Writing Anxiety Among Indonesian EFL Students in Online Discussion Forum

zulkifli al-humami; dr. syaadiah arifin, m.pd.; hamzah puadi ilyas, ph.d.;

During the Covid-19 pandemic, fully online learning are implemented by
Indonesian higher education institutions. Students must adapt to the new situation which can make them feel anxious, especially in EFL writing through the online discussion forum. This study aims to identify and describe the types, levels, factors of writing anxiety, and how the students overcome their writing anxiety in the online discussion forum. Mixed-methods approach with concurrent triangulation design were adopted to get an accurate and detailed picture of a phenomenon or problem occurred in this study. The quantitative and qualitative data were collected through closed-ended questionnaires and open-ended interview with forty master students of English Education Study Program from different universities in Jakarta (UHAMKA, UNINDRA, and UNJ) as the participants. This study revealed that writing anxiety experienced by Indonesian EFL students in the online discussion forum. Moderate level with cognitive anxiety were as the level and type of writing anxiety that affected by students’ different universities and many other factors, such as linguistics difficulties, fear of negative comments, and time pressure. Moreover,
this study also showed that the students used some coping strategies to overcome their writing anxiety in the online discussion forum, which were preparation, relaxation, positive thinking, and peer seeking strategy. These coping strategies were described in this study.