Attitudinal and motivational factors in the use of strategies for learning writing skills by Indonesian university EFL learners / Junaidi Mistar ... [et al.]

This study aimed to identify the types and the intensity of use of strategies for learning writing skills, to identify motivational and attitudinal factors that potentially correlate with the use of the strategies, and to measure the interrelationship among the identified strategies and their relationship with students’ writing skills. A total of 280 English students from five universities in Indonesia participated in the study. They filled out a questionnaire of strategies for learning writing, an attitude/motivation test battery, and a self-assessment scale of writing skills. An exploratory factor analysis was used to discern the types of strategies. Correlation analyses were to measure the potential correlation between attitudinal/motivational factors and learning strategies used, and between the learning strategies used and the students’ perceived writing skills. The findings showed the presence of six strategies for learning writing skills, including self-monitoring, cognitive processing, contentfocused processing, metacognitive commencement, form-focused processing, and authentic practicing strategies. The six strategies were used at a moderate level. Furthermore, most attitudinal/motivational factors were significantly correlated with the use of strategies. Finally, the study discovered significant intercorrelations in the use of all types of strategies and a significant correlation between the use of the strategies and writing skills.