A structural equation model of second language writing strategies and their influence on anxiety, proficiency, and perceived benefits with online writing

Abstract

Second language (L2) writing strategies are essential for successful learning outcomes in courses with a substantial writing component and this is especially true during emergency remote teaching (ERT) when online writing tasks help compensate for the missing offline communication. Online writing tasks are multimodal and interactive, and widely delivered through assignment modules, discussion forums, social media, and other online channels, yet little is known pertaining to L2 writing strategies and online writing beliefs. The current study investigates the types of L2 writing strategies students employed during ERT in the midst of Covid-19 and then used structural modeling to understand how strategies relate to online writing task perceptions, L2 writing anxiety, and L2 writing proficiency. The four L2 writing strategy categories are related to planning, monitoring, reviewing, and translating. Following a cross-sectional survey design, a total of 256 South Korean EFL students completed the study’s questionnaire administered during their second semester of ERT. Overall, students reported using planning and monitoring strategies the most while using moderate levels of translation and review strategies. Translation strategies produced a significant positive relationship with L2 writing anxiety, indicating effort-avoidance behavior among apprehensive writers. Contrarily, planning and review strategies were positively associated with increased levels of perceived benefits with online writing tasks. When added to the model, the statistically significant correlations among monitoring category and outcome variables vanished, indicating a mediation effect. Along with addressing future directions in L2 writing strategy research in the post-Covid era, some pedagogical implications for the evolving application of translation strategies are discussed.

A Thorough Investigation into Foreign Language Writing Anxiety in a Turkish EFL Context

“…The students might have developed avoidance as an anxietycoping strategy over time as the study results indicated an increasing trend of avoidance behaviour as the year of study advanced. The gender effect has been a controversial issue in writing anxiety research as there are studies asserting no significant effects of gender (Mulyono et al, 2020;Quvanch & Na, 2022;Zerey, 2013), whereas there are also some studies suggesting higher levels of L2 writing anxiety for female learners (Bailey & Almusharraf, 2022;Cheng, 2002;Kırmızı et al, 2015;Keyvanoğlu & Atmaca, 2023). Regarding the year of study, similar results have been yielded in previous research (Cheng, 2002;Quvanch & Na, 2022;Mulyono et al, 2020), while few contradicting findings are also available (Ekmekçi, 2018).…”

“…It might, therefore, be interpreted that the students plan the content of their writing in Turkish and become demotivated and even panicked when they fail to find the exact English equivalent of the statement they create in Turkish. In a study which lends support to this interpretation, Bailey and Almusharraf (2022) found that the students using translation strategies, either using online translation tools or translating word-for-word by themselves, were those suffering the most from L2 writing anxiety. In a vicious circle, the more anxious the students felt, the more they resorted to translation tools.…”

“…To illustrate, Abolhasani et al (2022) investigated the effects of L2 writing anxiety on graph writing (a type of writing activity in which students are required to interpret the visual information from a graph) performance of university students and their writing strategies, and their results showed that writing anxiety was a negative predictor of L2 writing performance and strategy use. Bailey and Almusharraf (2022) also addressed L2 writing anxiety in terms of its relation to L2 writing strategies. Among the four writing strategies of planning, monitoring, reviewing and translating, a significantly positive correlation was identified between translation strategies and L2 writing anxiety.…”

Investigating high schoolers’ L2 writing anxiety, L2 writing self-efficacy, L2 writing self-regulated strategies, and L2 writing engagement: Relationships and mediator

“…L2 writing anxiety is closely related to the use of L2 writing self-regulated strategies. Many studies demonstrated that students with low L2 writing anxiety could use more L2 writing self-regulated strategies (e.g., Asmari, 2013 ; Machida and Dalsky, 2014 ; Abolhasani et al, 2022 ; Bailey and Almusharraf, 2022 ). For example, Machida and Dalsky (2014) found that L2 writing strategies could help less anxious students more than those more anxious students.…”

An Investigation into Preparatory Class EFL Students’ L2 Writing Anxiety

“…Second, the need for further studies on L2 writing anxiety in terms of social, contextual, and learner variables has been emphasized in previous research (Bailey, Lee, Vorst, & Crosthwaite, 2017). Third, the role of blended and conventional writing environments (Bailey, Lee, Vorst, & Crosthwaite, 2017), emergency remote teaching (ERT) (Bailey & Almusharraf, 2022) and blog-mediated instruction (Fathi & Nourzadeh, 2019) in L2 writing anxiety has been foregrounded in relevant studies. Finally, there have been inconsistent research findings about the variables which play a role in L2 writing anxiety and writing performance of students (DeDeyn, 2011;Erkan & Saban, 2011;Negari & Rezaabadi, 2012;Singh & Rajalingam, 2012;Susoy & Tanyer, 2013;Zhang, 2011).…”