USR PUBLISHER

Test anxiety can affect students' academic achievement, cognitive functions and emotional states, especially in EFL settings where students are tested on language knowledge and performance in English. The purpose of this study was to examine and contrast the level of test anxiety of English Translation and English Language Teaching undergraduate students at Zand Institute of Higher Education in Shiraz, Iran. The study also aimed to discover the most significant causes of students' test anxiety and how each of these causes was manifested in each academic discipline because of the unique academic demands and assessment procedures of these two programs. To get both quantitative as well as qualitative approaches to this phenomenon, a mixed methods research design was used. The quantitative data was derived from Sarason's Test Anxiety Questionnaire (TAQ) and the qualitative data was gained from semi-structured interviews with students. Descriptive and inferential statistical procedures were utilized to compare the anxiety level between the two groups. Further, thematic analysis was used to reveal a pattern of ideas in the experiences reported by the students. The results showed that test anxiety was a problem in both academic programs, with the degree and sources of test anxiety depending on the type of demands made and the assessment practices. Translation students reported higher levels of anxiety about written accuracy and linguistic precision, while the ELT students’ higher levels of anxiety were reported in oral presentations, classroom performance, and teaching demonstrations. The results of the study underscored the field-specific character of test anxiety in Translation as well as English as a Foreign Language programs. It offered implications for how teaching and assessment should be designed to meet the unique academic and performance demands of the various English-related disciplines. The study also provided implications for instructors, curriculum developers, and university administrators seeking to develop supportive, student-centered, and less anxiety-inducing assessment environments.