A Mixed-methods Approach to Investigating Self-efficacy and Motivation Strategies: a Case of Writing Accuracy and Fluency

Learners’ writing development involves various psychological factors that may influence their performance. Among these contributing factors, self-efficacy and motivation strategies as two distinct constructs have been investigated in this research. To this end, 75 upper-intermediate EFL learners from a university in Rasht participated in this study. Employing an explanatory sequential mixed-methods design, quantitative data were collected via pretest-posttests with writing assessments, validated self-efficacy (Gaumer-Erickson et al., 2018) and motivation (Bai et al., 2022) questionnaires from 75 purposively sampled learners randomly assigned to control (n=25), self-efficacy strategy (n=25), or motivation strategy (n=25) groups. Qualitative data were gathered through criterion-based sampling of 11 domain experts (saturation at Interview 9). Analysis techniques included ANCOVA, correlations, and thematic analysis. The results of the analyses revealed that there was a significant positive relationship between self-efficacy strategies and both writing accuracy and fluency. The results also indicated that motivation strategies were significantly positively correlated with learners’ writing accuracy and fluency. In fact, both self-efficacy and motivation strategies demonstrated substantial synergistic effects on writing outcomes according to qualitative findings. These findings showed that integrated self-efficacy and motivation strategies can effectively enhance writing performance among EFL learners. The pedagogical implications and suggestions for further studies were also highlighted.