Investigation of Writing Strategies, Writing Apprehension, and Writing Achievement among Saudi EFL-Major Students

Abstract

The tenet of this study is to investigate the use of writing strategies in reducing writing apprehension and uncovering its effect on EFL students` writing achievement. It also attempts to explore associations between foreign language apprehension, writing achievement and writing strategies. The primary aims of the study were to explore the relationship between writing strategies that EFL university students employ and writing apprehension, relationship between writing strategies use and students` writing achievement, and differences between high and low writing anxiety in their writing strategy use. Data were drawn from 198 (68 males and 130 females) EFL-major university students. The participants were asked to respond to a Writing Anxiety Inventory (SLWAI; Second Language Writing Anxiety Inventory) (Cheng, 2004) and to complete a Writing Strategies Inventory (Petric & Czarl, 2003). Some interviews were also conducted with some students to explore salient effective writing strategies that they used and the difficulties they faced during writing composition. Correlation, t-test, and ANOVA analyses were used to determine relationships between writing strategies and writing achievement and between students of high and low anxiety. The results of the study calls into question the common assumption that some of the Saudi undergraduates’ writing apprehension is pertinent to writing achievement. The results indicated that students with low writing anxiety were more users of writing strategies than the high anxious ones. Moreover, a significant negative correlation was found between students’ writing apprehension and their writing achievement

Apprehension, Topic Variety, and Proficiency in Writing of Indonesian EFL Students

“…The common apprehension level categories fall within low, moderate, and high levels as can be seen on the studies by Ayodele and Akinlana (2012) and Al-Sawalha and Chow (2012) and within the contrast level (high and low levels) for instance in Asmari (2013) Vol. 4, No.…”

“…Two of the non-linguistic factors which particularly cover apprehension as the affective factor and topic variety as the cognitive factor were the foci of this study. Previous researchers, Asmari (2013) and Al-Sawalha and Chow (2012), found that apprehension was highly correlated with writing performance. In contrast, the first result of this study pointed out that there was no significant relation between students' apprehension and their proficiency in writing.…”

“…A number of studies have reported how writing apprehension relate to writing achievement (e.g., Asmari, 2013;Choi, 2013). Asmari (2013) investigated the correlation between writing strategies, apprehension, and achievement among 198 Saudi university students.…”

“…Many studies on non-linguistic factors have been carried out (for example, Henter, 2014;Jain & Sidu, 2013;Asmari, 2013;Khezrlou, 2012). However, many of these studies focus on language learning in general.…”

“…Asmari (2013) investigated the correlation between writing strategies, apprehension, and achievement among 198 Saudi university students. The results of that study showed that writing apprehension was related to writing achievement.…”