Academic Anxiety During Thesis Writing: A Phenomenological Study of Undergraduate English Education Students at Universitas Pendidikan Mandalika
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.58258/6hssqg13Abstract
Thesis writing often brings a heavy psychological burden for undergraduate students, and academic anxiety is among the most pressing challenges they face — particularly for lisdh as a foregign language (EFL)learners who must carry out research and compose scholarly work in a language that is not their own. Thisresearch set out to examine what drives academic anxiety among undergraduate English Education students while they write their thesis, and to identify how these students cope with the pressure. A phenomenological, qualitative design was chosen so that students' lived experiences could be captured in depth. Participants were drawn from the English Education study program at Universitas Pendidikan Mandalika, all of whom were actively completing their undergraduate thesis. Three data-gathering techniques were combined: questionnaires, semi-structured interviews, and documentation. The questionnaire responses were examinedthrough descriptive statistics, while interview material was processed following the interactive model developed by Miles, Huberman, and Saldaña — moving through data reduction, data display, and conclusion drawing. Results showed that participants generally experienced a high degree of academic anxiety (M = 4.15). Among the contributing dimensions, time management carried the greatest weight (M = 4.42), trailed by language-related difficulties (M = 4.25), internal psychological pressures (M = 4.12), supervisor-related concerns (M = 4.12), and,somewhat lower, social support (M = 3.82). The interviews further uncovered fiverecurring coping strategies students relied on: managing time more deliberately, reaching out for academic assistance, sharpening their academic writing ability, drawing on emotional support from those around them, and applying emotion-focused coping techniques. Taken together, these results point to academic anxietyduring thesis writing as a multidimensional condition shaped jointly by psychological, academic, social, and linguistic influences. Accordingly, the study calls on universities to reinforce academic supervision, expand academic-writing assistance, and build psychological support programs that can ease students' anxiety and support timely thesis completion.References
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