Effects Of Vocational College Students' Perfectionism On Their English Speaking Anxiety

Perfectionism is commonly conceived of as a personality trait characterized by striving for flawlessness and setting of excessively high standards for performance accompanied by tendencies for overly critical evaluations of one's behavior.Foreign language anxiety is a factor which has a significant influence on learners' foreign language and second language acquisition.In foreign language learning anxiety,learners show their anxiety most in speaking.This study aims to analyze the correlation of perfectionism and English speaking anxiety in different majors and genders,draw effective conclusions,propose some solutions and provide theoretical and practical helps for teachers,students and parents to exert the positive effects of perfectionism and create environment of low anxiety.Quantitative and qualitative research methods were employed to collect data for the research.Two questionnaires and semi-structured interview were used as research instruments.A sample of 152 non-English majors from a vocational college in Nan Chang,were selected as the research participants.By means of questionnaires,the present study aimed at identifying the following four research questions:(1)What is the overall situation of the perfectionism in relation to the vocational college students?And what about their English speaking anxiety?(2)Are there any major and gender differences of vocational college students' perfectionism? And what about their English speaking anxiety?(3)Are there the effects of perfectionism on English speaking anxiety concerned vocational college students?(4)Of so many factors concerning their perfectionism,which may be the predictor(s)of English speaking anxiety? In qualitative study,eight participants labeled as 2 positive perfectionists,2negative perfectionists,2 students with low English speaking anxiety,and 2 students with high English speaking anxiety were chosen from the 152 participants to take part in the semi-structured interviews in order to verify the results of quantitative research,gain in-depth information and find out effective measures to reduce English speaking anxiety.Four statistical procedures of SPSS17.0 including descriptive statistics,independent samples t-test analysis,Pearson correlation analysis and stepwise multiple regression analysis were run to analyze the data.The conclusions were asfollows:(1)The results of the study show that the levels of perfectionism and English speaking anxiety of vocational college students are in the middle.Among the five scales of perfectionism,the mean score of organization scale is highest,the lowest is caring about mistakes.(2)Perfectionism of vocational college students has no difference in major and gender,and English speaking anxiety has also no difference in major and gender.(3)There are significant correlations between perfectionism and English speaking anxiety.There are negative correlations between positive perfectionism and English speaking anxiety,and negative perfectionism has positive relations with English speaking anxiety.(4)According to the results of multiple regression,personal standards,parental expectations,doubts about action,caring about mistakes,organization can predict English speaking anxiety.This study proposes some effective suggestions for teachers,parents and the students themselves according to research results.This study is of theoretical and practical significance for reducing English speaking anxiety and making good use of positive perfectionism for vocational college students.