Abstract Motivational variables significantly influence learners’ writing experiences and performance. Diagnosing learners’ affective perceptions and beliefs using accurate measures is a prerequisite for identifying the optimal ways for motivating them to write. Though writing motivation has been researched for more than four decades, some issues in defining and assessing its constructs are yet to be resolved. This paper critically reviews the developments in conceptualizing and measuring writing motivational constructs. While the review indicates a consistency in the definitions and scales of writers’ outcome expectancy and achievement goals, there are some problematic issues in those of the other constructs. Specifically, the conceptual and terminological overlap and scale construct validity problems are noted in writing apprehension, attitude and anxiety research. Meanwhile, a wide variance occurs in the conceptualizations and measures of writing self-efficacy. Four other constructs (writing self-concept, implicit theories of writing, and incremental and entity theories of writing intelligence) appear to be identical, on the one hand, and close to writing self-efficacy on the other one. The paper ends with discussing some issues that need to be considered in future writing motivation research.

中文翻译：

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定义和评估写作动机结构中未解决的问题：概念化和测量视角的回顾

摘要 动机变量显着影响学习者的写作体验和表现。使用准确的措施诊断学习者的情感认知和信念是确定激励他们写作的最佳方式的先决条件。尽管对写作动机的研究已经超过四年，但在定义和评估其结构方面的一些问题仍有待解决。本文批判性地回顾了概念化和衡量写作动机结构的发展。虽然评论表明作者的结果预期和成就目标的定义和尺度是一致的，但在其他构念中存在一些有问题的问题。具体来说，概念和术语重叠以及量表结构效度问题在写作理解中被注意到，态度和焦虑研究。同时，写作自我效能感的概念化和测量方法也存在很大差异。其他四个结构（写作自我概念、写作的内隐理论、写作智力的增量和实体理论）一方面似乎是相同的，另一方面与写作自我效能感接近。论文最后讨论了未来写作动机研究中需要考虑的一些问题。