An Empirical Study Of English Majors’Writing Self-efficacy

EFL writing is a process of cognitive activity, as well as an affective activity. This activity is influenced by many factors, among which students’self-efficacy beliefs can not be neglected. Recent years have witnessed many researches on the origins, theoretical bases and importance of Writing Self-efficacy in SLL. However, most of the researches are confined to theoretical researches. So far few empirical studies have been attempted at Writing Self-efficacy of English majors, especially on the grade differences between freshmen and juniors in terms of Writing Task Self-efficacy and Writing Skill Self-efficacy. To fill up this gap, this study is undertaken to investigate the status quo of English majors’overall writing self-efficacy, including Writing Task Self-efficacy and Writing Skill Self-efficacy. It seeks to explore the general situation of English majors’ writing self-efficacy, the differences between freshmen and juniors in terms of Writing Self-efficacy and the relationships between Writing Self-efficacy and Writing Performance.The specific research questions to be addressed in the thesis are:1) What is the general situation of English majors’overall writing self-efficacy?(1) What is the general situation of English majors’writing task self-efficacy?(2) What is the general situation of English majors’writing skill self-efficacy?2) What are the differences between freshmen and juniors in terms of overall writing self-efficacy?(1) What are the differences between freshmen and juniors in terms of writing task self-efficacy?(2) What are the differences between freshmen and juniors in terms of writing skill self-efficacy?3) Are there any relationships between writing self-efficacy and writing performance? If yes, what are the correlations?(1) Are there any relationships between writing task self-efficacy and writing performance? If yes, what are the correlations?(2) Are there any relationships between writing skill self-efficacy and writing performance? If yes, what are the correlations?The theoretical framework of this study is mainly based on the most influential theories on self-efficacy in the fields of psychology and SLA, among which are Bandura’s self-efficacy theory and social cognitive theory.In this study, both quantitative and qualitative research methods are adopted. The quantitative research includes a questionnaire survey. The questionnaire is an updated and expanded version of the questionnaires by Shell et al.(1989,1995) and Pajares and Valiante (1997). It is made up of forty questions, which are classified into two broad categories, Writing Task Self-efficacy and Writing Skill Self-efficacy. The questionnaire survey was administered to one hundred and twenty-three English majors (55freshmen and68juniors) from Yangzhou University, a key comprehensive provincial university on February17,2011and finally123questionnaires were collected with102found valid. The data was analyzed with SPSS17.0.The qualitative research is a semi-structured interview with ten freshmen and ten juniors from Yangzhou University. They have all participated in the previous questionnaire survey. The interview was done individually in the form of free discussion and questions ready to be discussed were listed on a sheet of paper. The interviewees could use either Chinese or English to express their ideas. The interviews were tape-recorded and transcribed later. The transcriptions of the interviews were synthesized and categorized.Detailed analysis of quantitative and qualitative research yields the final findings as follows:(1) Generally speaking, English major students experience the medium level of Writing Self-efficacy, and most of the students are more confident in Writing Task Self-efficacy (i.e. accomplishing specific writing task) than Writing Skill Self-efficacy (i.e. using writing skill). Of the three categories of Writing Task Self-efficacy, English major students have a higher self-efficacy in finishing General Writing tasks. Following General Writing is Practical Writing. Academic Writing is the last one on the ranking list. Among the five categories(Overall Writing Skill, Stylistic Writing Skill, Organizing Skill, Expressing Skill, and Revising Skill) of Writing Skill Self-efficacy most students’self-efficacy of Organizing skill is at the highest level. Arranged in the order of their mean scores descending from the highest to the lowest, the other four categories are:Expressing Skill, Revising Skill, Overall Writing Skill, and Stylistic Writing Skill. (2) There exists a significant difference between freshmen and juniors in terms of Writing Task Self-efficacy, Writing Skill Self-efficacy, and Overall Writing Self-efficacy, with juniors getting higher mean scores than freshmen. What’s more, compared with freshmen, juniors have a higher level of Writing Self-efficacy in each sub-category of Writing Task Self-efficacy and Writing Skill Self-efficacy. In a word, grade difference has a positive impact on Writing Self-efficacy.(3) Writing Task Self-efficacy and Writing Skill Self-efficacy both turn out to be highly related to Writing Performance. As far as Writing Task Self-efficacy is concerned, there exists a close relationship between the three sub-categories of Writing Task Self-efficacy and Writing Performance, with General Writing being the most closely correlated, Practical Writing the second place and Academic Writing the least closely correlated. As for the relationship between the five categories of Writing Skill Self-efficacy (Overall Writing Skill, Stylistic Writing Skill, Organizing Skill, Expressing Skill, and Revising Skill) and Writing Performance, a reasonably close relationship is also found.Based on the discussion of the above results and findings, some tentative suggestions are proposed for both teachers and school administrators:Firstly, teachers play a decisive role in improving students’writing self-efficacy, as self-efficacy is a key factor influencing English writing abilities. In view of this, it would be advisable for teachers to pay adequate attention to helping students improve their writing self-efficacy in classroom teaching.Secondly, one of the primary purposes of this study is to provide teachers the status quo of English majors’writing self-efficacy in order to improve students’ writing performance. As a result, students’opinions should be taken as a valuable resource. If teachers are very much clear about their students’hopes and fears, strengths and weaknesses, they can provide some specific help to exert effective intervention on students’writing confidence. Hence, it is advisable for teachers of English to promote communication with students and develop a more intimate teacher-learner relationship.Thirdly, considering the essential role of self-efficacy beliefs in the writing process, teachers should make great efforts to help students identify self-efficacy beliefs and, where necessary and feasible, try to improve their self-efficacy, because they are important components of motivation and behavior.It should be pointed out finally that although the author tries to control variables and ensure a high validity of this study, due to both subjective and objective constraints, there still exist in the study some undeniable limitations, such as a small sample size, which the writer hopes to overcome in her future studies.