Modeling the Relationship Between Cognitive Strategies, Effort Regulation, and Metacognitive Writing Strategies: The Mediating Role of Affective Factors

Abstract

Academic writing is a complex process demanding cognitive control as well as motivation, persistence and emotional control. While some research has focused on the strategies used for writing alone, fewer studies have considered the combination of cognitive, affective, and self-regulatory factors as a whole to support writing development. This study presents and tests a model exploring the relationships between cognitive strategies, effort regulation, affective strategies and metacognitive writing strategies of university students in Malaysia. A quantitative research design was adopted, which included 202 undergraduate and postgraduate students of academic writing in a public university. The Writing Strategy Scale was adapted from Raoofi et al. (2017) and used to gather data, which was then analysed using the Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) by SmartPLS 4. Significant positive relationships were found between effort regulation and affective strategies, effort regulation and metacognitive strategies, cognitive strategies and affective strategies, and cognitive strategies and metacognitive strategies. Affective strategies were also shown to mediate in the proposed model to a significant degree. The model accounted for 50.2% of the variance in the affective strategies and 53.4% of the variance in the metacognitive writing strategies. The results of this study indicate that the problem-solving strategies are not sufficient for successful academic writing. Emotions regulation and sustained efforts help the students plan, monitor and evaluate their writing well. The study provides practical examples for language teaching and learning and adds to the ongoing debates on SLL in higher education.