Self-Efficacy and Self-Regulation as the Predictors of Use of Oral Communication Strategies in EFL Contexts

The present study aspired to systematically investigate the relationship among EFL learners’ Self-Regulation (SR), Self-Efficacy (SE), and their Use of Oral Communication Strategies (UOCS). To this end, 367 male and female undergraduate students, within the age range of 20 to 30 (Mage = 25) were selected based on convenience sampling strategy. They were asked to fill in three questionnaires, namely the Oral Communication Strategies Inventory (Nakatani, 2006), the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (Pintrich, Smith, Garcia, McKeachie, 1991), and the SE Questionnaire (Sherer, Maddux, Mercadante, Prentice-Dunn, Jacobs, Rogers, 1982). Both parametric and non-parametric formulas were conducted to inspect the significance of the relationships. The results revealed that there was a significant and positive correlation between SR and UOCS, SE and UOCS, and SE and SR. Furthermore, a regression analysis revealed that only SR makes a strong statistically significant unique contribution to predicting UOCS (β = 0.682, t = 15.3, p = 0.0005). SE did not turn out to be a significant predictor of UOCS scores. The study concludes with a discussion on the obtained results followed by presenting some implications for EFL teachers, learners, and syllabus designers.