Exploring Students’ Writing Strategy Use, Self-Efficacy, and Their Writing Proficiency in an EFL Context: A Mixed Method Study

This mixed methods research employed both questionnaires and semi-structured interviews for data collection. Its objectives were to explore writing strategies utilized by Thai EFL students and to examine the relationships among writing strategy use, self-efficacy, and writing proficiency. The sample consisted of 70 second-year English major students. The writing strategy questionnaire and writing self-efficacy scale were used for data collection. For the qualitative component of the study, a purposive sampling method was implemented to select eight students. Semi-structured interviews were implemented, and qualitative content analysis was applied to analyze the data. The study’s results indicated that Thai EFL students employed writing strategies at a moderate level. Metacognitive strategies were the most frequently employed, followed by cognitive, compensation, and affective strategies, whereas social strategies ranked lowest. During the drafting phase, students implemented more writing strategies than they did during the pre-writing and revision phases. Students' writing proficiency correlated with their use of writing strategies. A positive relationship existed between students' writing proficiency and writing self-efficacy. Moreover, the results revealed a significant correlation between metacognitive writing strategies and writing self-efficacy. Additionally, students' writing self-efficacy and metacognitive strategies accounted for 39% of the variation in writing proficiency. The interviews supported the quantitative findings, illuminating the writing strategies employed by Thai EFL students. They implemented diverse writing strategies throughout each stage of the writing process.