Factors Affecting Students’ Anxiety in Language Learning: A Study of Private Universities in Erbil, Kurdistan

Education is considered to be a powerful method which aids to change the behaviour of the students based on their needs and expectation of the society. Student anxiety and attitude are considered an essential part of learning; consequently it becomes an important element of second language learning. The main purpose of this study is to investigate factors influencing students’ anxiety in language learning in private universities in Erbil. A quantitative research method was applied to measure students anxiety which consisted of fear of negative evaluation, communication apprehension and test anxiety. The researcher adopted and modified a survey from previous academic scholars and was able to gather necessary information. The researcher was able to gather 92 questionnaires being filled properly. Multiple regression analysis was applied to test each research hypotheses. The findings of this study revealed that students’ fear of negative anxiety had the higher level of anxiety towards learning language, on the other hand students test anxiety had lower value among other variables.