Establishing a Valid, Reliable Measure of Writing Apprehension for Japanese Students

A large body of research deals with anxiety in foreign or second language
learning. However, little research has been conducted on anxiety as it pertains
to foreign or second language writing. The limited amount of research that does
exist utilizes Daly and Miller's Writing Apprehension Test (DM-WAT), a
questionnaire designed for first language (Ll) writing students. Until recently,
no attempts have been made to validate the questionnaire for a second language
(L2) population. This paper reports on our attempts to validate a translated DMWAT
for Japanese students of English. A valid measure of L2 writing apprehension
could identify at-risk writers, predict academic success in writing, and present
benchmarks against which to measure the'success of treatments designed to
lower writing apprehension. Initial results seem to indicate that a translated,
modified version of the DM-WAT is a valid measure of writing apprehension for
Japanese junior college students of English.