Qianqian Xu,1,2 Zhiyong Xu,3 Aihua Tan,4 Zhikai Yu1 

1School of Chinese Language and Literature, Hubei University, Wuhan, Hubei, People’s Republic of China; 2School of Medicine and Health Management, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei, People’s Republic of China; 3Digestive Endoscopy Center, The People’s Hospital of Ying Shan, Huanggang, Hubei Province, People’s Republic of China; 4HuangGang Hospital of TCM of Hubei Province, Huanggang, Hubei, People’s Republic of China

Correspondence: Zhikai Yu, School of Chinese Language and Literature, Hubei University, Wuhan, Hubei, 430062, People’s Republic of China, Tel +86-15377661921, Email zhikai92yu92@163.com

Background: Anxiety disorders have been a challenging problem across all age groups, especially for college students, and they can have detrimental effects on students’ academic performance, especially for English learning. However, the underlying mechanisms about the association between anxiety disorders and English writing performance remain undetermined. Based on theoretical and empirical researches, this study develops a chain mediating model to test whether learning motivation and metacognitive strategies mediate the relationship between anxiety disorders and English academic writing performance among college students.
Methods: A cross-sectional study with a sample consisting of 2804 college students was carried out. They all completed a self-report questionnaire with demographic information, anxiety disorders, learning motivation, metacognitive strategies and English academic writing performance. SPSS26 and Mplus8.3 were used to analyze the data.
Results: Anxiety disorders were found to negatively predict English academic writing performance, as well as learning motivation and metacognitive strategies. Both learning motivation and metacognitive strategies mediated the relationship between anxiety disorders and English academic writing performance, separately. Moreover, learning motivation and metacognitive strategies together had a chain mediating effect on this relationship.
Conclusion: Anxiety disorders take a toll on learning motivation and metacognitive strategies, which can eventually lead to poorer English academic writing performance. These findings contribute to the understanding of the potential pathway of how anxiety disorders influence English academic writing performance and provide practical implications for the prevention and intervention of mental health among college students.

Keywords: anxiety disorders, learning motivation, metacognitive strategies, English academic writing performance