Final Critical Review of Writing Anxiety in Higher Education

This report presents a critical review of the factors affecting academic writing in higher education, focusing on writing anxiety, self-efficacy, and emotional intelligence. It synthesizes research on how psychological and linguistic problems impact student performance. The review examines studies that explore the relationship between writing anxiety and performance, including the role of a writer's block. The report evaluates the influence of emotional intelligence on decision-making, motivation, and planning in writing. It also discusses the importance of self-efficacy in academic writing, particularly for graduate students, and highlights the findings of studies linking writing anxiety and self-efficacy. The evaluation of the research includes gender differences in writing anxiety and textual organization. Furthermore, the report identifies limitations in the studies, such as difficulties in grouping self-efficacy levels and limitations in data collection methods. The response section analyzes a study on the relationship between emotional intelligence and writing performance, and the conclusion summarizes the findings, emphasizing the need for improvements in data collection and the potential benefits of introducing emotional intelligence strategies in learning institutions, while also mentioning the application of constructivist and positivist paradigms.

Running head: FINAL CRITICAL REVIEW 1
Introduction to language of research:
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Introduction
Writers in institutions of higher learning are subjected to many different factors that can
affect their learning. These factors can be either psychological, cognitive problems or linguistic
problems. The following are the analysis of findings based on subjective elements based on the
graduates’ internal variables such as writing anxiety, emotional intelligence, and self-efficacy.
Summary
Some studies argue that writing anxiety is necessarily the cause of graduates’ poor
performance in writing. The researchers attribute writing anxiety as the leading cause of a
writer’s block that is experienced by students during the process of writing. A writer's block is
whereby a student is unable to proceed with his or her writing because they cannot come up with
an idea of what they are writing next; their ability to be creative diminishes at that particular
moment and therefore subjected to a state of blankness. However, studies show that a writer’s
block can be caused by other significant factors such as exhaustion from studies, perfectionism,
high standards set by the institution of higher learning, and lack of a starting structure.
Margarita, Patricia, Mina, and Dominique argue that a good predictor of academic
performance is the emotional intelligence which also plays a part in the student’s general,
successful performance. A learner’s performance is significantly improved with the development
of competency through emotional intelligence. A study found that psychological intelligence
results in improved decision making, increased motivation and better planning which thus
reflects in a positive performance in writing but have provided no analytical evidence and the
studies done to link emotional intelligence and performance mainly focused on jobs and not
return.

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Additionally, since activities are self-scheduled, self-efficacy becomes essential for
academic writing. These writers attribute higher self-efficacy to higher writing achievement in
the secondary and university students in the United States of America. The writers have the view
that self-efficacy is a psychological factor that depends on the individuals level of confidence
and has a direct influence on the learners writing performance.
The writers of ‘Graduate students as academic writers: writing anxiety, self-efficacy, and
emotional intelligence’ conclude that there is a relationship between two of the psychological
factors affecting writing performance which are writing anxiety and self-efficacy in learning
institutions. The findings are based on studies carried on young students and at the university
concluded that lower writing anxiety in students reflected them to have a higher self-efficacy
score. Writing improvement is achieved when students foster self-efficacy which then reduces
the level of writing anxiety in learners. No research links El to writing anxiety, however, high El
reports low writing anxiety. The researchers base these findings on the view that, tension is an
emotion and utilization and regulation of emotions is done by the El.
Evaluation
Researchers argue that gender and writing anxiety have a particular relationship but have
provided no concrete evidence for this study. The latter depends on accuracy, self-expression,
high dependence on self-organization, confidence, use of complex grammatical, and flow of
ideas. In gender aspect, researchers concluded that the textual organization and paragraphing
between boys and girls are different (Daud and Kassim, 2016). Boys are acknowledged to have a
more competent textual structure and paragraphing compared to girls who are said to be less

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skilled. Additionally, boys are said to possess a higher writing apprehension compared to girls.
However, writing anxiety varies from one student to another regardless of their gender.
In a study to determine whether emotional intelligence has any effect on the writing
performance, students from a language institute in Iran were used for the research. Two groups, a
test control group and an experimental group were introduced to emotional intelligence (Kumar,
Puranik, and Sowmya, 2016). The study aimed to add emotional intelligence on the writing
performance of the students.
However, the writers' study has a limitation as it is difficult to group self-efficacy into
different levels. Self- efficacy is not physically observable in itself directly (Li, 2016). The mode
in which data was collected and analyzed is also not listed. The limitation here is that the use of
questionnaires to gather and test self-efficacy causes a restriction of freedom to the learners since
choices and responses are limited.
The study carried by Margarita, Patricia, mina, Goodson, and Dominique to show the
relationship between self-efficacy, emotional intelligence and writing anxiety. The provision of
data that could establish the relationship between writing anxiety, self-efficacy, and El have not
been well determined. The relationship between writing anxiety and emotional intelligence is
based merely on assumption as there have been no studies conducted to establish that the two are
indeed related (Khojasteh, Shokrpour, and Afrosiabi, 2016). However, some methods and modes
of tests used during the collection of data and analyzing of these data can prove the credibility of
these findings. The use of students from different learning institutions also establishes the
reliability of these conclusions.
Response

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In a research done in Palembang, at the PGRI University used students’ essay of both
genders from the faculty of Teachers Training and Education in the academic year2011/2012 for
the study. The study aimed to establish whether there was a significant difference between the
writing anxiety and writing achievement reflected in the essays of both genders regarding
variance. After statistical analysis, the findings revealed that boys had a higher grade of 58.29
while the girls got 57.64 when it came to the writing achievement scores (Tsao, Tseng and
Wang).
The final results indicate that there was indeed a relationship between emotional
intelligence and writing performance as the use of a control group and an experimental group
showed that the experimental group showed improvement in their writing performance. The
power to master skills during learning depends on different factors without the attribution to
emotional intelligence (Husscher-Davidson, 2016). The objective of the research is achieved,
this article thus is between constructivism and positivism paradigm.
Self-efficacy is considered as an independent variable, and statistical research that is done
based on it cannot be entirely dependent on because the analytical data done on it is subject to
prejudice. The article is critical realistic paradigm
The article seems like an objective research whose findings can be of a positive effect if
introduced to learning institutions to be better understood in a positivist paradigm (Huerbata,
Goodson, Beigi, and Chulp, 2017).
Conclusion
In conclusion to this study, there is no significant between writing achievements in both
genders and neither was there any significant difference found in writing anxiety. Furthermore,

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the students don’t experience writing anxiety but signs of writing apprehension thus based on a
positivism paradigm. The symptoms of writing fear don’t creates a significant difference in their
performance.
Stottlemeyer, a researcher in Texas, argues that the ability to learn a second language
successfully depends on the individual differences such as learner’s personality, anxiety,
aptitude, and motivation (Mitchell, Harrigan, and McMillan, 2017). Introducing emotional
intelligence strategy in learning institutions will result in a positive effect on the students
learning performance reflecting a constructivist paradigm.
The findings based on the self-efficacy tests can be beneficial in school and universities
only if a suitable method of valuing self-efficacy can be formulated and be used in during
research to analyze datato create a constructivist paradigm..
Finally, on the improvement of writing performance in institutions of higher learning, this
paper could be used to provide a new approach to writing subjects after some improvements
have been made such as on mode of data collection. Additionally, the use of constructive
paradigm would be better in the research.

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References
Daud, N. M., &Kassim, N. L. A. (2016). Second Language Writing Anxiety: Cause Or Effect?.
Malaysian Journal of ELT Research, 1(1), 19.
Hubscher-Davidson, S. (2016). Trait Emotional intelligence and translation. Target. International
Journal of Translation Studies, 28(1), 132-157.
Huerta, M., Goodson, P., Beigi, M., &Chlup, D. (2017). Graduate students as academic writers:
writing anxiety, self-efficacy and emotional intelligence. Higher Education Research &
Development, 36(4), 716-729.
Khojasteh, L., Shokrpour, N., &Afrasiabi, M. (2016). The Relationship between Writing Self-
efficacy and Writing Performance of Iranian EFL Students. International Journal of Applied
Linguistics and English Literature, 5(4), 29-37.
Kumar, A., Puranik, M. P., &Sowmya, K. R. (2016). Association between dental students’
emotional intelligence and academic performance: A study at six dental colleges in India. Journal
of dental education, 80(5), 526-532.
Li, S. (2016). An Empirical Study on the Relationship between English Meta-cognitive Writing
Strategy, Writing Self-efficacy and Writing Performance. Journal of Huangshan University, 6,
023.
Mitchell, K. M., Harrigan, T., & McMillan, D. E. (2017). Writing self‐efficacy in nursing
students: The influence of a discipline‐specific writing environment. Nursing Open.

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Tsao, J. J., Tseng, W. T., & Wang, C. (2017). The Effects of Writing Anxiety and Motivation on
EFL College Students’ Self-Evaluative Judgments of Corrective Feedback. Psychological
Reports, 120(2), 219-241.