Task Complexity, Writing Anxiety, and Flow: Associations with EFL Learners' Writing Performance

Writing in a foreign language places considerable cognitive demands on learners as it requires them to attend to both linguistic form and psychological states. This study sought to investigate the relationships among Task Complexity (TC), two learner-related affective constructs (namely Writing Anxiety and Flow Experience), and L۲ writing performance assessed in terms of complexity, accuracy, and fluency (CAF). Using Robinson’s Cognition Hypothesis together with Skehan’s Limited Attentional Capacity Model, the study examined how varying TC levels affect EFL learners' written output and their affective states during task performance. Thirty-one Iranian EFL students completed simple and complex forms of a writing task in a counterbalanced within-subjects design. Writing anxiety (WA) and flow were measured through validated questionnaires, while writing performance was assessed using established CAF indices. Paired-samples t-tests showed that WA was significantly higher and flow experience was significantly lower in the complex-task condition compared with the simple-task condition. Linear mixed-effects models further indicated that flow was positively associated with four measures of writing performance, particularly measures of syntactic complexity and fluency, whereas WA was associated with two measures of syntactic complexity and no significant associations with accuracy or fluency. Findings point to the complex relationships among cognitive task demands, learners’ affective experiences and their writing performance. The results are examined in relation to existing theoretical frameworks and prior empirical research.

کلیدواژه ها:

Task Complexity ، Writing Anxiety ، Flow ، EFL Writing ، Complexity ، accuracy ، Fluency