The Connection Between Communication Apprehension and Spoken English Goals among Finnish Higher Education Students: A Quantitative Study

Abstract

This MA thesis studied if and how communication apprehension (CA) and spoken language goals are connected among Finnish higher education students. The two participant groups in this study consisted of Finnish university students and Finnish polytechnic students. The aim was to discover if there is a correlation between CA and personal goals, how the two participant groups differ from each other, and if self-evaluated language skills are connected with CA. The methods used were quantitative and the main source of material was a three-part questionnaire that was sent to Finnish university and polytechnic students. 55 answers were gathered and out of those 52 were adequate. The sections in the questionnaire addressed CA by utilizing the PRCA-24 instrument, personal goals that the participants had for their language use, and finally they had to self-evaluate themselves on the CEFR-levels. The results showed that there is a weak, but significant, negative correlation between CA and the goals students set for themselves. The comparison between university students and polytechnic students indicates that polytechnic students have higher CA and they set lower goals for themselves, which also matches the negative correlation found between those two variables. And finally, the relationship between self-evaluated skills and CA points to individuals with lower CA being more confident in themselves and evaluating themselves higher on the CEFR-levels. However, the self-evaluation section of this study proved to be somewhat confusing for the participants, which might affect the validity of those results, and any future research might want to put more focus on participants’ skill levels.