Writing Anxiety, Self-efficacy, Effort, and Their Roles in Writing Achievement

Abstract

Recurring observation has revealed language learners’ successful completion of writing tasks at an acceptable and sometimes even impressive level only to complete the same tasks afterwards on evaluated assignments in a manner which sometimes fails to meet minimum standards. This leads to the assumption that such learners may be influenced by an extraneous factor functioning as an impediment in applying, upon evaluation, already-learned and mastered skills and knowledge. This factor is believed to come in one or more of the forms of Foreign Language Anxiety (FLA), which may influence and be influenced by other factors. The current study examined the association between some of these factors among Algerian EFL learners (N=148). Writing anxiety was measured using the Second Language Writing Anxiety Inventory (SLWAI; Cheng 2004). Two other factors, efficacy and effort, were measured using questions retrieved from the Academic Writing Motivation Questionnaire (AWMQ; Payne 2012). To test for an association between the variables, Spearman’s correlation coefficient was used. Results from the analysis have revealed that a significant positive correlation exists between writing self-efficacy and effort put forth in writing, and between writing self-efficacy and writing achievement. A significant negative association was found between self-efficacy and anxiety. However, a non-significant negative association exists between anxiety and effort and between anxiety and writing achievement. These findings suggest that self-efficacy may mediate or may be mediated by writing anxiety and effort put forth into the writing task, which in turn may impact the overall achievement in writing courses. Implications for further research are discussed.