary basis. As a result of the tests, a scale consisting of 18 items and 3 factors (writing self-efficacy, cognitive and environmental factors) was created with the removal of items that reduce internal consistency and have co-loading. The overall reliability (alpha = 0.904) of the scale created as a result of the test was found to be very high. According to the alpha and explained variance values related to its reliability, it was concluded that the scale is a valid and reliable test to measure the writing anxiety of students who learn Turkish as a foreign language.