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The study has used both quantitative and qualitative approaches to draw conclusions on the relationship between motivation, attitude, and writing strategy use.

3.1 Quantitative study 3.1.1 Participants

The participants of the study were mainly second year students drawn from eight faculties and one college at Jimma University. These faculties were Medical Sciences, Public Health, Technology, Business and Economics, Education, Law, Social Sciences and Humanities, Natural and Information Sciences and College of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine.

From the total population of the study (N= 3980), a random sample of 680 students representing 12 different departments was selected for the quantitative study. On an average each group had about 57 students to be used as a sample of study subjects. Out of the 680 respondents in the study, 598 (81.3%) were males and 97 (13.2 %) were females with the average age of 20.65 (SD=2.14). The majority of these students are enrolled in a three year degree programme course and have stayed in the university for over one and a half years. In their first year, most of them took one English writing course, but prior to

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their joining Jimma University, they studied English for about twelve years.

3.1.2 Instruments for data collection

Data on students‘ writing strategy use and writing abilities was collected using a self- administered questionnaire and proficiency test of essay writing respectively. The questionnaire was developed by adapting Oxford‘s (1990) Strategy Inventory for Language Learning scheme (SILL) and using the experience of the researchers and insight gained from the literature review.

3.1.2.1Questionnaire Part I

The writing strategy questionnaire included 38 items that deal with different aspects of writing and approaches to writing (see Appendix 1). These items were meant to obtain data regarding the frequency of strategies the students employ when writing in English. Students were requested to respond to questions with choices on the frequency of writing strategy use, based on a five point Likert scale (never or almost never true, usually not true, some what true, usually true, always or almost always true) as used in Oxford‘s SILL.

The overall reliability of the internal consistency of the 38 writing strategy items for the study group was found to be .88. All the 38 items were categorized into five major dimensions (rhetorical, cognitive, metacognitive, social/affective and others) based on theories related to writing and experiences drawn from the previous studies. Then, a factor analysis was performed to check whether coherent constructs were measured by the items. All the items under each category were found to satisfy the criterion of factor loadings greater than or equal to .40.

43 3.1.2.2 The sample writing proficiency test

The sample writing proficiency test was administered to 668 students in order to obtain data on their levels of writing competence in writing essays. Here, the students were asked to write an effective essay of about 300 words on a topic familiar to them within 70 minutes (see Appendix 3 for details).

The 668 essays written by the students were divided into three categories and were randomly distributed to three pairs of trained raters. Two pairs of raters marked 222 essays each and the third pair of raters marked 224 essays. Each essay was rated by two independent raters using analytical scoring guides modified from Jacobs et al.‘s (1981) English Composition Profile. To measure the agreement between two raters (pair of raters), Kappa was used.

After the completion of rating, the first data was recorded and analyzed using SPSS version 13 to determine the average scores of the essays. Then the results obtained were exported to Stat/ES 8.0 (statistical software) in order to group the subjects into three writing proficiency levels: high achievers, average achievers, and low achievers, using quintile.

3.2 Qualitative study

Qualitative data was collected from 663 subjects who completed Part II of the questionnaire which comprises both close and open-ended questions. The other qualitative data was collected from 46 respondents through interviews.

3.2.1 Questionnaire Part II

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questionnaire containing open-ended and close-ended questions. The close-ended questions include dichotomous questions (yes or no) on satisfaction with exam results and ways of teaching writing, whereas the open-ended ones focused on reasons for satisfaction or dissatisfaction with exam results and ways of teaching writing. Close- ended questions were also used in order to rank reasons for learning writing (see Appendix 2).

3.2.2 Semi-structured interview

Of the 680 respondents in this study, 48 were randomly selected for the interview session of 30 minutes duration. Forty six students were interviewed on their writing experiences of whom 25 were from the high achievers group and 21 from the low achievers group. They were asked to respond to two types of semi-structured interview questions. The questions in the first category were related to attitudes towards writing and writing strategies useful for developing writing competence. The questions in the second category were designed to rate responses of strategy use based on a five point scale ranging from not important to very important.

To assess the respondents‘ attitude towards learning or developing writing skills, two interview questions (item 1&2 below) were designed and used in the present study in addition to two open-ended questions used in Questionnaire Part II ( items 3 and 4 below).

1. The first question concerning the attitudes and feelings was: What is your feeling towards writing?

2. The second question concerning identification of useful strategies was: What writing strategies are most helpful for you in developing your writing skills?

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3. The third question concerning the evaluation of the course result was: Were you satisfied with your writing course (Sophomore English) exam result? Yes/No. Explain why?

4. The fourth question concerning the evaluation of the teacher was: Were you happy with the way you were taught writing? Yes/No. Explain why?

3.3 Procedures and methods used for data analysis

To assess the relationship between motivation and writing strategy use, first, motivational variables were identified and the responses to these variables were analyzed. Next, the relationships between these variable results and writing strategy use results were examined using different statistical techniques such as descriptive statistics and correlation analysis.

In this investigation of relationship between motivational variables and the use of writing strategies, qualitative approaches were adopted, in addition to quantitative approaches. The qualitative data analysis procedures used in this study were similar to the techniques recommended by Bogdan, Biklen and Wolcott (as cited in Hancock, 2007). All the responses to each open-ended question were compiled and carefully analyzed to detect recurring themes and codes were designated for the same. The themes were organized into two levels: major and sub themes, and presented with their frequency counts and direct quotes chosen as illustrative examples (see Appendices 4&5 for details). The process of organizing interview data started with validation, that is, notes made during the interview were read to each participant and it was validated that the notes reflected their views. Following this, the notes were copied into a notebook and organized in the same ways used in the process of analysis of the data derived from the open-ended

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questions. Such organization of data is to facilitate the identification and development of themes. Themes were identified in the texts not only by looking for the commonly mentioned points or statements, but also by paying attention to distinct points mentioned by individuals.

In general, the qualitative approaches adopted in the present study seemed to be similar to that of phenomenological research design, which is usually recommended to study participants‘ behaviours, experiences, and motivations from their own perceptions and perspectives (Lester, 1999), which are the main focus of the present study.