Arab Educational Information Network

This study aims at investigating Iraqi EFL students' level of writing apprehension, writing performance, and locus of control orientation. It also seeks to find out the correlation between these three variables according to the academic locus of control orientation (internal and external). The instruments of the study are administered to 160 participants who are randomly selected from two departments of English in the University of Baghdad. The statistical manipulation of the data collected indicates that the participants show external orientation of academic locus of control, high level of writing apprehension, and low level of writing performance. The study also reveals that academic locus of control orientation (including both internal and external) does not correlate with writing apprehension, while, writing performance correlate negatively with external orientation of academic locus of control and positively with the internal orientation. Finally writing apprehension and writing performance are found to negatively correlate in both cases of academic locus of control orientation. (Published abstract)