Relationship among Iranian EFL Learners’ Self-efficacy in Writing, Attitude towards Writing, Writing Apprehension and Writing Performance

Abstract

The main trust of the present study was to investigate whether writing performance in students of English as a foreign language (EFL) was related to self-efficacy in writing, writing apprehension, and attitude towards writing. Fifty IELTS students (30 females and 20 males) studying IELTS Writing participated in this study. In order to collect data, three instruments were used which were a writing apprehension test (WAT), a self-efficacy in writing scale (SWS), and a questionnaire on attitude towards writing (WAQ). In order to make the questionnaires more comprehensible, they were adapted to Iranian context. This study conducted in two phases. First, the questionnaires were administered in the fist hour. In the second phase participants were given 45 minutes to write an argumentative essay on a given topic. The compositions were scored according to IELTS Writing Band Descriptive for public version by two raters. The obtained marks were taken to indicate the students’ overall writing performance. The findings of the study suggested that, self-efficacy in writing and writing apprehension was negatively correlated. Moreover there was a positive correlation between self-efficacy and attitude towards writing. Besides, the results showed that self-efficacy and writing performance were positively correlated. The correlation between writing apprehension and attitude towards writing was negative. Finally there was a negative correlation between writing apprehension and writing performance. The results of a three-way ANOVA revealed that those learners with positive attitudes performed significantly better than those with negative attitudes on writing task. In terms of self-efficacy and apprehension levels no significant differences were found.