An investigation of the relationship between foreign language achievement measured by various test formats and attitudes, anxiety levels and learning styles

The main objective of this research is to analyze the influence of foreign language attitudes, anxiety levels and learning styles on English language achievement measured by various test formats (multiple choice, open ended and structured grid tests) and to examine the effect of these three variables on achievement. The research design is relational survey model. The research was carried out in the 2008-2009 academic year with 75 tenth grade High School students. Three different scales were applied to define the status of students: First, ?The Attitude Scale for English Lesson? developed by Aydoslu (2005) was applied to identify the students? attitudes for language learning. Then, to determine the learning styles of the students, the Style Analysis Survey (SAS) developed by Oxford (1993) was applied. Finally, the ?Anxiety Scale for English Course? developed by Horwitz (1986) was applied to determine anxiety levels. Three types of achievement tests were applied, the gains of the unit ?Indoor and Outdoor Activities? was taken into consideration. Multiple choice, open ended and structured grid test were used to measure these gains. The scores were transformed to standard ?T? point and used as the achievement score.The data obtained from the research was analyzed by using Pearson Moment Correlation coefficient, one-way ANOVA, two-factor ANOVA for mixed measures (split plot).The following conclusions were reached from the study:Achievement increases with increasing attitude towards English lessons positively. Achievement decreases with increasing foreign language anxiety. According to the average achievement score of three tests, students with visual and kinesthetic learning styles were determined to be more successful than those who are auditory and non-dominant. The achievement of the test with the open ended test method does not change, but that with multiple choice and grid test changes according to the learning styles. It was found that the achievement with the open ended test did not change according to the learning style. However, kinesthetic students were found to be more successful on multiple choice tests, and visual students were more successful on grid tests.