“From Time to Time, I Feel Pressured”: EFL Graduate Student Psychological Feelings in Writing Research Papers for Publication

Abstract

The ability to write papers for publication is very important for students, especially graduate students majoring in English education. The process of writing a paper for publication is not easy; therefore, many students feel pressure when writing a paper for publication. This study uses a qualitative approach with a Narrative Inquiry design. This narrative research looks at the challenges faced by graduate students in English Education when writing papers for publication. This study obtained data from individual in-depth interviews. The data obtained were analyzed using thematic analysis (Connelly and Clandinin, 2006). The findings in this study show that there are psychological challenges faced by participant who are graduate students majoring in English Education at one of the state universities in Central Java, including; participant experienced boredom during the process of finding gaps from previous research, fear of not being able to complete the paper and publish it so as not to get a grade, feeling stress because they have to maintain a balance between academic duties and duties as a teacher, anxiety because they feel the difference in learning culture between undergraduate and graduate studies. In addition to the findings on psychological challenges, this study also shows the strategies used to overcome these psychological challenges, including; reading a lot of published papers, discussing more with friends in the process of writing papers for publication, being confident in submitting papers in national and international journals, utilizing all situations to learn, having motivation to face challenges in writing papers for publication. Keywords: Challenges, EFL Student, Psychological Feelings, Writing Research Papers