An Empirical Study Of The Effects Of Peer Review On English Academic Writing Self-efficacy Of Non-english Major Postgraduates

Writing has not only been the key point,but also difficult point in English teaching.At present,students only having general English writing ability are far from meeting the society's demand,especially for postgraduates.Due to their limited English proficiency,they may not be able to publish their research findings,nor can they attend international exchanges and academic exchanges well.Therefore,how to construct a scientific English academic writing method to improve academic writing ability of postgraduates based on solid general English writing ability,and enhance postgraduates' writing confidence is a challenge for researchers.English academic writing self-efficacy comes from writing self-efficacy,which is a key psychological factor in the process of writing.A large number of studies have shown that writing self-efficacy can predict and influence students' English writing proficiency.If English academic writing is taught with effective methods,students' writing self-efficacy will be enhanced and writing ability will be improved.Studies have shown that peer review can improve students' writing confidence.However,there are few studies on whether it is possible to significantly improve students' English academic writing self-efficacy by applying peer review in postgraduate academic English writing classes.Therefore,this study determines the research theme by combining relevant researches and theories: this paper examines the impact of peer review on the self-efficacy of postgraduate English academic writing.Based on the reviewing of theory,this study attempts to explore the following three questions:(1)What effect does peer review have on postgraduates' self-efficacy in English academic writing?(2)Does peer review have any significant differences in English academic writing self-efficacy across gender?(3)Does peer review have any significant differences in English academic writing self-efficacy on high and low level students?In order to answer above questions,the author conducted an experiment andinterviews.The author took the first-year postgraduates of a university in Northeast China as subjects and divided them into experimental class and control class.The English academic writing class in experimental class used the method of peer review but the control class did not adopt this method.At the beginning and the end of the semester respectively,the participants were asked to complete the Postgraduate English Academic Writing Self-efficacy Questionnaire and academic writing test,and finally the collected experimental data were analyzed.With the help of SPSS 22.0,the collected questionnaire data,the written essays,peer review feedback lists and interview data were analyzed.The author drew the following conclusions:(1)Peer review can significantly improve the English academic writing self-efficacy of postgraduates.(2)Peer review has a greater impact on female English academic writing self-efficacy than male.(3)Peer review has a greater impact on low level students' English academic writing self-efficacy than high level students.The results further confirm the self-efficacy theory and the relationship between peer review and the improvement of self-efficacy in academic English writing.Therefore,teachers need to be fully aware of students' current self-efficacy in English writing,and effectively apply peer review to academic English writing to help students achieve greater progress.Finally,the problems that may arise during the implementation of peer review have been proposed in this paper,as well as the limitations of this study,and simultaneously gave relevant recommendations for future study.