Investigating writing strategies, writing anxiety and their effects on writing achievement: A mixed method design

Abstract

The structure of any language relies profoundly on writing; writing is a productive skill that is usually left intact till the other skills are introduced. The reason behind this is that writing is a complex skill that needs special techniques and abilities. This process becomes even more challenging when it comes to writing in another language. Foreign/Second language writing requires thinking strategies in addition to a sufficient level of linguistic competence. Hence, producing a well-structured written task for EFL/ESL students is considered to be a notable achievement (Celce-Murcia, 1991). Accordingly, anxiety levels might increase when students are requested to do a writing task (Erkan & Saban, 2011). Psychologists classified anxiety into three types; 1) trait anxiety as a personality characteristic, 2) state anxiety as a response to a particular anxiety, such as important tests, and 3) situation-specific anxiety as anxiety aroused in particular situations (Horwitz, 2001). Language anxiety can be bound to the third type of anxiety “situation–specific anxiety” (Rezaeia & Jafarib, 2014). Hassan (2001) defines writing anxiety as a procedure which an individual tends to avoid because it requires writing followed by an evaluation process. Abdel Latif (2007) provided a similar definition “Writing anxiety can refer to the feeling of uneasiness writers experience while performing the task” (p. 58). He further added that writing anxiety is an individual’s general tendency which affects the student’s writing performance. Researchers have been investigating writing anxiety and its effect on the quality of writing. Some researchers have found that high anxious students produced better essays than low anxious students (Bloom, 1980; Powers, Cook, & Meyers, 1979). Another study by Fowler and Kroll (1980) reported no significant differences between writing anxiety and writing performance whereas, the majority of studies revealed that writing anxiety correlates negatively with students’ writing performance (Abdel Latif, 2007; Al Asmari, 2013; Daly, 1978; Erkan & Saban, 2011; Gibriel, 2017; Hassan, 2001). One of the early studies was carried out by Book (1976) who examined students’ apprehension and its effect on writing performance. Results showed that low apprehensive students wrote three times more words than their high apprehensive counterparts. Moreover, their quality of writing excelled over that of the high apprehensive students. Daly (1978) reported that students with high anxiety rates tended to produce lower quality compositions with shorter and simpler structures. Hassan (2001) researched writing anxiety and its effect on writing competence and self-esteem; the findings show that low anxious students produced better writing compositions and had higher self-esteem rates. Cheng (2002) concluded that students with high anxiety rates had a tendency towards skipping courses that entailed writing tasks; Abdel Latif (2007)