The links between perfectionistic cognitions, L2 achievement and willingness to communicate: examining L2 anxiety as a mediator

The current study mainly aimed at examining the link between perfectionistic cognitions on the one hand and L2 anxiety, willingness to communicate (WTC) and achievement on the other hand. The other purpose of the research was investigating the factor structure of perfectionistic cognitions as proposed by Stoeber et al. ( 2010 ). To this aim, 1,349 Iranian secondary school students completed questionnaires related to L2 anxiety, willingness to communicate, and perfectionistic cognitions. The results of exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis indicated that perfectionistic cognitions had only two dimensions: personal standards (PS) and concerns over mistakes (COM). As hypothesized, personal standards dimension had a positive correlation to L2 achievement and willingness to communicate and was negatively related to L2 anxiety. Moreover, concern over mistakes was positively related to L2 anxiety. In both cases, anxiety mediated the relationship between perfectionism and outcome variables (i.e., L2 achievement and willingness to communicate). Therefore, although concern over mistakes was not directly related to L2 achievement and willingness to communicate, it was indirectly related to them through L2 anxiety.