Self-Regulated Strategies Among ELT Students in Learning Writing

Abstract

The research study aims to describe self-regulated strategies among ELT students in learning writing. The success of students learning to write depends particularly on their ability to self-regulate their writing. Every student should be responsible for their own learning tasks, particularly while learning to write. The three research questions raised by the researcher are, (1) what are self-regulated strategy used by proficient students and less proficient students, (2) how are the differences of self-regulated strategy used by proficient students and less proficient students in writing, and (3) do the more self-regulated employed by the students, the better achievement they have. A quantitative method is applied in this research, and 65 students from all writing classes majoring in English education attended a private university in Malang. A questionnaire with 30 items on a 5-point likert scale that examines the six aspects of self-regulated writing (method, motive, performance, time, physical environment, and social environment dimension) was adapted from Abadikhah et al. (2018) and used to collect student data. Furthermore, the students writing achievement was carried out by lecturers who were experts in their fields by conducting end-of-semester exams in the department. Then, the data were analyzed using descriptive statistics,ex-post-facto, and Pearson Product Moment Correlation to assesses the correlation between the use of a self-regulated writing strategy and their writing achievement. According to the study's findings, the method dimension (3.94) is a self-regulation tool that is frequently employed by proficient students and the social environment dimension (3.59) is a strategy that is often used by less proficient students. Meanwhile, proficient students dominantly use the dimension method where they tend to be able to find appropriate learning approaches, while students who are less proficient tend to need the help of friends, lecturers, and learning resources and need to adjust the learning environment. Finally, based on the results of the correlation test showed there is a correlation (r = 0.408) that is not too significant between the use of self-regulated writing strategies and student achievement. It means that, students who employ self-regulated writing strategy do not necessarily earn better scores. However, students who do not employ self-regulated writing strategy do not necessarily receive poor scores. Keywords: Self-Regulated Strategies, ELT Students, Proficient Students, Less Proficient Students, Writing