Anxiety and Self-efficacy’s Relationship with Undergraduate Students’ Perceptions of the use of Metacognitive Writing Strategies

Abstract

There is growing interest in promoting metacognition among college and university students, as this has been linked with positive student learning outcomes. This study explores the relationship between student writing anxiety and self-efficacy on undergraduate students’ self-reported use of metacognitive writing strategies. Using undergraduate student survey data from a large, research-intensive university in Ontario, Canada, we found reductions in writing anxiety and increased self-efficacy had a statistically significant association with students’ perceptions of using metacognitive writing strategies. These findings have implications for both theory and practice. They demonstrate that writing metacognition is influenced by emotional factors, such as the level of anxiety and the extent of self-beliefs around writing. It also suggests that writing interventions that seek to reduce anxiety and increase undergraduate students’ self-efficacy with respect to writing may positively enhance students’ use of metacognitive writing strategies, and ultimately improve student writing outcomes. On s’intéresse de plus en plus à promouvoir la métacognition parmi les étudiants des collèges et des universités car ce processus a été lié avec des résultats d’apprentissage positifs. Cette étude explore la relation qui existe entre l’anxiété que les étudiants ressentent devant les travaux d’écriture et l’efficacité personnelle tel que rapporté dans des questionnaires portant sur l’usage de stratégies d’écriture métacognitives remplis par des étudiants de premier cycle. À partir de données de sondages menés auprès d’étudiants de premier cycle d’une grande université d’Ontario, Canada, centrée sur la recherche, nous avons découvert que la réduction de l’anxiété ressentie devant les travaux d’écriture et l’augmentation de l’efficacité personnelle présentaient une association statistiquement significative avec les perceptions des étudiants qui utilisaient des stratégies d’écriture métacognitives. Ces résultats ont des implications à la fois théoriques et pratiques. Ils prouvent que la métacognition en écriture est influencée par des facteurs émotionnels, tels que le degré d’anxiété et la portée des auto-croyances en ce qui concerne les travaux d’écriture. Ils suggèrent également que les interventions d’écriture qui tentent de réduire l’anxiété et d’augmenter l’efficacité personnelle des étudiants en ce qui a trait à l’écriture pourraient améliorer de façon positive l’emploi fait par les étudiants de stratégies d’écriture métacognitives et, en fin de compte, améliorer les résultats des étudiants en matière d’écriture.

The relationship between writing anxiety, writing selfefficacy, and Spanish EFL students’ use of metacognitive writing strategies: a case study

“…However, over the past decade, educational research has paid particular attention to those issues and methodologies that help students to develop their metacognition, and has sought to understand which metacognitive strategies need to be used in order to accomplish better learning outcomes (Stewart et al 2015).…”

“…Being writing one of the four macro-skills in language teaching, the literature has broadly studied both how proficient and successful EFL writers use metacognitive strategies in their writings, and up to what extent emotional constructs -such as anxiety and self-efficacy-have an impact on EFL students' metacognition and writing outcomes (Biggs 1998;Lavelle and Guarino 2003;Jones 2008;Martinez, Kock and Cass 2011;Stewart 2015). These two issues have been commonly studied in isolation, but there is also research on the connection between emotional constructs and the final written outcome (Karakaya and Ülper 2011;Jebreil et al 2014;Kirmizi and Kirmizi 2015;Liu and Ni 2015;Ho 2016).…”

“…The composing process of a written text is one of the most 'Neil and Abedi 1996;Cheng 2004;Jones 2008;Stewart et al 2015;Ho 2016) Palabras clave: Escritura, educación secundaria, estudiantes de inglés como lengua extranjera, metacognición, ansiedad, autoeficacia. …”

“…However, writing metacognition may be affected by emotional constructs such as writing anxiety and writing self-efficacy (Stewart et al 2015). As a consequence, EFL researchers and instructors need to be aware of how metacognition, anxiety, and self-efficacy might influence students' composing processes, and up to which point the interaction of these three factors impact learners' English writing skills.…”

“…Once it has been proved that a metacognitive approach to writing leads to better writing outcomes, attention has now been turned to establish what aspects and emotional constructs lead to a higher use of writing metacognition in language students (King 2004;Lv and Chen 2010;Stewart et al 2015).…”