Alleviating Second Language Writing Anxiety through Gamified Platforms: An Empirical Study on High School Learners

Abstract

Developing academic writing proficiency often poses severe psychological and cognitive challenges for learners of English as a Foreign Language (EFL), though empirical evidence regarding active technological solutions in high school settings stays limited. This quantitative quasi-experimental inquiry examined how an 8-week intervention utilizing a theory-grounded gamified writing application influenced Second Language (L2) writing anxiety among Vietnamese secondary school students. Adopting a non-equivalent control group pre-test/post-test design, 80 learners from two pre-existing classrooms were divided into an experimental condition, which received gamified digital instruction, and a control condition, which underwent conventional product-focused, paper-based training. The Second Language Writing Anxiety Inventory (SLWAI) served as the primary data collection instrument. Results from paired-samples t-tests indicated a remarkable and profound decrease in global writing anxiety, alongside its distinct sub-dimensions of somatic, cognitive, and avoidance anxieties, specifically within the experimental cohort. Additionally, an ANCOVA confirmed that the experimental group exhibited significantly lower post-intervention anxiety scores than their conventionally taught peers, with the instructional approach explaining 61.2% of the variance. Ultimately, this evidence supports the integration of an anxiety-aware, autonomy-supportive pedagogy that utilizes game elements to alleviate debilitating affective hurdles.