외국인 학부생의 한국어 읽기 불안과 학업 성취도의 관계

Relationships between reading anxiety and advanced Korean learners’ academic performances: In the context of Korean for academic purposes

The purpose of the present study is to identify the components of reading anxiety of advanced students learning Korean as a second language and examine the relationship between the reading anxiety and their academic performances in college. A total of 40 international students enrolled in a university in Korea participated in the questionnaire-based survey (Saito, Horwitz, & Garza, 1999). The responses were analyzed by a range of principal component factor analyses and correlation analyses. The results found five major components comprising the reading anxiety in relation to comprehension, foreign language, vocabulary, culture, and negative perceptions toward reading. The correlation analysis found that the first factor, i.e., comprehension, have significant negative correlation with their academic performances. Other factors did not show significant relationships with the academic performances. The results of the study, thus, describe that the constructs of reading anxiety is multifaced in nature and some of them may have significant impact to students’ academic performances in college.