Writing performance relative to writing apprehension, self-efficacy in writing, and attitudes towards writing: A correlational study in Turkish tertiary-level EFL

The purpose of this study is to identify whether writing performance in students of English as a foreign language (EFL) is related to writing apprehension, self-efficacy in writing, and/or attitudes towards writing. The subjects were tertiary-level EFL188 students at Çukurova University School for Foreign Languages (YADIM) in Turkey. Three instruments were used to collect data: a writing apprehension test (WAT), a self-efficacy in writing scale (SWS), and a questionnaire on attitudes towards writing (WAQ). The study was carried out in two phases. The first phase involved adapting the WAT and WAQ so these would be tailored to our study population. In the second phase, all subjects were tested with all three instruments in a 2-hour period on the same day. WAT, SWS and WAQ were administered in the first hour, and students were then given 45 minutes to write a composition on a given topic. The compositions were graded and these marks were taken to indicate students' overall writing performance points. The results of the study suggest that, in these tertiary-level EFL students, writing apprehension and writing performance are negatively correlated, writing apprehension and writing self-efficacy are negatively correlated, and writing apprehension and attitude towards writing are positively correlated. Writing apprehension and writing attitude are supposed to be negatively correlated but although WAQ was devised to test attitude, it has subscales that measure apprehension, too. That is why the result regarding the relationship between writing apprehension and attitude towards writing is surprising