Development of an Anxiety Scale for English Language Learning Textbooks (AS-ELLT)

The major aim of this study was to design and validate an Anxiety Scale for English Language Learning Textbooks (AS-ELLT), measuring English language learners‟ degree of anxiety induced by the textbooks taught in language institutes. To this end, initially based on the guidelines laid out by eminent scholars in the field of foreign language teaching, and a focused group interview with two groups of 15 language learners the first draft of the scale was designed. Afterwards, the scale was piloted, and then distributed among 300 EFL learners in language institutes. Finally, Rasch measurement was utilized to substantiate the construct validity of the scale. The results of the Rasch analysis exhibited that all of the items met the criteria for fit to the Rasch model except for four items which were consequently deleted from the scale. Therefore, the constructed scale can be considered as uni-dimensional. Finally, the results were discussed in the context of language education.