Abstract:
The current study was an attempt to explore the relationship between Iranian EFL learners’ self-regulatory capacities and their argumentative writing task performance in order to analyze measures of complexity, accuracy, and fluency (CAF). To this end, 44 Iranian EFL undergraduates majoring in English literature at the University of Tehran were recruited based on convenience sampling to participate in this study. Employing a correlational design, the participants were required to perform an argumentative writing task and complete the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire designed by Pintrich, Smith, Garcia, and McKeachie (1991). Pearson product moment correlation indicated a significant relationship between self-regulated learning and writing task performance in relation to CAF measures. In addition, the results of multiple regression showed that resource management strategies and value component predicted 56.9% of grammatical accuracy of writing task. It was also shown that resource management strategies, value, and expectancy components predicted 56.5% of lexical complexity of writing task. Lastly, cognitive and metacognitive strategies, expectancy, and value components predicted 55.2% of the fluency of writing task. The findings of this study informs EFL writing pedagogy and English language teachers and syllabus designers with regard to the benefits of applying self-regulatory strategies in teaching and assessing writing.
Machine summary:
<H1>The Role of Self-Regulated Learning Capacities in Iranian EFL Undergraduates’ Argumentative Writing Task Performance</H1> Ali Akbar Khomeijani Farahani Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literature, University of Tehran, Iran Farahani@ut.
ir Abstract The current study was an attempt to explore the relationship between Iranian EFL learners’ self-regulatory capacities and their argumentative writing task performance in order to analyze measures of complexity, accuracy, and fluency (CAF).
Most of the studies in task based language teaching domain have mainly taken oral performance into account (Branden, Bygate, &amp; Norris 2009; Byrnes &amp; Manchón, 2014; Kormos, 2012; Ong &amp; Zhang, 2010; Ruiz-Funes, 2014).
The results of their study showed that the students who had received instruction on self-regulation, as well as composing strategies had significantly better performance that is, their writing tasks enjoyed better quality.
Magno (2009) investigated the relationship between learning approaches (deep and surface) of 243 college students and their academic SRL based on the hypothesis that while learners write in a second language, they make use of specific approaches to learning and self- regulatory strategies.
2. How well do sub-scales of Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire predict the grammatical accuracy, lexical complexity, and fluecy of Iranian EFL undergraduates’ writing task performance?
Results</H2> The first research question aimed to investigate the relationship between self-regulated learning and writing task performance in terms of measures of CAF.
This study was conducted within the framework of task based language teaching with the aim of identifying how a heated factor in the literature, namely academic self-regulation can predict the CAF of writing task performance of EFL learners.