The present study aimed at enhancing university students’ writing ability through using schema theory. The study adopted the quasi-experimental pre-posttest experimental-control group design. The participants consisted of 58 English foreign language (EFL) students and 51 EFL professors who had taught essay writing. The students were divided into two groups: 29 students in a control group and 29 students in an experimental group. To gather the data, the researcher used pre and postessay writing tests, interviews, and a five-point Likert scale questionnaire. The results of the study showed that there was a statistically significant difference between the performance of the experimental group and the control group on the posttest in favor of the experimental group. This indicated that applying schema theory has a positive effect on improving university students’ writing ability. Finally, this study recommended that EFL teachers should encourage EFL students to share their prior experiences, knowledge, and information in the prewriting phase in order to help them improve their writing skills.

中文翻译：

---

图式理论及其在提高大学生写作能力中的实证研究

本研究旨在通过图式理论提高大学生的写作能力。本研究采用准实验前测实验-对照组设计。参与者包括 58 名英语外语 (EFL) 学生和 51 名教授论文写作的 EFL 教授。学生被分为两组：对照组29名学生和实验组29名学生。为了收集数据，研究人员使用了论文前和论文后写作测试、访谈和李克特五点量表问卷。研究结果表明，实验组和对照组在后测的表现有统计学上的显着差异，有利于实验组。这说明应用图式理论对提高大学生的写作能力有积极的作用。最后，本研究建议 EFL 教师应鼓励 EFL 学生在预写阶段分享他们先前的经验、知识和信息，以帮助他们提高写作技巧。