A Correlational Study Of English Writing Self-efficacy And Writing Performance For Business English Majors

English writing plays a significant role in second language acquisition.It is not only a cognitive activity but also an emotional activity.Many studies have shown that writing is one of the most challenging tasks and students lack confidence in writing.Therefore,researchers pay great attention on students' psychological factors.Among all psychological factors,self-efficacy has a great effect on English writing.The concept of self-efficacy is proposed by Bandura and it refers to individuals' beliefs in their capability to succeed and acquire new information or accomplish a task to an appointed level of performance.As for the writing self-efficacy,it means individuals' confidence in their ability to complete a specific writing task.And writing self-efficacy provides guidance for writing teaching and learning.Therefore,the researcher aims to investigate the present situation of BE(Business English)majors' writing self-efficacy and gives suggestions for BE writing teaching in order to improve BE majors' writing proficiency.This research took 98 juniors of BE majors in Xi'an International Studies University as participants.Through questionnaire and interview,the study aims to investigate the status quo of BE majors' writing self-efficacy,differences of writing self-efficacy between high-level and low-level groups,correlation between writing self-efficacy and writing performance and the influential process of writing self-efficacy on BE majors' writing performance.Based on the above results and analysis,this research draws following conclusion.Firstly,the status quo of BE majors' writing self-efficacy in Xi'an International Studies University is at a middle level and BE majors lack certain confidence in writing.Specifically,BE majors are more confident in using writing skills than fulfilling writing tasks.Secondly,there exist significant differences of writing self-efficacy between high-level groups and low-level groups.BE majors with high writing self-efficacy beliefs perform well than those with low writing self-efficacy beliefs.Therefore,it is necessary to strengthen BE majors' writing self-efficacy.Thirdly,the correlation between writing self-efficacy and writing performance is significant.Regression analysis proves that writing self-efficacy has a predictive power to writing performance.And writing task self-efficacy contributes most to the prediction of writing performance.It means that the higher students writing self-efficacy is,the better performance he or she will get.Fourthly,BE majors' writing self-efficacy can indeed influence their writing performance in terms of learning behavior,cognitive involvement and motivational involvement.Theoretically,this research makes a contribution to the relationship between BE majors' writing self-efficacy and writing performance,which can enrich the current writing self-efficacy theory.Practically,the results and findings in this study can help teachers adopt certain methods to improve students' writing self-efficacy and assist students to improve their writing performance.