Exploring the Correlation between Pakistani Undergraduate Students’ Writing Strategies and Writing Anxiety

This study investigated the most used writing strategies and the most prevalent writing anxiety among the undergraduate students at a private university in Karachi. The study also examined the correlation between writing strategies and writing anxiety. The students belonging to a private university participated in the study. A survey was conducted for data collection. The English Writing Strategies Inventory (EWSI) and the Second Language Writing Anxiety Inventory (SLWAI) were administered to the students. Descriptive statistics and Pearson correlation tests were run for data analysis. According to the results, the students used the while writing strategies the most and suffered from mild writing anxiety. Cognitive anxiety was the most prevalent writing anxiety. Insignificant correlation was found to exist between writing strategies and writing anxiety as a great majority of the students reported that they possessed intermediate to upper intermediate command on both English and writing in general. The students were found to still adopt a product oriented approach to writing despite being taught the process approach.