An Analysis of Digital Anxiety of Interaction Among Pakistani English Major Students

Abstract

The fast transition to online learning after the COVID-19 pandemic has increased the burden of psychological barriers in the English as Foreign Language (EFL) learning, especially digital interaction anxiety, which is a state of stress, discomfort, and avoidance during online communication. This paper will investigate the frequency and correlations of four main constructs of digital interaction apprehension, including Social Communication Anxiety (SCA), Privacy Concern Anxiety (PCA), Interaction Anxiety (IA), and Student Evaluation Apprehension (SEA) in 68 English undergraduate majors students in Pakistani universities. Based on the Foreign Language Anxiety (FLA) theory (Horwitz et al., 1986) and Stress-Strain-Outcome (SSO) model, cross-sectional survey was carried out with 5-point Likert scale. The findings showed an average moderate score of overall levels of digital interaction anxiety (construct means of between 3.07 and 4.00). SCA became the most salient, and it has a significant positive correlation with SEA (r = 0.663, p < .01) and demonstrates that fear of social judgment increases the evaluation apprehension in online EFL classrooms. The observation that PCA and IA had a moderate negative correlation (r = -0.302, p 0.05) indicated that as privacy issues increase, avoidance principles, which include lurking and language practice restriction, also increase. Transitional adaptation issues mainly due to collectivist culture of Pakistan, face concern and continuous digital divide were emphasized by high ambivalence (up to 33.8% responses undecided). Such results project the FLA and SSO models to digital and culturally-specific settings and highlight the necessity of specific interventions, facilitating psychological safety, digital equity, and self-efficacy. The consequences to EFL pedagogy, teacher training and policy in the developing world are addressed.