The Correlation between Iraqi EFL University Students’ Cognitive Motivation and Descriptive Writing Zinah Mahdi Habeeb Al-Saadi

Writing plays an integral part in interactive communication, and learning its skills (non-verbal), is an essential focus in language teaching and learning. Learners are constantly encountered withnew situations, whether in-or-outside the classroom, in which they need to be cognitively motivators to reconstruct their knowledge and control actions toward a desired goal in these situations. Accordingly, the current research is conducted to explore the relationship between Iraqi EFL university students’Cognitive Motivation and Descriptive Writing. It is hypothesized that there is no statistically significant correlation between Iraqi EFL university students’ cognitive motivation and descriptive writing. Thus, it aims at finding out: 1) Iraqi EFL university students' level of cognitive motivation. 2) Iraqi EFL university students’ performance level in descriptive writing. 3)The correlation between Iraqi EFL university students' cognitive motivation and performance in descriptive writing. A sample of (180 students) Iraqi EFL 3rd year students at the Departments of English-Colleges of Education for human Sciences at three universities; Tikrit (96 students), Baghdad (54 students) and Al-Muthana (30 students) respectively for the academic year (2024-2025) has been selected. The research design of the current research is a correlational in nature through which two main instruments are used, after being approved and validated by a jury of experts. These are; 1) Cognitive Motivation Questionnaire (41) item 2) Descriptive Writing Test which includes two questions they have been developed to collect data.The analysis of the collected data reveals specific results, which are showed as follows: 1) The Iraqi EFL university students have low level in cognitive motivation. 2) A higher level in descriptive writing by Iraqi EFL university students. 3) Regarding the cognitive motivation, Iraqi EFL university students have shown a positive correlation with descriptive writing. On the basis of the above results, conclusions, some pedagogical recommendations, and suggestions for further studies have been put forward. Keywords: The concept of Cognitive Motivation, Cognitive Motivation Aspects, Descriptive Writing, Descriptive Writing Types