Investigating Indonesian EFL Students’ Writing Anxiety in Online Learning

Abstract

This research aims to investigate Indonesian EFL students’ writing anxiety in online learning, especially in regards to the current level and the subscales of Indonesian EFL students' writing anxiety in online learning, the causes of Indonesian EFL students' writing anxiety in online learning, and the strategies Indonesian EFL students use to overcome writing anxiety in online learning. The participants involved in this research were 19 fifth-semester students of the English Education Department of a university in Surakarta enrolled in an Article Writing class conducted online. This is a qualitative study that employs a case study method. The data collection process included observation, questionnaire, and interview. The researcher observed five meetings prior to the distribution of the questionnaire and the interviews sequentially. The findings of this research show that the Indonesian EFL students in the context of this research had a moderate level of writing anxiety with most of the subscale being experienced was cognitive anxiety. The results also indicate that linguistic difficulties are the most common cause of students' writing anxiety in online learning, followed by some other causes that occurred in the context of online courses. The findings also display the strategies used by the students to overcome their writing difficulties and the stress-coping strategies.