Study On Affective Factors Influencing Engineering Major Students’ English Writing

Since the 1970 s,foreign language anxiety and self-efficacy,which are considered as important factors affecting second language acquisition,have attracted much attention from linguists and educators.Numerous studies suggest that English writing anxiety and English writing self-efficacy take an effect on learners’ English writing performance,but the relationship between the two is hardly explored.This study aims to explore the relationship between English writing anxiety and English writing selfefficacy of engineering major students and the influence on writing performance.Based on previous research results at home and abroad,this study proposes research questions,integrates scales,distributes questionnaires to collect and sort out data,and makes a summary according to the research questions.The research questions are following: What is the status quo of engineering major students’ English writing anxiety,English writing self-efficacy? What is the relationship between the two variables? Can English writing anxiety or English writing self-efficacy influence English writing performance? If yes,how do they affect writing performance? To answer the above research questions,398 engineering students from Harbin University of Science and Technology in different majors take part in the survey.Prior to the formal investigation,a pilot study is conducted so as to verify the reliability and validity of the two questionnaires.After the reliability of the two questionnaires being tested qualified,the author applies them to the formal survey.In this research,the writing scores of the subjects in CET-4 are taken as reference,SPSS25.0 is used to analyze the questionnaire data and stratified random sampling method is applied to select the research subject.According to the data analysis results: 1)Engineering students generally have moderate anxiety in English writing.Among the three components of writing anxiety,the average score of avoidance behavior is the highest,indicating a high degree of anxiety,followed by lack of confidence,conception anxiety and classroom anxiety.Engineering students generally have moderate self-efficacy in English writing.They are more confident in their writing task ability than their writing skill ability.However,about half of engineering students are scored below average.2)There is a significant positive correlation between English writing self-efficacy and English writing anxiety,indicating that anxiety,as an internal driving force,urges students to take writing activities seriously,so that their writing self-efficacy enhances.Questionnaire data suggests that there is no correlation between English writing affective factors and English writing performance while the interview indicates that the subjects’ English writing performance is affected by affective factors.3)In order to improve the writing level of engineering students,this study puts forward three suggestions respectively for students and teachers,that is,students need to attach importance on English writing,accumulate English vocabulary and syntax,build up positive affective factors and teachers should teach valuable writing strategies,design interesting teaching parts and use multiple feedback method.