The Impact of Social Media Integration in English Language Assessment upon Students' Anxiety: A Systematic Literature Review

Abstract

The intimate interaction of social media on human daily basis is associated with the pleasure effects of its use (Graciyal & Viswam, 2021). Although numerous studies investigate its effectiveness in enhancing students’ language learning skills, few of them discuss its relevance to anxiety in the assessment. A Systematic Literature Review (SLR) with Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses (PRISMA) model is conducted to answer the inquiry of how social media have been implemented in previous research related to English language assessment and explain their influences on the students’ tension during the assessment process. After applying the exclusion criteria, 20 of the 131 articles from 2019 to 2024 accessed from journals indexed in Scopus were deemed relevant to this study variable, focusing on social media implementation in English teaching and learning that involves assessment sessions. The result shows that the commonly used social media in English language assessment are WhatsApp, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, and Twitter, with various skills on each of them. Moreover, the criteria of assessment integrated with social media is typically formative. Meanwhile, students’ anxiety is proven to be mitigated by social media use during the assessment process from the aspect of students’ engagement enhancement, cross-cultural awareness, and the capability of working without any restrictions. According to the result of the analysis, the use of social media in English language teaching should be considered as a supportive assessment media. More studies need to be conducted to provide significant procedural systems of social media integration.