Effects of different lengths of planning time on L2 writing performance and their relationships with writing self-efficacy

Drawing on the Triadic Componential Framework, this study explored the effects of different lengths of planning time on English majors’ L2 writing performance and their relationship with writing self-efficacy. Eighty-nine fourth-year undergraduates were divided into three groups: the No Planning group (n = 30), the 5-Min Planning group (n = 29), and the 10-Min Planning group (n = 30). They completed an online timed writing task with different lengths of planning time, and an online questionnaire that measured their writing self-efficacy. Participants’ writing performance was analyzed for holistic scores, syntactic complexity, accuracy, lexical complexity and fluency. One-way ANOVAs and Pearson correlation analyses showed that (1) the 10-Min Planning group outperformed the No Planning group in lexical complexity; (2) in the No Planning group, writing self-efficacy for ideation was positively correlated with fluency and negatively correlated with lexical complexity; (3) in the 5-Min Planning group, writing self-efficacy for convention was negatively correlated with lexical complexity, while writing self-efficacy for ideation had negative correlations with both lexical and syntactic complexity. However, in the 10-Min Planning group, no significant correlation was found. The findings not only provide empirical support for the Triadic Componential Framework, but also offer pedagogical implications for task-based writing.