Examining foreign language listening anxiety and its correlates: a meta-analysis

Abstract

While researchers have focused on examining the relationship between foreign language listening anxiety and its related correlates, most of their findings are largely inconclusive. To solve the problem, this meta-analysis investigates the overall average correlation between foreign language listening anxiety and its four key correlates, including two high-evidence correlates (listening performance and listening strategy) and two low-evidence correlates (motivation and reading anxiety) identified in the literature. For the two high-evidence correlates, moderator analysis was also conducted to examine the modulating effects of learners’ age, foreign language proficiency and language distance. The results obtained a moderate and small negative correlation of listening performance and listening strategy, respectively. The two low-evidence correlates had small and moderate-to-large effect sizes, with motivation being the small and negative correlate, and reading anxiety being the moderate-to-large and positive correlate. Learners’ age and foreign language performance were found to be significant moderators.