chapter 1 introduction 1.1 english education in china 1.1.1 russian domination 1.1.2 english replaced russian in china 1.1.3 back to english education 1.1.4 the exploration period 1.1.5 the reforth period 1.1.6 english learning craze in china 1.1.7 english teaching practice in universities 1.1.8 turning pale at the mention of cet 1.2 the necessity for developing the english test anxiety scale 1.2.1 the yearn for fair evaluation and valid inferences 1.2.2 empirical studies require more fine - grained test anxiety scales 1.3 what is this study out to achieve? 1.4 what does this study try to tell us? 1.5 research outline of this studychapter 2 previous researches on test anxiety 2.1 a blind man' s approach to the defining of test anxiety 2.2 the characteristics of test anxiety 2.2.1 is test anxiety a trait, state or situation - specific construct? 2.2.2 is test anxiety time - dependent? 2.2.3 how are the dimensionalities of the test anxiety? 2.2.4 is test anxiety debilitating or facilitating? 2.2.5 do people experience equal test anxiety across four language skills? 2.3 theories about test anxiety -performance mechanism 2.3.1 physiological arousal theory 2.3.2 attention - distribution theory 2.3.3 cognitive interference theory 2.3.4 worry, emotionality and test performance 2.3.5 motivation achievement theory 2.3.6 interaction theory 2.3.7 behavior associated with test anxiety and test performance effect 2.4 conclusions of test anxiety researches 2.4.1 nature of test anxiety 2.4.2 debilitating and facilitating test anxieties 2.4.3 test anxiety and test performance mechanism 2.4.4 comparison of test anxiety theories 2.5 implications for language testingchapter 3 the measurement of the eta 3.1 the construction of the etas 3.1.1 two assumptions about the etas 3.1.2 the interaction paradigm associated with eta 3.1.3 what does the etas aim to achieve? 3.1.4 item development criteria associated with the etas 3.1.5 item development process 3.1.6 the birth of the etas 3.2 the validation of the etas 3.2.1 method 3.2.1.1 participants 3.2.1.2 instruments and procedure 3.2.1.3 data analysis 3.2.2 results 3.2.2.1 descriptive statistics 3.2.2.2 external reliability 3.2.2.3 internal reliability 3.2.2.4 structural validity 3.2.2.5 logic validity 3.2.2.6 criterion validity 3.2.3 discussion 3.2.3.1 reliability of the etas 3.2.3.2 validity of the etaschapter 4 the nature of the eta construct 4.1 the interual structure of the eta 4.1.1 method 4.1.1.1 participants 4.1.1.2 instruments and procedure 4.1.1.3 data analysis 4.1.2 results 4.1.3 discussion 4.2 correlations among the components of the eta 4.2.1 method 4.2.1.1 participants 4.2.1.2 instruments and procedure 4.2.1.3 data analysis 4.2.2 results 4.2.3 discussion 4.3 does a test - taker experience the same level of eta - listening, speaking, reading and writing anxieties? 4.3.1 method 4.3.1.1 participants 4.3.1.2 instruments and procedure 4.3.1.3 data analysis 4.3.2 results 4.3.3 discussion chapter 5 the relationships between eta and other kinds of anxieties 5.1 the correlation studies of eta and other kinds of anxiety 5.1.1 method 5.1.1.1 participants 5.1.1.2 instruments and procedure 5.1.1.3 data analysis 5.1.2 results 5.1.2.1 reliability of the eight instruments 5.1.2.2 eta and the other kinds of anxiety 5.1.2.3 language skill - specific eta anxieties and the language skill - specific anxieties 5.1.3 discussion 5.2 partial studies of the language skill- specific eta anxieties 5.2.1 method 5.2.1.1 participants 5.2.1.2 instruments and procedure 5.2.1.3 data analysis 5.2.2 results 5.2.3 discussionchapter 6 the application of the etas 6.1 what does the eta score mean? 6.2 some eta reports of the sample studentschapter 7 conclusions 7.1 research questions 7.1.1 how to measure the eta construct? 7.1.2 how are the reliability and validity of the etas? 7.1.3 what is the nature of the eta construct? 7.1.4 does a test - taker experience the same level of eta - listening, speaking, reading and writing anxieties? 7.1.5 what is the relationship between eta and other kinds of anxiety? 7.2 main findings 7.3 implications for l2 teaching, test anxiety research and future researches 7.4 limitations of this researchreferencesappendices 1.introduction to xi' an shiyou university 2.the chinese version of the english proficiency test anxiety 3.the curves of the 20 items in the etas 4.a cet- 4 battery 5.a cet- 6 battery 6.the eta status of the male students 7.the eta status of the female students