Abstract
This phenomenological study examines the factors affecting the motivation in writing of the Online English Learners of Mindanao State University – Maguindanao Senior High School. The participants of this study were ten selected Grade 12 students. The theory is based on social learning theory and expectancy theories. Based on the findings, the participants in the study encountered a variety of factors influencing their motivation in academic writing. Time constraints, task initiation difficulty, environment, and paper aspects influence the majority of participants' language learning motivation in academic writing and are the most common and significant factors. The study's participants were online students who spent most of their time studying at home. Due to lack of physical interaction in a real classroom, online students struggle to maintain their language learning motivation, particularly in writing. As a result, the participants' used strategies in their writing such as Googling to reinforce their knowledge, utilizing other online sources to encourage doing the assigned tasks, trusting their intuition to overcome the challenges in online learning, reading, reviewing, employed time management and do proofreading.
