Physics Language Anxiety among Students in Introductory Physics Course

Rex Taibu,Franca Ferrari-Bridgers

doi:10.29333/ejmste/111993

Abstract

In this research an instrument was developed to measure students’ anxiety about the jargon of physics. Levels of anxiety were then compared with student content performance and general classroom anxiety. Anxiety levels were also compared based on students’ language of origin (native vs. nonnative English speaking students). Statistical analyses indicated that the created instrument was reliable and that a larger percentage of students admitted that the vocabulary of physics creates anxiety in their physics learning and that fear of communication apprehension was prevalent than fear of peer evaluation. There was a negative but small correlation between anxiety about physics vocabulary and student course performance. The correlation between anxiety about physics vocabulary and general classroom anxiety was moderate. There was no significant difference in levels of anxiety between native and nonnative English-speaking students. A comparison between results of this research and previous studies (theories) sheds more light into the implications for conducting studies relating to academic anxiety.

Highlights

Students learn new terminology in an introductory physics course which helps them to better understand the physics concepts
Statistical analyses indicated that the created instrument was reliable and that a larger percentage of students admitted that the vocabulary of physics creates anxiety in their physics learning and that fear of communication apprehension was prevalent than fear of peer evaluation
It should be mentioned that there was a positive correlation between the pre Physics Vocabulary Classroom Anxiety Scale (PVCAS) and the post PVCAS (r = .5) indicating the applicability of the instrument in measuring anxiety in physics vocabulary

Summary

Introduction

Students learn new terminology in an introductory physics course which helps them to better understand the physics concepts. A closer look into how students feel about how science is communicated may shed more light into factors impeding the acquisition of physics concepts. Horwitz, Horwitz, and Cope (1986) defined Foreign Language Anxiety (FLA) as “a distinct complex of self-perceptions, beliefs, feelings, and behaviors related to classroom language learning arising from the uniqueness of the (foreign) language learning process.” A closer look at “FLA” studies seems to indicate that scientific language may be regarded as “foreign language” because it is new to students (Rosenthal, 1996) and there is a need to inquire more about the level and scope of anxiety that students may have about physics language. The aim of this exploratory research was to create an instrument (i) to measure anxiety about physics vocabulary, (ii) to explore students’ anxiety levels with regards to how physics is

Results

Discussion

Conclusion