The Impact of Task Complexity on Iranian EFL Learners‟ Listening Comprehension across Anxiety and Proficiency Levels

Abstract

This study investigates the impact of task complexity on Iranian EFL learners’ listening comprehension across anxiety and proficiency levels. To this end, two intact EFL classes including 54 Iranian EFL learners at an English department (F=39, M=15) were selected. Test-takers' anxiety was assessed by filling an anxiety questionnaire (Abolghasemi et al, 1997) and their proficiency was assessed by a proficiency test. Three task dimensions, namely planning time, perspective, and prior knowledge, each under two +/complex & -/simple conditions (i.e., task manipulated for complexity and simple task) were used in test-takers' listening performance. The participants’ listening performance was analyzed using descriptive statistics, one-way ANOVA and post hoc Tukey’s HSD test. Results showed that test-takers’ listening performance was a little better under simple conditions than complex ones for all task dimensions. Another is that except planning time (p= .012), between low and average proficiency levels under simple condition, no significant differences were found in the listening task performances among the three proficiency levels. Finally, the results didn’t show any significant difference among performance of three different anxiety levels under both simple and complex conditions. In short, this study didn’t show any considerable effect of proficiency and anxiety on task complexity.