3.2. Quantitative description of results from the questionnaire and qualitative
3.2.3. Causes related to poor preparation and performance beyond control
N0 Causes Strongly
disagree Disagree Agree
partly Agree Strongly agree
13
I feel anxious when I do not spend much time on
practicing reading
comprehension of sample test every day before examination.
3 3.6%
7 8.3%
27 32.1%
34 40.5%
13 15.5%
14
I feel nervous when teachers ‟ lectures do not cover all the contents of the English examination.
3 3.6%
6 7.1%
7 8.3%
40 47.6%
28 33.3%
15
I find it difficult to
overcome my nervousness when I only concentrate on the contents in the textbook.
0 0%
6 7.1%
7 8.3%
41 48.8%
30 35.7%
16
I feel anxious when I do not know how to divide time into each part suitably.
0 0%
7 8.3%
30 35.7%
30 35.7%
17 20.2%
17
I feel nervous when I am not able to take control of the knowledge content before examination.
3 3.6%
13 15.5%
25 29.8%
30 35.7%
13 15.5%
Table 8: Causes related to poor preparation and performance beyond control
Items 14 and 15 (See, Appendix 1) refer to causes associated with poor preparation. The data in table 8 shows that the majority of students at Huynh Thuc Khang high school felt anxious when they did not do extra exercises from other books. In addition to this, they found that they met with difficulties in the structures and vocabularies the teacher had not taught them before. 80.9% and 84.5% of the students agreed on the item 14 and 15 respectively while only 10.1% disagreed on the item 14 and 7.1% disagreed on the item 15.
Items 13, 16, and 17 (See, Appendix 1) refer to performance beyond control.
The findings from table 8 reveal that almost all the students at Huynh Thuc Khang high school hold the idea that practice, time division and time control before the examination did not make them as nervous as those mentioned in item 14 and 15 before the examination. Only 56%, 55.6% and 51.2% of the students were in favor of the opinions above respectively.
The findings of questionnaire indicate that poor preparation before English exams was the major cause of anxiety of this group.
The results of the semi-interview show that one out of ten interviewed students admitted that the knowledge the teachers taught was similar to those in the examination. Student K said:
I find that the knowledge teachers taught us tended to relate to the content of the English exams. When taking the mock test made by Minister of training education, I seem to find out the answers because it has the same knowledge as I learnt.
The results from interviews for students show that uncovered knowledge by teachers in their lectures was one of the major factors leading to anxiety.
When asked to give the answers to the fourth question, five out of seven interviewed teachers believed that the students seemed to be nervous when they spent a few days on their revision before the English Test. They did not study hard for the English examination.
My students shared the idea frankly that when doing English samples of the tests, they felt rather tired and nervous because they did not spend time practising it every day. Therefore, they did not have enough general knowledge to do the samples of the tests given by the teachers. (Teacher A).
Some of my students lacked confidence because they took the books on their hands and glanced at some main knowledge before doing the samples of tests. They had no time to practise English test every day. (Teacher B).
Almost all of my students were nervous because they said to me that they spent time revising English knowledge twice a week. However, they only did exercises in the textbook. They spent a little time doing exercises provided by the teachers or on the Internet. As a result, they lacked confidence when they did samples of tests before the English examination. (Teacher D).
Most of my students did not seem to do English homework before going to the class. They usually selected the answers to the questions at the break time or during the period of other subjects. (Teacher G).
When given some other exercises to do at home, they said to me that there were to many exercises to do. When asked why they did not want to do extra exercises, they said that they were busy or the structures and vocabularies did not seem to relate to the content of the lectures by teachers at school the day before. (Teacher H).
The results of the interviews for teachers show that poor preparation was one of the major causes of students ‟ anxiety in this group.
Based on the results above from the questionnaire and the interviews for teachers and students, poor preparation of the knowledge was one of the causes of anxiety in the group 3.