EFL students’ writing strategies use in Ethiopia: Gender and year level

Abstract This study aimed to investigate EFL students’ writing strategies used in comparison to gender and year level. A descriptive-comparison design was used for this study, whereby a total of 148 English major students participated from Wolkite University and Wachamo University. To this end, the data were collected through questionnaire. The results of this study showed metacognitive (M = 3.59) and cognitive writing strategies (M = 3.51) were the most frequently used by students. An independent sample t-test results showed that there was no significant difference in the use of writing strategies between male and female students (p = 0.220, p > 0.05). The results of this study denoted that gender was not the determinant factor influencing students’ writing strategies use. Likewise, the results showed consistent findings in the use of writing strategies between second-year and third-year English majors (p = 0.264, p > 0.05). This finding realized that year level did not influence EFL students’ use of writing strategies to address their writing problems. The results of this study indicated that the use of EFL students’ writing strategies was not varying due to gender and year-level influences. Therefore, it is suggested that English teachers should train and encourage students to use different writing strategies considering learners’ levels and interests. Students should also develop awareness of using a variety of writing strategies in the writing process to improve their writing ability and quality.


PUBLIC INTEREST STATEMENT
This global phenomenon in today's higher institutions requires learners' awareness of using the target language.More importantly, EFL learners had lower awareness of using effective writing strategies to solve their writing problems.The findings also indicated that there were no gender and year-level differences in the use of writing strategies.However, may be there are some factors influencing students' writing strategies use such as environmental exposure, instructors' lack of interest to train and encourage students and poor background knowledge are major issues in using writing strategies.Learners need to develop their awareness of using writing strategies to improve their writing performance.Finally, appropriate implications and recommendations have been forwarded in this paper.

Introduction
English is an indispensable international language and serves as a tool for communication.It is used as a "lingua franca" and is spoken by at least a quarter of the global population (Andrew, 2017).Therefore, most EFL learners want to master English across various skills to enhance their job prospects and competitiveness (Sundari & Febriyanti, 2022).However, for most students, learning English is a challenging task that cannot be accomplished in a short amount of time.Written communication skills pose significant hurdles for EFL students in their daily activities (Yeom, 2018).This difficulty might be attributed to various factors, such as a lack of interest and motivation among learners during the learning process (Gbollie & Keamu, 2017).Correspondingly, the studies indicate that EFL students often struggle with poor grammar (Khan & Kumar, 2023), inadequate sentence structure and coherence, insufficient vocabulary (Fajrina et al., 2021), mechanical reading of various texts with limited comprehension, and lack of preparation (Atik et al., 2022).Kao and Reynolds (2017) pointed out that difficulties in writing stems from the difficulty in generating and organizing ideas and translating those ideas into a legible text.Dari et al. (2022) point out that problem in writing can be caused by a weak understanding of grammatical rules and vocabulary.Overall, the literature shows that EFL students at various proficiency levels face significant issues with writing (Yulianti & Fadhly, 2020).
According to Aripin and Rahmat (2021), most EFL students still struggle to write well in the target language.Not only do EFL students not know how to organise their thoughts (Jang & Lee, 2019), but they also do not know how to write well-structured sentences and choose the right words.Learners are often caught copying and pasting ideas from different sources and putting them together, which sometimes makes no sense.Most EFL students do not know how to explain and coherent their thoughts when writing in English (Ghoorchaei & Khosravi, 2019).Also, this skill is very important in academic writing, especially when students have to effectively write a complete written report about their thoughts or feelings.
Writing is a system of interpersonal communication using different linguistic styles and discourses (Bai et al., 2020).It helps us to talk to people separated by distance or time.In academic, writing is ubiquitous in conference presentations, journals, and book publishing, through which it influences the dissemination of new ideas and concepts.When you consider that almost every course involves writing, writing skills are important (Junianti et al., 2020).The importance of writing is even more important for EFL students in higher education as they learn English and must need sufficient knowledge to write and produce specific types of writing.Moreover, in the 21 st century in order to communicate ideas and information effectively in and through global networks, written communication seems vital for learners' success.The ability to communicate in written form is an important skill for second language learners (Khidhir & Abbas, 2020;Yulianti & Fadhly, 2020).Sundari and Febriyanti (2022) also highlighted the role of writing as an integral part of English language learning.Writing in a second language (L2) is a basic but difficult skill because it is a process of thinking, drafting, and revising.It is different from the first language (L1) writing in the second language (L2) writers can use more than one language at their disposal (Bai et al., 2020).Similarly, writing, as a social activity, is an act of communication between the writer and the reader in an external situation (El Mortaji, 2019).If you want to write well in your target language, you must learn to write and have both discourse skills and language knowledge.Some studies have shown that EFL learners still have difficulty writing effective sentences, paragraphs and essays.Learners must develop their competitiveness worldwide while teachers and researchers are finding ways to improve learners' writing ability (Atik et al., 2022;Chen, 2022;Kao & Reynolds, 2017).Pitenoee et al. (2017) noted that most EFL students have difficulties with writing, especially grammatical structures, vocabulary and mechanical issues.As Bai and Guo (2018) said, lack of motivation, diction, insufficient time, lack of practice, instructor's feedback and lack of information about the topic in writing are the learners' writing problems.The findings of the study suggest that learners should develop awareness of the writing strategies they use both in and out of the classroom.
Writing reflects a learner's ability to master writing skills and therefore requires learners to realize that writing is a productive skill.Learning to write also includes learning writing strategies to improve their writing skills in a more advanced way.However, some studies have shown that learners not only need to know writing strategies, but also how to manage and control them (Boonyarattanasoontorn, 2017;Kato, 2018).The findings indicate that producing a writing piece requires learners' ability to apply linguistic and cognitive skills in which learners may not be well-practiced.This implies that learners need to have a writing purpose and adapt their writing to each writing task.Strategic learners use a variety of writing strategies in a more advanced way when constructing sentences and paragraphs (Kao & Reynolds, 2017).A strategy is a plan intentionally chosen by the learner to attain a specific goal or complete a given task (Yulianti & Fadhly, 2020).The study shows that writing strategy is a pledge for constructing meaning in learners' writing and as a tryout to change students' inert attitudes towards writing into a constructive one.Hence, writing strategy use is one of the variables that got the attention by the researcher to describe EFL students' writing strategy use and its effect on their writing performance.
Nowadays, many researchers have identified key areas of individual variation that may influence the choice of writing strategy and the frequency with which it is used (Ghoorchaei & Khosravi, 2019;Khan & Kumar, 2023;Yeom, 2018).Some of the factors that influence the use of writing strategies include writing performance, year level (Bai et al., 2020), gender (Al-Saadi & Heidari-Shahreza, 2020;El Mortaji, 2019;Mutar & Nimehchisalem, 2017), cultural background, motivation, and self-efficacy (Abdollahzadeh, 2010;Bai et al., 2020).These variables may play a key role in determining the differences in learning writing skills, but learners' writing skill level is still far from satisfactory.More importantly, gender and year level are the focus areas of this study.
Gender differences have emerged in studies on learning strategies, female students use learning strategies more frequently than male students (Al-Saadi & Heidari-Shahreza, 2020;Atik et al., 2022;Boonyarattanasoontorn, 2017;Mutar & Nimehchisalem, 2017).These studies are necessary because there may be some consistent patterns of differences in the way female students learn language compared to male students.If reliable gender variations show in many studies across different skills, cultures, and contexts, this can suggest that biological as well as skills and culturerelated causes for these differences might exist (Maharani et al., 2018).If so, these causes may have a considerable influence on the English classroom and may also affect the instructor's syllabus and teaching methodology.Then, it is necessary to examine learning strategies in different skill domains and contexts.However, the above studies have mainly focused on the use of learners' learning strategies in general rather than the adaption of learning strategies in specific writing skills.
Year level is another factor that can influence students' writing strategies use (Bai et al., 2020).The studies show that year level has a significant influence on the use of writing strategies.In the same context, Al Moqbali et al. (2020) pointed out that upper grade students use various writing strategies more frequently than lower grade students.The study also showed that as students progressed from lower levels to higher levels, they became aware of different strategies to help them master their writing skills.A writing strategy ensures what is expected of students, how they want to learn, and what actions they will take to improve their writing skills.
In Ethiopia, however, most learners consistently achieve low scores in writing.From the researcher's own teaching experience, teachers' blames students because of poor writing skills and empirical studies on the area (Tekle et al., 2012;Temesgen, 2008).Mainly, the researcher witnessed first-hand that most of the college students in his class were unable to write fluently and accurately in English.They could not write compositions.In this regard, many students ignore the writing section, which is mostly worth 15 points out of 100%, because they cannot write the paragraph or essay that is part of the final exam.This is also supported by other English teachers who teach writing courses at two universities (Wachamo University and Wolkite University).This is the fundamental reason that prompts researchers to conduct research in this area.Therefore, if learners are to be successful academically, their English language skills, especially writing skills, should be significantly developed.Writing plays a role in academic and educational settings, and it is critical to identify factors that influence the development of writing skills.The problems of EFL students' in writing may occur because the challenge might be the complex nature of the writing skill itself.
Therefore, the researcher was motivated to conduct this study due to the following factors.First, most teachers always blame the students for poor English writing performance (Fajrina et al., 2021).The researcher's practical classroom observations on students' poor writing performance because the EFL teachers and other teachers blame their students.Second, students' poor writing performance at different year levels indicated in the literature and lack of motivation (Bai et al., 2020;Sundari & Febriyanti, 2022).As stated by Atik et al. (2022), there is a limitation of study on EFL learners' writing strategies.On the other hand, learners are reluctant to take writing courses because of vocabulary, grammatical structures and mechanisms (Mutar & Nimehchisalem, 2017), so inspiring them is not a clear-cut task.This implies that students' limited exposure to writing strategy instruction, English teachers' unawareness of the wide choices of writing strategies, and the nature of the education system which depends severely on exam results rather than on learners' development of creative thinking skills.
From the aforementioned studies, there could be different reasons.First, learners may not realize that different writing strategies are used both in and out of the classroom to overcome their writing problems.Second, teachers may not train students on how to use different writing strategies after a class.Finally, low exposure to the language learning environment and background knowledge may have been a major concern in conducting this study.This present study intends to construct the research gap by presenting a holistic depiction of higher education learners' writing strategies use in writing English and tunneling into how variables such as gender and year level influencing students" writing strategy use in an Ethiopian context.Study into EFL students" writing strategies use had been paucity hitherto, and the present study gives several contributions.First, the study sheds light on the writing strategies used by EFL students in an Ethiopian context.Such information can assist teachers design early intervention programs to improve their students' writing performance.Second, this study maps out the influence of gender and year level on the use of EFL students' writing strategies.Third, this study can provide empirical evidence for policy makers and curriculum designers to better shape the teaching of writing skills in Ethiopia.
Although the use of writing strategies has been studied in the EFL context, there seems to be a paucity of research on the use of writing strategies in relation to gender and year level in the Ethiopian context, especially at the university level.Bai and Guo (2018) points out that there is still a lack of research on learning strategy use in EFL students' writing.Finally, no studies so far have delved into the variations of gender and year level in Ethiopian higher education students' writing strategy use.Understanding what strategies EFL learners use to regulate their writing and the factors that influence their use of writing strategies is crucial as it can inform English language teaching.Therefore, this study aims to provide empirical evidence for the influence of gender and year level on EFL students' use of writing strategies.To this end, the present study sought to answer the following research questions: (1) What writing strategies do Ethiopian higher education students use most frequently?
(2) Is there a difference between the Ethiopian higher education students' writing strategies use and gender?
(3) Is there a difference between the Ethiopian higher education students' writing strategies use and year level?
2. Review of related literature

English language in Ethiopian higher education
English is the language of instruction and key to higher education in Ethiopia.More specifically, higher education students use it as a medium of communication, especially in their academic endeavours.To succeed in higher education institutions, students need to acquire English language skills.
The Ethiopian Ministry of Education (Ministry of Education, 2005) declared that learning the English language helps students to attend their education successfully and gives more opportunities for them to be competent in their future careers.Consequently, it should be employed as a medium of instruction starting from grade nine to higher education.The Ethiopian educational policy is structured into four sections, i.e., first cycle grade 1-4, second cycle grade 5-8 where students' first language is used as a medium of instruction, high school grade 9 and 10, preparatory school from grade 11 and 12 and at least three years of higher education where English is used as a medium of instruction.
Most students rarely use English to express their thoughts, opinions or feelings and communicate with each other.Even so, the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front government partitioned the country into linguistic zones (nine regional states and two city administrations).All regions have adapted different policies, practices, and attitudes toward English into their educational curriculum; they use English as the language of instruction at different grade levels.For example, Oromia, Somali, Tigray, and Amhara national regional states begin from grade nine, Gambella and Southern Nations and Nationalities Peoples' Regional states from grade five, Addis Ababa city administration, and Dire Dawa city administration from grade seven.The regional governments have the power to decide their language use policies than the federal government, especially in elementary and secondary schools (Amlaku, 2008;Mebratu, 2015).These show that there is no consistency among the regional states in terms of implementing the educational system although they intended to develop learners' knowledge into their mother tongue.The language policy is ordered by the ruling party corresponding to its political demands than being in favour of students' learning.This means that students have less background experience in using English in different contexts.
According to the MOE (2005), students only use English in class; therefore, they cannot be successful language users in real life communication.Mebratu (2015) states that the status of Ethiopian students' English language is very low; most learners do not work well in the language skills.Some studies also find that most students have inhibition and "anxious" feeling of employing English in a classroom (Amlaku, 2008;Berhane, 2019;Wubalem, 2019).As Berhane (2019) said, 65.9% of Ethiopian students feel anxious when using the target language, while 64.1% of higher education students lack the awareness and linguistic knowledge of the target language.The study indicates that most students are still incompetent English users because teachers may not use authentic communication tasks, effective strategies, approaches, and methods to teach the language.Thus, students are unsuccessful in their education and international job markets.In Ethiopia, the current education system and training policy indicate that higher education must use English as a working language in all aspects (MOE, 2005).Higher education policy stipulates that different documents, project work, meetings, minutes, reports, academic activities and so forth should be produced and conducted in English.This shows that not only teachers but also learners must use the target language as a medium of communication meaningfully.
Most students usually think that English is the gateway to the world.The role of the English language is becoming more popular in different contexts.For example, different organizations such as banks, telecommunications, and airports are using English as a medium of communication, especially in written communication with Amharic (Berhane, 2019).In terms of diplomacy, English is used as one of the most important working languages at AU's meetings and conferences where leaders, policymakers, and experts meet in different cities in Africa to debate multifaceted issues and so on.This situation requires policy makers to continuously evaluate education policies, actual practices on the ground, and take corrective measures.
As well, the new Ethiopian educational roadmap is expected to focus on improving the students' English language proficiency.It is hoped that the new English language curriculum may provide learners with an opportunity to use the target language in a comprehensive and meaningful way.It should also develop students' language proficiency and fulfill a number of purposes: communication, acquisition of knowledge, career advancement and appreciation of the language.What is more, it may pay more attention to the methods of teaching language.

L2 writing skill Ethiopia
Language is one of the tools used for communication among the kinsfolk.Writing skills are part of language and require hard work to master.Writing skills can help students understand the situation.As described by Sahle et al. (2023), the importance of teaching writing skills in Ethiopia: First, writing reinforces the grammatical structures and vocabulary that teachers are likely to teach.Second, when teachers write, learners need to have the opportunity to use the language to explore what they need to mention and judge how best to mention what they need to comment on.Third, it is difficult for students to sort out their ideas when writing.Because learners do not know what to write next or how to get it on paper, they often discover ways of writing that they're not used to or new ways of expressing ideas (Woldemariam, 2014).Writing is a record of conceptual development.It is a process in which an initial idea is expanded and refined.It is also a high-level way of thinking that is processed in the brain and thus translated into written form as evidence of information.Correspondingly, writing enables us to have our thoughts immediately, available for review, re-evaluation, and the process may lead us to reconsider and refine our thoughts, i.e. our predictions are informed by writing.This could be a thought process at various stages.Writing is best understood as a series of different thought processes that a writer tries to organise while writing.Writing is much more than using correct spelling, organising words and concepts, and following grammar.According to Beleta and Kebede (2022), writing is the last skill students learn and also the trickiest skill.The findings show that both English teachers and students in Ethiopia feel the complexity of writing skills due to its technical nature.In order to provide ideas in the essay, the learner needs to brainstorm the topic in the language he wants to speak.Furthermore, scientific writing skills develop when people begin to learn the ability to listen, speak, and read in any language.It does not make sense that predictive writing is easy (Zeleke, 2022).In fact, writing is the most demanding of all cognitive activities a learner undertakes because there are no rules.This means that English learners need to develop their autonomy to use different strategies to solve their writing problems.
Writing skills pave the way for learning as it is interrelated with other aspects of the language such as grammar, sentence types, idioms, proverbs, vocabulary and its rules.However, in Ethiopia, students do not learn through writing skill in day-to-day communication (Woldemariam, 2014).They are always frustrated when they generate ideas and organise them into meaningful words.
Writing is much more than using correct spelling, organising words and concepts, and following grammar.According to Beleta and Kebede (2022), writing is the last skill students learn and also the most difficult.The findings show that both English teachers and students in Ethiopia feel the complexity of writing skills due to its technical nature.In order to provide ideas in the essay, the learner needs to brainstorm the topic in the language he wants to speak.Additionally, effective writing ability developed when people begin to learn the ability to listen, speak, and read in any language.It does not make sense that predictive writing is easy.
However, there is no standardised technique for teaching and learning writing skills.Learners have problems such as background knowledge, interest and learning strategies to improve writing skills.Also, the nature of the writing section is not appropriate and authentic: teachers lack interest in helping students (Woldemariam, 2014;Zeleke, 2022).As a result, this expose students' writing performance is poor.
Therefore, in order to teach writing skills, English teachers need to employ different teaching techniques and appropriate classroom practice procedures.The present study strongly suggests that the nature of writing should be accepted and addressed by those who deal with L2 learners if these learners are to be treated fairly, taught effectively, and thus given opportunity to succeed in their writing related to academic endeavors.What's more, the main purpose of writing in English should also be very clear to English teachers and learners.

EFL writing strategies
A writing strategy is a system in which the writer engages in thinking, organizing, planning, producing, reviewing, and collecting what he/she wants to put graphic symbols on the prosaic.Khan and Kumar (2023) stated that writing strategy is the sequence in which a writer engages in planning, composing, revising, and other writing-related activities.Likewise, several studies point out the process by which traditional assemblages are viewed as goal-oriented, cognitively demanding, and problem-solving tasks (Bai et al., 2014;Fajrina et al., 2021;Ghoorchaei & Khosravi, 2019;Jang & Lee, 2019;Yulianti & Fadhly, 2020).The findings of the study suggest that writing strategy is part of the process writing research movement that seeks to gain insight into the mental processes writers engage in when they write.Therefore, writing strategies are the procedures adopted by a writer to regulate activities, compensate his/her mental resources, and solve the problems he/she faces in order to achieve set goals.
The use of students' writing strategies has shown that revision as a cognitive process is mostly similar in the mother tongue and the English, and that there is an obvious positive transfer of the revising skills from writing in the first language into writing in English (Kao & Reynolds, 2017;Maharani et al., 2018).Chen (2022) pointed out that there is a significant gap between the theory and practice of teaching writing in the context of EFL.In many cases, learners participate passively in the classroom, as lessons are often taught with a teacher-centered method (Junianti et al., 2020).Similarly, Sundari and Febriyanti (2022) state that the drawback of the formal learning environment in EFL classroom is a result of the inadequate instruction, due to the continued use of the outdated method, despite the current official curricular emphasis on the communicative frameworks.Bai et al. (2014) pointed out that the application of learning strategies related to writing develops EFL students' writing competence.The findings indicated that the intervention maximized the learners' writing skills and strategy use.Several studies suggest that EFL/ESL students need training to use strategies in the writing process to improve the quality of their writing (Khidhir & Abbas, 2020;Yulianti & Fadhly, 2020).
In the context of EFL, El Mortaji (2019) investigated students' use of writing strategies.However, the study limited the sample to proficient student writers.The findings of the study showed that students use various writing process and writing strategies.Correspondingly, Kato (2018) found that high-achieving EFL learners put more effort into each writing session than low-achieving learners.What is more, Ghoorchaei and Khosravi (2019) point out that most EFL students were found to use writing strategies at a moderate level, and the more successful students used the strategies more frequently than their less successful learners.Some studies indicated that students in any level used different writing strategies to ensure their goal in writing in the terms of writing process or types of writing strategies proposed by Oxford (Chen, 2022;Ghoorchaei & Khosravi, 2019;Junianti et al., 2020;Kao & Reynolds, 2017;Sundari & Febriyanti, 2022).Then, proficient writers did many revision steps and applied more strategies than less proficient writers (Dari et al., 2022;Pitenoee et al., 2017).What is more, proficient writers mostly use reading and rereading strategies for multiple purposes such as revising and editing texts, developing ideas, and acquiring new ideas (Jang & Lee, 2019).
Despite the increase in research on writing strategies in foreign language learning, the field of use of learning strategies in English writing remains underexplored (Kao & Reynolds, 2017).In limited research, attempts have been made to identify EFL learners' writing strategies and their correlations with gender (Abdollahzadeh, 2010) and motivation (Khidhir & Abbas, 2020).In addition, researchers are also interested in the mapping patterns used by EFL learners' writing strategies during writing (Hu & Gao, 2018).However, there is still a big gap in the research on the application of writing strategies.This may be because a number of studies were conducted in L1 writing contexts while the understanding of EFL students' use of strategies is inadequate (Sundari & Febriyanti, 2022).Many studies targeted either adult learners' writing strategy use or EFL learners with learning disabilities (Bai & Guo, 2018;Jang & Lee, 2019;Khan & Kumar, 2023).
EFL students' writing strategy use in L2 writing research, little attention has been paid to higher education students in EFL/ESL settings (Bai & Guo, 2018;Fajrina et al., 2021).Bai et al. (2020) findings focused on the relationships between Singapore learners' writing strategies and English language proficiency with a questionnaire and English language exam as tools.The results showed that the students' frequency of writing strategy use was at the medium level, and most strategies (i.e., planning, text-generating, revising, monitoring and evaluating, and resourcing strategies) were significantly related to the learners' English language proficiency.In response to Kato's (2018) call for using different methods to be aware of students' English writing, Al Moqbali et al. (2020) used the think-aloud approach with EFL students to find out the relationships between the students' writing competence, year-level and writing strategy use.The results suggested that the high-achieving learners outperformed their low-achieving counterparts in using both cognitive and metacognitive writing strategies.When year-level comes into play, however, the results are ambiguous.In Ethiopia, where English is used as the medium of instruction from ninth grade to higher education, it is considered a foreign language and only used in classrooms.In light of the great distinction as to the importance of English, Ethiopian higher education students' writing strategies may not be differing from first year to advanced year level.Therefore, more research into the context of EFL is needed.

Factors influencing students' writing strategies use
The previous studies indicated that learners tended to use all strategies in their writing.However, there are different factors that can influence students' language learning strategies use.For example, teacher's expectations, gender, proficiency level, learning styles, motivation, selfefficacy, interest, background experience, year level and culture (Oxford, 1990).These factors contribute to the choice and type of writing strategies.More importantly, only the influence of gender and year level on the use of writing strategies is the main focus of the present study.

Gender and writing strategy use
Gender is one of the main factors affecting EFL learners' writing strategies use.With regard to gender differences in learning strategy use in foreign language learning, no consensus has been reached as some studies reported higher strategy use by females than males (Yulianti & Fadhly, 2020), and others yielded no significant differences between the two group in the use of learning strategies (Maharani et al., 2018).However, considering only research on EFL learners, somewhat consistent results were produced, which indicated that females outperformed males.In Al-Saadi and Heidari-Shahreza's (2020) findings of the study, the female students' strategy use (i.e., cognitive, metacognitive, and affective/social strategies) was found to be exceedingly higher than the male students.As the first large-scale study on EFL students' writing strategies use, Abdollahzadeh (2010) detected gender differences in writing strategy use in that the girls performed better than the boys in strategy use and also in the use of memory, cognitive, compensation, metacognitive, and social strategies, but not in affective strategies.Similarly, Mutar and Nimehchisalem (2017) noted that female students use writing strategies more frequently than male students, especially when it comes to social strategies.The study also found that female students used the strategies in all six categories more effectively than male students.Even though consistent findings on gender differences have been reported for students' writing strategies, more research needs to be continued to investigate whether this also holds true in EFL writing.Also, given its unique socio-cultural environment, Ethiopia may present a different situation as English is the language of instruction is considered a very important language.

Year level and writing strategy use
Few studies have investigated the influence of year level on the use of learning strategies in language learning (Bai et al., 2020).The biggest challenge, according to the findings, is that language ability and year level are inextricably linked.Another challenge is the stereotypic view of writing strategies vis-a-vis stable processes rather than developmental processes in learners' minds (Bai et al., 2014).The studies show a positive relation between year level and the writing strategy use.Similarly, Abdollahzadeh (2010) suggested a negative relationship between these two variables in using learning strategies related to writing.(Chen (2022) also indicated that there was no clear relationship between male and female students' writing strategies use.The results indicated that learners in different year levels use slightly different strategies, and the general pattern was that learners in higher levels use writing strategies more frequently than students in lower level.Besides, year level may also have different effects on different writing strategies.For example, Al Moqbali et al. (2020) report that senior students use more cognitive strategies than junior students, but junior students use more effective writing strategies than senior students.Bai and Guo (2018) categorized his participants into intermediate students and upper-grades groups and concluded that the upper-grade group outperformed the intermediate group in terms of certain metacognitive (monitoring) and cognitive (revising) strategies while no significant differences were reported on some other metacognitive and cognitive strategies.Bai et al. (2020) noted that EFL students vary by year-level in their use of writing strategies.
A number of noteworthy issues have been identified.First, while the use of writing strategies around the world has basically been studied based on gender and year-level as predictors, there has not been any research specifically on Ethiopian students to be sure.Second, in Ethiopia, students enjoy unique learning characteristics that have not been studied.Third, there is a lack of research on whether gender and year level influence EFL students' writing strategies use.It is crucial to understand what strategies that EFL learners use to regulate their writing and what influences their use of writing strategies.
According to the previous studies reviewed, the results related to the influence of gender differences and year level on the overall writing strategy use of EFL students are mixed or inconsistent results.This means that the relationship between these two variables is still inconclusive.Studies have shown that there are insufficient studies on the influence of gender differences and year level on the use of writing strategies.It is for this reason that the current research was conducted to solve the problems of obtaining inconsistent findings.Furthermore, this motivated the researcher to explore EFL students' writing strategies use in relation to gender differences and year level.Therefore, the current study not only suggests the solution but also puts the theoretical foundation in using writing strategies to overcome their problems.

Research design
A descriptive-comparison design was used for this study.This design sought to identify the writing strategies most frequently used by higher education learners.It was also used to determine whether gender and year-level influence students' writing strategies use or not.

Population and sampling techniques
The participants in this study were second-year and third-year English major students at Wolkite University and Wachamo University.In total, 148 students from Wachamo University, namely 40 second-year students (25 females and 15 males) and 36 third-year students (16 females and 20 males) and from Wolkite University, 37 second-year (21 females and 16 males) and 35 third-year students (17 females and 18 males) were participants.Therefore, learners are expected to have good writing skills, knowledge of grammar and vocabulary, and have a broad range of ideas to give their writing an academic quality.
A stratified random sampling technique was used to select the participants of this study.The main purpose of this technique was to ensure a fairly equal representation of the variables for the present study, i.e., the comparison between male and female students and second-year and thirdyear English major students (homogeneous groups to get reliable information) in using writing strategies.Therefore, it was used when the researcher wanted to examine female and male students' and second-year and third-year students.

Instruments
The questionnaire was mainly employed to collect a quantitative data for this study.It was used to measure the types and frequency of writing strategies students use to solve their writing problems.It was also used to determine the influence of gender and year-level on students' use of writing strategies.To ensure this, the researcher developed a questionnaire adapted from Petric and Czarl (2003) writing strategy to pinpoint students' writing strategies use.In this study, writing strategies are interpreted as actions or behaviours that learners take consciously to promote their writing skills.This questionnaire consisted of 48 closed-ended items to measure students' writing strategies.On the basis of the adapting items, some modifications had been made at the levels of phrases, clauses, sentences, and paraphrases in the EFL context.The adapted inventory was a selfreported questionnaire.Because the organization, content, and language of this tool were suitable, the items were easy to answer questions in a short time, and they were especially appropriate for EFL learners at the Ethiopian University level.The questionnaire items consisted of six categories highlighted by Oxford (1990).These include social (items 1-5), affective (items 6-13), metacognitive (items 14-23), compensation (items 24-26), cognitive (items 27-44) and memory (items 45-48).(see appendix) In this part, all students expressed the degree of their use of writing strategies on a 5 point Likert scale ranging from 1-5 based on the frequency of strategy use (i.e., 1='never 'or "almost never true of me" to 5="always" or "almost always true of me").The average scores of the groups of the strategies were interpreted based on the adjusted reporting scale Petric and Czarl (2003).

Validity and reliability of instruments
The instruments were also validated by two experts (PhD in TEFL) who work at Wolkite University.Experts had 15 and 16 years of working experience in teaching English at Ethiopian public universities.They then commented on the content and face validities of the questionnaire items.Based on their comments, some improvements were made.For example, three irrelevant items were removed (i.e., I feel that the key to good writing is getting the grammar and mechanics right and looking at a writing model before starting writing in English helps me write better) which did not relate to students' writing strategies use were cancelled out from the questionnaire.Then, these items replaced with relevant ones namely: I notice it when I am tense or nervous while I am writing English, I plan what I am going to accomplish in writing every day or each week and I write down ideas as soon as ideas come into my mind.Furthermore, some questions and instructions were rewritten in a simple and clear manner.
The researcher conducted a pilot study to check the reliability of the data collection instrument (questionnaire) and administrative procedures.More importantly, the reliability of the questionnaire was checked for its internal consistency using Cronbach's alpha coefficients.The Cronbach's alpha for the questionnaire (48 items) was found to be 0.889, which showed a high index of reliability.This means that the items were more reliable and acceptable in identifying the writing strategies used by EFL students.

Data collection procedure and data analysis
First, an official letter was submitted to the head of the English language and literature of Wolkite University and Wachamo University.Second, after all arrangements were made, the researcher informed the respondents about the objective of the study before the main administration of the questionnaire.Then, the necessary instructions were given to the respondents by reading the script; in addition, general instructions in Amharic were provided for students.Third, the questionnaires were distributed to the respondents to complete the information.Finally, the researcher gave sufficient time for the respondents to read the questionnaire and provide appropriate responses.They took an average of 30-40 minutes to complete it anonymously and confidentially.
Data were analyzed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 23.0.The descriptive statistics such as mean and standard deviation were used to find out the writing strategies students use.In addition, an independent sample t-test was used to determine whether gender and year level influenced students' writing strategies use or not.

Quantitative findings
This section was dedicated to presenting the analysis of quantitative data about the writing strategies most frequently used by EFL students and determining whether gender and year level influenced their writing strategies use or not.According to Oxford's (1990) criteria, the mean (M) scores ranging from 3.5 to 5.0 indicate a higher strategy user who usually or almost always uses strategies, while mean scores in the range of 2.5 to 3.4 indicate a medium strategy user who sometimes uses strategies, and mean scores from 1.0 to 2.4 indicate a lower strategy user who does not usually use strategies.Since writing strategies are a subset of LLSs, the following data were analysed by considering the mean (M) scores of students' writing strategies used.The students' responses to the questionnaire were categorized based on the above criteria.

What are the writing strategies used by students most frequently?
As shown in Table 1, the descriptive statistics (X = 2.70) of the total score on overall writing strategy indicated that students were moderate users of writing strategies.Notably, respondents reported high to low levels of writing strategy use in each of the six categories, with mean scores ranging from X = 3.59 to X = 2.19.The respondents also replied that affective, compensation, metacognitive, and memory writing strategies were used at a low level (usually not used) with the obtained mean scores 2.38 for affective strategies, 2.34 for compensation strategies, 2.32 for social strategies and 2.19 for memory strategies.In contrast, the use of metacognition and cognitive strategies was high, with an average score of 3.59 for social strategies and 3.51 for cognitive strategies.

Is there difference between the Ethiopian higher education students' writing strategies use and gender?
Table 2 showed that although women outnumbered men, there was no significant difference between male (M = 2.600) and female (M = 2.815) students in the use of overall writing strategies.To examine significant differences in the use of writing strategies between male and female students, an independent samples t-test was performed (see Table 3

below).
As shown in Table 3 above, the value of t was −4.322 (p = 0.220, p > 0.05).These results realized that there was no significant difference between male and female students in the use of writing strategies.

Is there difference between the Ethiopian higher education students' writing strategies use and year level?
Table 4 showed that mean scores of students in the second-year and third-year were 2.6894 and 2.7106, respectively.These results confirmed that although third-year students use better than second-year students, there was no difference in the mean scores of the two groups in the use of writing strategies.Besides, an independent sample t-test was also required to analyze the significant differences in the writing strategy preferences of the second-year and third-year students, and to test the significance level (see Table 5 below).As shown in Table 5, there was no statistically significant difference in the use of writing strategies between second-year and third-year students (t = 1.112, p = 0.264, p > 0.05).The results in the present study indicate that year level has no significant influence on the use of students' writing strategies.

Discussion
The main objective of this study was to find out the writing strategies most frequently used by EFL students.The results of this study showed that the types of writing strategies namely, metacognitive (M = 3.51) and cognitive (M = 3.50) writing strategies were the most frequently used.Meanwhile, affective, social, memory, and compensatory writing strategies were used the least.The students believed that the writing strategy helped them to improve their writing skills.Therefore, these results could give us a reliable picture of students' use of metacognitive and cognitive writing strategies.Furthermore, many researchers agree that most EFL/ESL learners develop their writing ability using effective writing strategies both in and out of the classroom (Abdollahzadeh, 2010;Fajrina et al., 2021;Ghoorchaei & Khosravi, 2019;Khidhir & Abbas, 2020;Maharani et al., 2018;Yulianti & Fadhly, 2020).The findings of the studies indicated that metacognitive and cognitive writing strategies are used to address EFL learners' writing problems despite their limited linguistic knowledge and exposure to the learning language environment.As stated by Khan and Kumar (2023) metacognitive strategies are the most commonly used strategies by students.Similarly, Al Asmari (2013) described students who most often used cognitive and metacognitive writing strategies based on their interests, but who had psychological problems in exercising their writing skills.What is more, Pitenoee et al. (2017) reveal that not only the use of cognitive strategies but also metacognitive strategies contributes to promoting students' writing skills.Thus, using metacognitive and cognitive writing strategies more frequently is not only to practice writing English but also to develop the students' awareness to use the language knowledge in a real situation.It is believed that students' use of writing strategies can be attributed to the educational context in Ethiopia, which supports learners to practice writing in English.The results of this study showed that male and female students had a higher preference for metacognitive and cognitive writing strategies.There was no difference in the mean scores of male (M = 2.67) and female (M = 2.77) students in using writing strategies, as they were moderate users in overall strategies.In addition, an independent sample t-test (p = 0.220, p > 0.05) showed no statistical difference between male and female students in using writing strategies.The results realized that gender was not the determinant factor influencing students' writing strategies use.This might be because the two groups were found in the same learning language setting, and it was directly assumed that they had similar effects on the use of writing strategies.
However, some studies have shown that there are significant differences in the use of writing strategies between male and female students (Atik et al., 2022;Aripin & Rahmat, 2021;Bai et al., 2020;Mutar & Nimehchisalem, 2017;Wiyanto & Asmorobangun, 2020).There were significant differences between male and female students in the use of writing strategies.The findings also authenticated that female students differ from their male students' in using writing strategies.Owing to the language learning environment and resources, gender influences the use of students' writing strategies.The study showed that female students outperformed than male students in the overall use of writing strategies.In the same context, Abdollahzadeh (2010) points out that female students use writing strategies more successfully than male students.Abdollahzadeh's findings indicated that female students are more active and interactive than male students in using metacognitive strategies.It is understandable that in different cultures, the learners' characteristics and teaching methods, the gender differences in the use of writing strategies are quite obvious.This means that male and female students may have different interest in writing activities, methods and procedures for practicing English writing.It might also be related to the emphasis on exposure to language learning environment, thought, educational background, psychological factors and social factors.However, one could argue that the effective use of writing strategies is more important than the frequency with which writing strategies are used.
The results of this study failed to show significant differences in the use of different types of writing strategies by male and female students.This means that the absence of gender differences in the use of writing strategies was an unexpected result.The discrepancy between the results of the present study and the previous studies might be due to contextual differences.In Ethiopia, regardless of gender differences, English is considered as a FL, and all students are taught correspondingly.Even though the country's higher education curriculum gives equal opportunity to both male and female students to attend their education without any variations, EFL instructors' had no interest to train and aware students to use different learning strategies to solve their writing problems.This implies that both groups learn the language in the same learning environment.Limited knowledge of using effective writing strategies was a major difficulty for both groups in the frequency of using strategies.Low-level learners spent longer on planning, which was done mentally; however, their efforts did not seem to be effective in helping them form ideas for the writing task.Hence, gender differences had no significant influence on the use of writing strategies.This might be because the employ of metacognitive, cognitive, compensation, memory, social and affective writing strategies were not significant indicator of the difference in learning strategy used between male and female students in writing.
The context of English language writing instruction explains the Ethiopian students' problems with writing classes at the higher education.Owing to the lack of language development, lack of writing experience and practice, many students do not consider themselves good writers, especially in English.They also don't seem to have a level of awareness of their writing skills when they enter higher education.Thus, a need existed for the current research to focus on the learners' processes of writing, and the types of strategies they use in the writing process in the context of coherence.Coherent writing is also inhibited by many differences between English and mother tongue, which are reviewed in the next section.
The results showed that there was no statistically significant difference in the frequency of writing strategies considered to be used between first-year and third-year students (p = 0.264, p > 0.05).The results indicated that there was no difference in the use of writing strategies between second-year and third-year English major students although higher-level learners were expected to use more writing strategies to address their writing problems.The perceived frequency of writing strategies use might not be a reliable discriminating feature between second-year and third-year students in this study.The results of this study provide support to the prior stratagem research finding that the frequency of strategy use is not the whole picture, but it is even more important to use the strategies in the best order at the right time.Therefore, year level was not the determinant factor influencing EFL students' use of writing strategies.
Nonetheless, different researchers claim that year-level has a significant influence on EFL students' writing strategies use (Abdollahzadeh, 2010;Al Moqbali et al., 2020;Bai et al., 2020;Dari et al., 2022;El Mortaji, 2019;Misbah et al., 2017;Mutar & Nimehchisalem, 2017).More importantly, the results of Khan and Kumar (2023) showed that senior students use different writing strategies more frequently than junior students.The study confirmed that year level differences have a great contribution in using effective writing strategies.The incompatible pattern in strategy use was not unexpected, and it boomed with Bai's results which show that year level did not serve as an essential predictor for writing strategies.As further stated by Bai and Guo (2018), some writing strategies may not necessarily be improved with the growth of age, but rather with the growth of competence.Hence, due to the communicative needs of the learning language exposure, students can increase the use of writing strategies.This may be a result of the increased demand for writing by students who are proficient in the target language.
It is complicated to explain the resultant lack of statistically significant differences and why these less experienced Ethiopian students make use of writing strategies with more or less the same frequency as their higher level counterparts.Second-year and third-year learners ranked the same on the six writing strategies although more advanced students were expected to use more of one specific type of writing strategy.The perceived frequency of writing strategy use may not be a reliable distinguishing feature between lower and higher level participants in this study.As pointed out by Bai et al. (2020), some factors, such as ability, anxiety, world knowledge, educational and cultural experience, and even age, may play a more important role in the adoption of writing strategies.Furthermore, Atik et al. (2022) found that the application of writing strategies to most EFL learners was not sufficient to produce good writing results, and learners' anxiety levels were a more important factor predicting the quality of their writing.
Unexpectedly, there was no difference in the use of writing strategies between the second-year and third-year students.This might be due to some basic reasons.First, the two group levels might not have used effective writing strategies to overcome their writing problems.Second, it was found that students at both levels were faced with inadequate learning resources, family support, and a lack of intrinsic motivation to practice writing skills.As they moved from a lower level to a more advanced level, they did not get enough training on how to use different writing strategies to solve their writing problems.Third, courses related to writing skills were insufficient and ineffective for practicing writing compositions.In the end, this might be the result of students having less need to communicate in English.

Conclusion and implications
EFL learners used metacognitive and cognitive writing strategies most frequently although they were unaware of the use of effective strategies in the writing process.The results also showed that learners had little practice in writing and had problems with the types of paragraphs and essays they wrote.
The present study indicated that there was no difference between male and female students in the use of writing strategies.This means that regardless of gender differences, English is considered FL and all students are taught similarly in Ethiopia.Gender was not the determinant factor influencing students' writing strategies use, but there might be other factors influencing the use of students writing strategies.Likewise, the findings showed that there was no difference between second-year and third-year students in using writing strategies use.This implied that year level did not influence students' writing strategies use in Ethiopia Therefore, gender and year level did not have any contribution on EFL students' using writing strategy use.
This study has some pedagogical implications for students, teachers and curriculum designers.First, the students need to develop an awareness of language learning strategies in general and writing strategies in particular to improve their writing performance.Second, with a goal of enhancing the learners' productive skills and making learners notice their weak, teachers can provide students with a mechanism to evaluate their own progress, and the contribution of particular strategies in doing multiple writing tasks.Third, teachers also need to provide learners with more opportunities to use the most commonly used writing strategies and recognize the importance of these strategies for all students, regardless of gender and year-level differences.Teachers can explicitly provide feedback to students when they monitor their writing process in the classroom.Therefore, in light of the findings of this study, the designers of the Ethiopian new curriculum of the English language courses at different levels of education need to be modified.This means that the curriculum is not only about the content but also about how students use writing strategies to overcome writing problems.
The following recommendations were made.
Students should be trained different writing strategies use to improve their writing skills.As a result, higher education should provide continuous training for English teachers to use different teaching methods, approaches and strategies to teach writing skills.In addition, English teachers should explicitly and implicitly introduce, train and encourage students on how to use various writing strategies based on their interests and preferences.The curriculum designers should incorporate learning writing strategies into the writing courses.
The current study was only conducted at Wolkite University and Wachamo University, and only included second-year and third-year English major students.This study leads to the need for an extended study in terms of the large-scale investigation using different tools such as questionnaires, interviews, classroom observations, diaries and think-aloud protocol and large sample size in all universities found in Ethiopia to see the generalizability of the findings.
Last but not least, this study suggests for future researchers to conduct studies related to investigating English majoring students' strategy use in learning other language skills and language performance.