Willingness to write and writing performance of EFL students pursuit of relevance

Research Article

Abstract

The impact of individual differences on achieving high levels of mastery in writing is of great significance in the field of learning a second language. The present study was conducted to investigate the degree of willingness to write among students of English as a foreign language (EFL) and the potential effects it may have on the students’ performance in writing. To achieve the goal, Willingness Apprehension Test (WAT) developed by Daly and Miller (1975, revised version 2013) was used to measure the participants’ perceptions of willingness to write in an L2. The participants were 159 EFL students from a state university in Turkey. The findings revealed that the participants had a relatively high level of stress apprehension, a moderate level in product apprehension, and low level in evaluation apprehension components of WAT. The findings also revealed the all three components measured in the study have significant effect on the participants’ writing performance. The findings of this study can bring considerable insights into the field and help EFL/ESL teachers to unfold the underlying factors affecting students’ degree of willingness to write and try to enhance willingness to write by lowering the debilitative role of WAT as an individual factor.