Advantages And Disadvantages Of Coping

Like any other piece of research, the current study also suffers from some limitations and delimitations; as a result, one needs to cautions in generalizing the findings.

First, the researcher intends to employ three sets of questionnaires and this technique of data gathering has some disadvantages including:

a. It is argued to be inadequate to understand some forms of information - i.e. changes of emotions, behavior, feelings etc.

b. Phenomenologists state that quantitative research is simply an artificial creation by the researcher, as it is asking only a limited amount of information without explanation

c. There is no way to tell how truthful a respondent is being

d. There is no way of telling how much thought a respondent has put in

e.

Since the sample is not representative of the population, the results of the study cannot speak for the entire population. This results to a low external validity of the study.

Also, the researcher intends to recruit only intermediate level language learners. Needless to say, language learners at different levels of proficiency may hold different degrees of self-efficacy beliefs (Sang, Valcke, Braak & Tondeur, 2010 and have different anxiety levels Azzifar & Fariadian 2015). Moreover, language learners at different proficiency levels choose different strategies for coping with their communication problems ( Paribakht,1985; Poulisse & Schils,1989).

Finally, many other cognitive factors (e.g., attitude, interest, proficiency level, motivation, language learning strategies and styles, just to name a few) or the interaction between them can potentially be relevant to the variables under study and affect the performance of the participants in some way. However, no study can be comprehensive enough to include all the variables that can potentially influence the constructs under

Theoretical Definition

It has been defined by Horwitz (2001) as a multifaceted concept comprised of self- perceptions, beliefs, feelings, and behaviors related to learning arising from the uniqueness of the language learning process. This complex concept can be of four components (Horwitz, Horwitz and Cope, 1986; Zheng, 2008; Mahmoodzadeh, 2013) including;

a. Communication anxiety, that is the learners' fear of communicating with other people which might lead to difficulty in speaking in public, difficulty understanding others and making themselves understood, as well as being silent learners during the language learning process;

b. test anxiety being the learners' fear of exams, quizzes, and other activities employed to evaluate their competence and performance which might lead to negative motivation and put unrealistic demands on learners;

c. negative evaluation anxiety as the learners' worry about how others view them which may also include avoidance of evaluative situations and the expectations that others might evaluate them negatively; and

d. anxiety in the English classroom which is the learners' fear inside the classroom context where factors such as learning tasks and activities, teachers' engagement and even peer pressure may contribute to language learning anxiety (Brown, 2007,