A Study On College Students' English Writing Self-efficacy And Achievements In MOOC-based Blended Learning

Supported by continuous development of computer technology,English teaching has been extended from traditional classroom teaching to online teaching.Therefore,a blended learning mode which combines the advantages of traditional teaching and online teaching has emerged.As a new online course form,Massive Open Online Course(MOOC)breaks through the limitations of time and space and provides vital force and energy to blended learning.Applying MOOC to learning is conducive to promote qualified learning resources sharing and educational equity,deepen classroom reforms and improve learning efficiency.Self-efficacy is an important concept in Bandura's social cognition theory.It refers to people's subjective judgments about whether they can get success in a specific activity.English writing is a process of cognitive activity as well as an affective activity.A large number of studies have found that English writing self-efficacy affects students' writing interests and writing achievements.Therefore,it is very beneficial to improve students' English writing self-efficacy.However,a lot of problems have existed in the current college English writing class including the lack of learning initiative,the rigid classroom atmosphere and the teacher-centered teaching mode which ignores the effect of students' psychological factors on English writing.This study introduces MOOC-based blended learning in college English writing class and explores whether this blended learning has an impact on students' English writing self-efficacy and writing achievements.The research subjects are 54 nonEnglish major students who select the International Communication and Practical English Writing in Hunan University.Data collection and analysis are conducted through the English writing self-efficacy questionnaire,writing test and satisfaction questionnaire.The study is designed to address two questions:(1)Does the MOOCbased blended learning influence students' English writing self-efficacy?(2)Does the MOOC-based blended learning influence students' English writing achievements?Two research findings are presented as follows:(1)Before the experiment,students held a medium level of writing self-efficacy,and their confidence in using writing skills was slightly higher than completing writing tasks.After the experiment,students' writing self-efficacy was improved and their writing task-efficacy was higher than writing skill-efficacy.The results indicate that the MOOC-based blended learning can improve students' English writing self-efficacy significantly.To a certain extent,it has enhanced students' confidence in completing writing tasks and using writing skills.The influential factors include previous self-experience,peer comparison,teacher's feedback,personal physical state,writing anxiety and writing attribution.They all affected students' writing self-efficacy in varying degrees.(2)Compared with the students' writing achievements before and after the experiment,their writing scores have been improved significantly.The limitations of this research still exist,for example:(1)Only two classes participated in the MOOC-International Communication and Practical English Writing,the number of participants was relatively small.(2)The functionality of the MOOC online learning platform is not stable,which influenced students' online learning efficiency.Meanwhile,this paper puts forward some suggestions on further college English writing teaching and learning.