Despite a large body of literature on self-regulated learning and metacognitive strategy use, relatively few empirical studies were situated in authentic assessment settings to explore the types of strategies employed by L2 learners, especially L2 writers, and how such strategy use may affect their assessment performance. Using a post-test metacognitive writing strategies questionnaire, this study therefore examined the type and effect of metacognitive writing strategy use among about 200 EFL students immediately after completing the writing assessment on a university placement test. Factor analysis of empirical data pointed to five main types of strategies employed by EFL writers when composing under a timed testing setting. Correlation and regression analysis, however, revealed limited and mixed effect of such strategy use on writing assessment performance. Results from this study call for a more nuanced and sophisticated treatment and measurement of metacognitive strategy use in future research, particularly in instrument design and threshold effect testing. Such new evidence can inform writing pedagogy, especially in the face of a recent call for integrating metacognitive strategy instruction into L2 writing classrooms.

尽管有大量关于自我调节学习和元认知策略使用的文献，但是在真实的评估环境中，很少有实证研究来探讨第二语言学习者（尤其是第二语言作者）采用的策略类型，以及这种策略的使用如何影响他们的评估性能。因此，本研究使用测试后的元认知写作策略调查表，在完成大学分班考试的写作评估后立即检查了约200名EFL学生中元认知写作策略使用的类型和效果。经验数据的因素分析指出，在定时测试环境下进行写作时，EFL作者采用了五种主要策略。但是，相关性和回归分析 揭示了这种策略使用对写作评估绩效的有限和混合影响。这项研究的结果要求在未来的研究中，尤其是在仪器设计和阈值效应测试中，对元认知策略的使用进行更加细致入微的处理和测量。这样的新证据可以为写作教学法提供参考，尤其是在最近要求将元认知策略教学整合到L2写作课堂中的情况下。