ENHANCING WRITING SELF-EFFICACY OF MEDICALLYDISADVANTAGED LOW-ACHIEVING HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS
A Thesis
Presented to the faculty of the Department of English
California State University, Sacramento
Submitted in partial satisfaction of
the requirements for the degree of
MASTER OF ARTS
in
English
(Composition)
by
Rita Marie Townsend
SUMMER
2013
ENHANCING WRITING SELF-EFFICACY OF MEDICALLYDISADVANTAGED LOW-ACHIEVING HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS
A Thesis
by
Rita Marie Townsend
Approved by:
_____________________________________, Committee Chair
Daniel L. Melzer, Ph.D.
_____________________________________, Second Reader
Cherryl Smith, Ph.D.
_____________________________________
Date
ii
Student: Rita Marie Townsend
I certify that this student has met the requirements for format contained in the University
format manual, and that this thesis is suitable for shelving in the Library and credit is to
be awarded for the thesis.
____________________________, Graduate Coordinator
David Toise, Ph.D.
Department of English
iii
___________________
Date
Abstract
of
ENHANCING WRITING SELF-EFFICACY OF MEDICALLYDISADVANTAGED LOW-ACHIEVING HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS
by
Rita Marie Townsend
For the students enrolled in one district’s individualized home instruction program, low
writing self-efficacy is a major roadblock toward academic achievement. This thesis
addresses factors affecting student self-efficacy as well as the teaching strategies the
program’s instructors utilize as non-classroom teachers teaching within a restricted time
frame. The study uses a teacher survey and questionnaire to examine the levels of teacher
self-efficacy and the effectiveness of teaching strategies used to enhance student writing
self-efficacy, as well as case study interviews with three high school students to gain
student perspectives about writing self-efficacy. The findings suggest that the majority of
the teachers have strong self-efficacy for writing and their instruction strategies are
effective. Enhancement in student self-efficacy for writing is minimally transferable to
regular classroom instruction programs.
______________________________, Committee Chair
Daniel L. Melzer, Ph.D.
________________________________
Date
iv
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to extend my genuine thanks to:
My program’s staff and students for their participation in this study. This research and
writing was completed for you.
Professors Daniel Melzer and Cherryl Smith for your patience, guidance, mentorship, and
support for my work.
My partner, Doris Craig, who continually supported my efforts at each point in the
writing process.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v
Chapter
1. INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
A Unique Instruction Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Theoretical Framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
6
Self-Efficacy and the Writing Domain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
8
Rationale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Research Questions and Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Definition of Terms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Limitations of the Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Organization of Thesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2. LITERATURE REVIEW . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Adolescent Writers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
The Process Paradigm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
19
Writing Self-Efficacy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Motivation and the Teacher’s Role . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Individualized Instruction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
3. METHODS AND RESULTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Participants and Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Research Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
vi
Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Data Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Student Perspectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Case Study No. 1: Marina . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Case Study No. 2: Santiago
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Case Study No. 3: Tanner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
Case Study No. 4: Andrew
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
4. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
Self-Efficacy Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
Research Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Recommendations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
Appendix A: Teacher Survey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
Appendix B: Teacher Questionnaire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
Appendix C: Student Interview Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
Works Cited . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
vii
1
Chapter 1
INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY
Compulsory education laws in our nation have led to the development of
alternative educational programs. These programs are aimed at assisting at-risk students
obtain a high school diploma. A vast majority of these programs work independently
from public school districts and may or may not utilize a traditional curriculum approach,
while a few are provided and funded by school districts. These district programs are
designed to complement the public school curriculum and to serve the students who
reside within each district’s geographical boundaries. One such district-funded program
provided by Springvale Unified School District—SUSD (a pseudonym), for whom I have
been teaching for the past ten years, is a home-based individualized instructional program
that “serves students who incur a temporary disability, which makes attendance in the
regular day classes or alternative education program impossible or inadvisable”
(California Education Code Section 48206.3). The definition of “temporary disability”
utilized by the program is “a physical, mental, or emotional disability incurred while a
student is enrolled in regular day classes or an alternative education program, and after
which the student can reasonably be expected to return to regular day classes or the
alternative education program without special intervention” (EC Section 58206.3[b] [2]).
The program’s primary goal is “to help students maintain continuity of instruction during
a period of temporary disability” (CalEdFacts).
The school district’s policy of providing individualized instruction for the
“temporarily disabled” student has good intentions; however, it does not take into
2
consideration the impact of the student’s medical condition on his/her past attendance and
performance level, the student’s current ability to perform academic tasks, and the
amount of instructional hours required to maintain or raise the student’s performance
level. The instruction time permitted for each student enrolled in the program is five
hours per week which poses a difficult challenge for its teachers and its students,
particularly those students who struggle with low self-efficacy. Although some of the
students enrolled in the home-based instruction program have medical conditions that
have not negatively impacted their academic performance or self-efficacy, it has been my
personal experience that these students represent the minority, for during my years as a
teacher in the program, I find that 4 out of 5 of the students I serve have poor academic
skills and low self-efficacy. Writing is an academic task that warrants hours of
instructional time on a regular basis; it is also a task that students must expend a
considerable amount of time and effort to perform effectively. Nancie Atwell, a
proponent of the writer’s workshop, comments:
Writers need time—regular, frequent chunks of time that they can count
on, anticipate, and plan for. . . . Regular, frequent time for writing also
allows students to write well. When they have sufficient time to consider
and reconsider what they’ve written, they’re more likely to achieve the
clarity, logic, voice, and grace of good writing (55).
My concern is that the time restrictions of the home-based program do not
provide medically-disadvantaged students with low writing self-efficacy the amount of
instructional time they need to improve before they return to their regular school
3
program. By examining the efficacy of the program’s teachers, their teaching strategies
for writing, and the comments made by some of the program’s high school students, I
will discuss the overall effectiveness of the program’s teachers ability to raise the writing
self-efficacy of its low-performing high school students.
A Unique Instruction Program
Before addressing self-efficacy issues within the high school student population in
the SUSD’s home-based instruction program, it is important to describe the teachers that
contribute their expertise to this unique program. The teachers in the program all hold
valid elementary or secondary teaching credentials. All of the teachers have received
the Cross-Cultural Language and Academic Development or CLAD certificate to teach
non-native English learners, while some also possess Special Education credentials.
Regardless of the credential(s) they have, the program permits each teacher to teach
students in grades pre-K through 12 including those in Special Education. Because they
are eligible to teach all grade levels, they are also eligible to teach many different school
subjects. So, it is not uncommon on any teaching day, for a home-based teacher to teach
a kindergarten student how to write the letters of the alphabet, a sixth-grader how to
create new words with prefixes, an eighth-grader how to calculate the slope of a line, and
a high school senior how to take notes for a research project.
It may appear that teaching a variety of subjects and grade levels would present
the greatest challenge for these dedicated teachers, but it is actually the least of their
concerns. Besides the limits on instructional time, other situations frequently arise that
create difficulties for the teachers. Two of these situations include communicating with
4
the classroom teachers and teaching in the student’s home environment. The majority of
the program’s students will return to their school classrooms after being released by their
treating physician or psychiatrist. Ideally, the student’s classroom teachers will
communicate with the home-based teacher and provide him or her with an overview of
the assignments and the material taught in the student’s classroom during the student’s
absence. In reality, what happens all too frequently is that the classroom teacher fails to
respond to the home teacher’s requests for information, and the home teacher is faced
with the task of creating lesson plans, assigning written work, and providing materials
that meet grade-level standards. Even in situations when the classroom teachers do
provide instructional assistance, the home teacher may not be able to complete the
assignments per their guidelines either because of the lack of equipment, as in the case of
science laboratory assignments, or because the student cannot perform the assigned
activities due to illness or ability level. The assignments may need to be modified or
substituted with alternate assignments to accommodate the needs of the student. This is
not to say that the student’s classroom teachers do not support the efforts of the home
teacher or the student upon his or her return to school. It takes collaboration between all
parties to make the student’s transition back to the classroom successful; the home
teacher’s dedication plays a huge role in reducing student anxiety and preparing them to
meet the demands of the classroom.
Unlike their classroom counterparts, home-based teachers meet their students in
their homes. They are, in essence, traveling teachers who must carry all of their
classroom materials in their vehicle and be prepared to travel to any part of the school
5
district to teach their students. Most of the home environments that the teachers visit are
suitable for learning. They have quiet, well-lit study areas and family members that
support district to teach their students. Most of the home environments that the teachers
visit are suitable for learning. They have quiet, well-lit study areas and family members
that support the learning needs of the student. However, not all of the home
environments are conducive to learning. The teacher may encounter cramped study
places and inadequate lighting. During the course of the session, there could be dogs
barking, phones ringing, visitors stopping by, or a myriad of other distractions that not
only interrupt the instruction, but also test the patience of the teacher and interfere with
the student’s ability to concentrate. For low-achieving students, the distractions cause a
loss of valuable teaching time that usually will not be recouped.
Although the home-based instruction program’s one-to-one instruction differs
from individualized instruction offered at school sites, it accepts the belief that students
should be allowed to progress at “a rate governed by [their] background, interest, and
ability” (Bishop, 4). The program’s teachers are a patient and caring group of individuals
who go to great lengths to teach students with debilitating physical or mental conditions.
The program allows them the opportunity to use each student’s learning style to design
instructional strategies that meet their academic needs. Despite any difficulties that may
arise for the teachers, they persevere because of their concern for the student population
they serve.
Teaching writing to secondary-school students, even in the most ideal
instructional settings, requires an acceptance of small gains. Unlike primary-school
6
students, whose interest and progress in writing can be measured in leaps and bounds,
adolescent writers may not demonstrate either enthusiasm or a great degree of marked
improvement over months of instruction time. Adolescent writers have had more time to
develop both good and bad writing experiences, and oftentimes, they are “fearful of
exposing themselves, sharing their thoughts and their feelings, or making themselves
vulnerable to the prying eyes of peers or adults” (Zemelman and Daniels 10). For
teachers in the home-based program working with high school students struggling to have
just one day when they don’t experience pain or fatigue, anxiety or worry, student
engagement becomes the top priority. For the medically-disadvantaged student who has
incurred instructional gaps due to poor attendance, meeting with a teacher who can allow
time for questions will result in an instructional style that is more suitable for student
learning. The program’s teachers also understand that to achieve any amount of success,
they must establish a rapport with their students. A large part of developing a rapport
involves teacher awareness. To overcome student anxiety and enhance student writing
self-efficacy within a relatively brief instructional time frame, the teachers must be
attentive to the verbal and written feedback they give as well as the instructional
strategies they use to assist with skill mastery.
Theoretical Framework
The theoretical framework for this study is Albert Bandura’s social cognitive
theory which he presents in his book Self-Efficacy: The Exercise of Control. He defines
perceived self-efficacy as “beliefs in one’s capabilities to organize and execute the course
of action required to produce given attainments” (3). He states that one’s self-efficacy
7
impacts both physical and emotional aspects involved in the execution of a given task,
including:
. . . the course of action people choose to pursue, how much effort they
put forth in given endeavors, how long they will persevere in the face of
obstacles and failures, their resilience to adversity, whether their thought
patterns are self-hindering or self-aiding, how much stress and depression
they experience in coping and taxing environmental demands, and the
level of accomplishments they realize” (3).
Although a complex motivational construct, self-efficacy is malleable and is susceptible
to change depending on how an individual perceives and responds to situations within
his or her environment.
According to Bandura, one’s self-efficacy is created by one’s “cognitive
processing” and “reflective thought” of the information presented by four sources which
include: 1) experiences with previous mastery, 2) “vicarious” experiences that compare
one’s capability to that of others, 3) receipt of “persuasive” verbal feedback from others
regarding their capabilities, and 4) “physiological and affective states from which people
partly judge their capableness, strength, and vulnerability to dysfunction” (79). Of these
four sources, Bandura asserts that one’s experiences with previous mastery is the “most
influential,” because these experiences are “authentic” indicators of one’s success or
failure at a given task (80). For teachers attempting to raise students’ self-efficacy in
writing, verbal persuasion can achieve desired results if the student has experienced
8
previous mastery and if the positive feedback is perceived as “realistic” by the student
(101).
Self-Efficacy and the Writing Domain
Since Bandura introduced his social cognitive theory, more interest has been
generated in the area of motivation; efficacy researchers have applied Bandura’s ideas to
studies focusing on academic contexts, such as mathematics, reading, and writing. The
research devoted to studying the connection between self-efficacy and writing
performance is relatively recent. Some of the topics studied relevant to raising selfefficacy in student writers are intervention strategies environments, encouraging student
input and choice, teacher feedback, the use of authentic literacy tasks, and explicit
instruction.
Areas of motivational study related to self-efficacy involve the emotional aspects
of writing. Anxiety and negative associations with writing may develop causing the
student writers to participate in avoidance or procrastination behaviors. In their article,
Developing Motivation to Write, authors Roger Bruning and Christy Horn explain that
once a student forms negative associations, he begins “a cycle . . . in which lack of
writing leads to lack of writing improvement, resulting in even less inclination to
continue” (33). They point to several factors in the teaching of writing that can assist
students in breaking the writing aversion cycle and assert that the development of student
motivation to write starts with the teacher’s efficacy for writing and the teaching of
writing. They explain that teachers’ beliefs have a direct impact on students, and
that if their “experiences with writing are narrow-gauge, socially isolating, evaluation
oriented, and anxiety provoking, they are very unlikely to be able to create positive
9
motivational conditions for their students’ writing” (30). In order for students to view
writing as a skill with value and purpose, classroom teachers should do the following:
create a safe environment where students feel comfortable, allow for task involvement,
separate writing tasks into manageable portions, structure writing tasks that illicit student
knowledge, train students to use strategies, and employ progress feedback (33-34).
Efficacy researchers have also examined teacher efficacy and the role it plays in
developing student self-efficacy. To have a positive impact on the efficacy of their
students, teachers need to have high efficacy. In their book Self-Efficacy: Raising the Bar
for all Students, authors Joanne Eisenberger, Marcia Conti-D’Antonio, and Robert
Bertrando report that teachers with high efficacy for teaching literacy skills hold the
belief that his or her teaching ability can assist difficult students in obtaining their
performance expectations. “This belief translates into the way the teachers construct
their lessons, their methods of delivering instructions, and how they maintain order and
control” (10). Supporting the research regarding self-regulation development strategy
instruction, these authors contend that teachers should promote student ability “to
exercise control over academic progress,” and that academic performance increases when
teachers enhance student self-efficacy (8). Teachers who are efficacious are resilient in
their efforts to persuade and create positive experiences for all students, including those
“with deficiencies” who need additional support to assuage their doubts about their
“ability and capabilities” (16).
10
Rationale
The students whose educational needs are entrusted to these motivated individuals
are provided with the opportunity for one-to-one instruction that they would not receive
in their regular classrooms. Many of the high school students have already missed a large
amount of instructional time due to their disability and are anxious about their academic
performance. Their anxiety is a result of both unlearned skills due to absence, and
motivational factors, such as self-efficacy and self-confidence. They have spent so much
time away from school feeling ill and/or undergoing medical treatment that they have
become accustomed to always feeling unprepared and academically behind their peers.
In some cases, they have given up trying to maintain the expected academic skill level.
One-to-one instruction offers students a brief respite from the classroom challenges, such
as performance expectations and peer pressure. Often the teacher finds that the lowachieving student experiences a boost in morale at the onset of their home instruction.
After years of teaching in the district’s individualized instruction program, I have
developed methods and strategies that help my students become better writers. Not
having a school site to share and compare teaching ideas, I have often thought about how
my fellow teachers were solving the problem of low self-efficacy in writing so prevalent
with our high school student population. With many factors affecting the writing
performance of our students and the instructional environments that is comfortable for
the students, although not always ideal, my interest has led me to question the efficacy of
the program’s teachers and the methods they use to help instill an “I can” attitude in the
low-achieving students who cross our paths in a short time span. Although this study will
11
focus on the effect of teacher self-efficacy on student self-efficacy and writing
performance in an alternative home-based educational setting, the research regarding
personalized instruction methods used by the district’s home-based program instructors,
such as customizing teaching materials and implementing strategies to comply with
individual learning styles, may also be beneficial to classroom teachers working with
high school or college student writers struggling with low self-efficacy. This study will
address the factors affecting student writing self-efficacy including issues of motivation,
confidence, anxiety, and performance, as well as the specific individualized teaching
strategies home-based instructors utilize as non-classroom teachers working within a
highly-restricted time frame.
Research Questions and Methods
The research questions proposed by this study include the following:
1. How competent do the district’s individualized instruction program teachers feel
in the teaching of writing?
2. What instruction methods do the teachers use to enhance the writing self-efficacy
of their students?
3.
Does an increase in self-efficacy for writing transfer to the student’s performance
in his or her regular instruction program?
4. What instruction methods do the teachers use that can be applied in other
teaching contexts?
This study utilizes teacher questionnaires, student interviews, and student writing
samples to compile data for interpretation and comparative purposes. The information
12
obtained from student interviews and writing samples will be incorporated into case
studies.
To investigate the influence of teacher self-efficacy of writing on student selfefficacy and writing performance, both a survey and a questionnaire were developed and
distributed to each of the program’s nine teachers. The survey includes ten closed-ended
questions that address individual beliefs and feelings regarding perceived writing
instruction competence. The questionnaire asks each of the nine teacher participants to
respond to five open-ended questions regarding their personal experience with student
writing self-efficacy, their effective feedback techniques, as well as any other effective
motivational teaching strategies they have used. The teacher responses obtained from
these two items were complied, assessed to obtain qualitative data about teacher selfefficacy on writing, and later compared to the responses of the student participants to
teacher feedback and instructional methods.
As the enrollment demographics of the home-based instructional program
fluctuate greatly from month to month due to a variety of factors, an attempt was made to
interview students who were representative of the program’s high school population at
the time the study was conducted. Nine high school students were interviewed including
four females and five males. The interview questions addressed writing interest, past and
present writing performance, areas of writing anxiety or concern, teacher feedback, and
instructional methods. Student responses to questions regarding writing interest, writing
performance, and writing anxiety were used to indicate the level of student self-efficacy.
Student responses to teacher feedback and writing instruction were used to determine the
13
extent of the influence of these methods on student writing self-efficacy and writing
performance.
Current research on the motivational construct of self-efficacy suggests that
students in all educational settings experience low writing self-efficacy. The results of
this study’s investigation of the individualized instruction methods used by the program’s
teachers will reveal the methods that may be useful to teachers of students with low
writing self-efficacy in the high school or college classroom setting.
Definition of Terms
This research study reference a number of terms. The definitions of these terms
are provided below:
Alternative education -- This form of education is one that is developed to meet the
educational needs of students who either cannot attend or do not wish to
attend public schools.
At-risk – This term is used to refer to a category of the student population who are in
danger of not meeting graduation testing criteria or dropping out of school.
Individualized instruction – For the purpose of this study, individualized instruction is
instruction that is includes one teacher and one student in a non-classroom
environment.
Locus of control – This term refers to one’s perception of their control over a given
situation.
Personalized instruction – This instruction method is one in which the teacher accounts
for each student’s individual style or mode of learning.
14
Self-efficacy – The construct of self-efficacy, the core of Albert Bandura’s social
learning theory, pertains to an individual’s belief that he or she has the
capability to successfully perform a given task. Self-efficacy in writing
is the focus of this research.
Self-Regulated Strategic Development (SRSD)—This approach for teaching writing is
explicitly taught through a series of six stages that begins with the
activation of the student’s prior knowledge and ends with the student
working independently.
Self-talk – This term refers to one’s inner voice. An individual’s self-talk can be either
encouraging or discouraging.
Teacher efficacy—A teacher’s beliefs and attitudes about teaching writing and his or her
capacity to develop activities to teach writing.
Limitations of the Study
This study focuses attention on one specific alternative educational program that
utilizes one-to-one instructional techniques. An attempt was made to gain an account of
the overall effectiveness of the teachers’ methods of raising student self-efficacy in
writing by including the perspectives of high school students currently enrolled in the
program as well as formerly enrolled high school students. The small sampling of student
participants does not allow the study results to be generalized to other settings.
Other factors contributing to the study limitations are the number of questions
included in the teacher survey and questionnaire and the short duration of the study.
Time constraints in teacher schedules precluded a more extensive set of questions on both
15
the survey and questionnaire. Information and writing samples were elicited from
student participants; however, not every student produced a writing sample, and no
follow-up data was obtained from newly enrolled students.
Organization of Thesis
Chapter 2 of the study will discuss the writing concerns faced by adolescents, the
topic of self-efficacy, its relationship to academic performance, and more specifically, the
effect of teacher self-efficacy on student self-efficacy and writing performance. In
addition, this chapter will address the philosophy and advantages of individualized
instruction, the factors affecting student self-efficacy for writing with a particular
emphasis on teacher strategy and feedback. Chapter 3 will explain the methods used in
the study and include rationale for the selection of questions for the teacher survey,
teacher questionnaire, and student interview, as well as the selection of students for case
studies. This chapter will also present the findings of the data collected from the teacher
survey, teacher questionnaire and student interviews. The data collected from four of
the students participating in the study will be presented in the form of detailed case
studies. The data obtained will be analyzed in relation to theory, previous research, and
the study’s research questions. Chapter 4 will provide a summary of the conclusions
drawn from the data and provide implications for practice and further research.
16
Chapter 2
LITERATURE REVIEW
In this chapter, I provide a review of some of the literature pertaining to the
academic struggles of adolescents, the study of writing and the emergence of the process
approach, research on motivation and writing self-efficacy, the role of teacher efficacy
for writing, and individualized instruction strategies aimed at enhancing student selfefficacy and writing performance. First, I focus on reasons for the secondary student’s
inability to tackle the required expository forms of writing. Second, I examine the
research on the writing process and the prominent practices for teaching writing. This
examination is followed by a synthesis of some of the research on student self-efficacy
for writing, the factors affecting motivation and self-efficacy, and how teacher efficacy
influences student self-efficacy for writing and writing performance. Finally, I address
individualized instruction, the philosophy behind individualized instruction, and the
instructional methods that can be applied to the one-to-one educational setting.
Adolescent Writers
Secondary school English classrooms have often been occupied by students who
are unable to connect with their academic environment. The days of enthusiasm and
excitement have been left behind in the elementary classrooms. Replacing these feelings
are apathy and disinterest. Several writing teachers in the late 1980s inform us about the
downward trend in the attitude of secondary school students. In A Community of Writers,
Steven Zemelman and Harvey Daniels characterize the secondary-school student:
Most secondary-school students do not attack schoolwork with the
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powerful, innocent gusto of first graders. After all, they are veterans, the
youngest of whom have been at it for at least seven years, and their
fundamental, if imperfect, literacy has long since been achieved. School
has lost its newness, or has proven itself to be uninspiring; in any case
adolescents certainly do not act as though they expect any fresh
excitement from another day on the work farm. Many have become jaded
and bored: good students will work only if paid in the coin of grades,
while poorer students won’t work whatever the pay. (9)
The poor attitude toward academics that some secondary school students display may be
due in part to their overly critical view of themselves and how they feel others view them.
Atwell explains:
Adolescents see themselves and others through new, critical eyes. They
measure themselves against the way they think they should be, and they
seldom measure up; suddenly the world doesn’t measure up either. . . .
students can be sharp-tongued, even cruel, in their judgments of the world,
but often their criticisms of others begin with dissatisfaction with self. (30)
This “dissatisfaction with self” often surfaces in English classes where students are asked
to write about their engagement with the world. When student writers are expected “to
make sense of the world, to weigh ideas, to explore values, to find their own conventions,
to invent voices, styles, personae on a page—and then to test everything out by
communicating with others, sharing writing, and exchanging responses” (Zemelman &
Daniels 3), some adolescents respond with eagerness, but most either avoid writing or put
18
forth little effort, because writing is one task that reveals too much about an emerging self
they may not be ready to share.
Adolescence is a time of testing and learning, of challenge and strife, of growth
and reflection, and as Lucy Calkins reminds us in her book The Art of Teaching Writing,
a time when “youngsters construct a sense of personal identity” (158). The goal of
writing teachers should be to help adolescent writers explore who they are and who they
want to be and to form connections between their experiences and those of the writing
community. Atwell maintains that teachers should look for ways to redirect adolescent
student angst and self-criticism and implement independent activities in the classroom
that allow more student involvement and student responsibility (25-26).
In an academic environment where more emphasis is placed on formal expository
genres, secondary-school students “may feel more threatened by writing” (Zemelman &
Daniels 10). Teacher authors, Atwell, Calkins, Zemelman and Daniels, all agree that the
best way to make writing more appealing and less threatening in the classroom is by
engaging the students in all aspects of the process of writing, beginning with studentselected writing topics. High school English teachers today teach in highly diverse
classrooms, and to be successful, they “need to teach with enormous flexibility and
spontaneity, responding and building off [their] students’ energies and intentions”
(Calkins 161). And although we may find apathy in our classrooms, Calkins informs us
that “our students do have hobbies and interests . . . and if we’re going to lure adolescents
to care about writing, one way to do this is to encourage them to write about these
projects, intentions, and purposes.” Effective writing teachers, says Calkins, “bring [their
19
students’] passions into the classroom” (173).
The student population in this study are adolescents who display many of the
characteristics described by these authors. They are young people who need to be able to
connect to their environment through the domain of writing. Their writing experiences,
too few and too limiting, have eroded their self-efficacy and negatively impacted their
writing performance. This study will explore how the teaching strategies of home-based
teachers influence the writing self-efficacy of these low-achieving adolescent writers.
The Process Paradigm
Atwell, Calkins and others were advocating the writing workshop approach to
teaching writing in the late 1980s as a response to a shift in writing research and practice
that occurred over a decade earlier. When Janet Emig’s qualitative study The Composing
Processes of Twelfth Graders appeared in 1971, the study placed the writing ideas and
experiences of a group of regular high school students at the forefront and set a new trend
of writing research into motion that inspired researchers to consider examining student
writers and their individual experiences with the writing process (Schultz 361). Emig’s
study, with its “think-aloud protocols,” influenced other researchers to investigate the
cognitive processes of writing and the development of instructional practices that
focused on the recursive nature of writing (Schultz 361-2).
The writing workshop approach assists student with the naturally-occurring
cognitive stages that writers move through as they write, reflect on, write, and rewrite on
a topic of their own choosing. The goal of the writing workshop approach is to create
“student-centered” writing environments that “accommodate adolescents’ needs, invite
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their independence,” and “challenge them to grow” as individuals and as writers (Atwell
40-1).
Other writing practices emerged from the writing workshop approach to assist
students with fluency. Two such practices are the focus on expressive writing and
journal writing. While expressive writing was used in classrooms prior to 1975,
composition researcher James Britton is responsible for labeling the affective thought
processes at work during the initial stage of writing as “expressive” to describe the
writer’s “feelings, mood, opinions, preoccupations of the moment” (Britton et. al 89).
Expressive writing is a personal form of writing that helps students generate ideas and
“create meaning” (Romano 23). It is an effective form of writing that can be used in
many school subjects. Tom Romano, in his book Clearing the Way: Working with
Teenage Writers, suggests that content-area teachers should use writing in their
classrooms, because of its ability to help students learn. He writes:
Students who readily and habitually use their personal language for
learning possess a most powerful educational tool. And teachers can put
this tool in students’ hands. They can have them write to discover, create,
and explore their thinking, to dig up prior knowledge, to cultivate
intellectual independence, to conjecture about possibilities, to struggle
with difficult concepts, and to engage the imagination as an ally in
learning. (34)
Expressive writing helps all writers find ways to explain what they are thinking about.
This form of writing can be used with any discourse, from journals and freewriting, to
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expository prose and poetry. In expressive writing, struggling student writers find a nonthreatening medium where they can take the time to create the language that conforms to
their ideas.
Teachers who want to explore expressive writing with their students can assign
journals, which can be used in a variety of ways. Journals can be used as a learning log
to ponder over homework assignments, as a place to respond to literature, or as a place to
collect essay topics, pieces of narratives or stories that can be developed more fully later.
Atwell uses “dialogue journals” as a “way of extending and enriching reflection through
collaboration” (165). In his book Time for Meaning: Crafting Literate Lives in Middle
and High School, Randy Bomer explains that he uses “writers notebooks” to encourage
his students to write outside of the classroom. For Bomer, the writers notebook is a
“workbench for pieces of writing as yet half-baked and unassembled” (70). He explains
how teachers can use writers notebooks as much more than a place for a student’s private
thoughts:
Writing is both a tool for thinking and an instrument for engaging with
other people, for extending one’s thoughts into the social world. A
literacy classroom ought to be a place where students explore varied uses
of writing, as both a facilitator of their own thought and a transaction with
readers, so that they learn to unlock and control the power of the word.
(84)
Although classroom teachers are able to stimulate their students with journals,
expressive writing techniques, or versions of the writing workshop approach, they also
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learn that not all student writers can adapt to whole-class instruction or find solutions
to their writing problems on their own. The continuing emphasis on the cognitive
processes of student writers led to further research and the development of intervention
programs that serve the needs of students with learning disabilities (LD). One prominent
cognitive study that emerged from Emig’s research was that of Flower and Hays. In
1977, these researchers examined writing as “a thinking problem” and investigated the
cognitive processes writers use to compose using protocol methods (450-1). Their aim
was to reveal the writer’s “self-conscious awareness” of “problem-solving techniques”
that allow the writer to actively think through writing obstacles and solve them (451).
To assist struggling writers, intervention models were introduced to teach
strategies to aid in idea generation, planning, and revising. One such model is the selfregulated strategy development or SRSD instructional model. This model has three
components: cognitive modeling, social feedback, and scaffolding. Designed to teach
students with learning difficulties, SRSD “typically involves learning an effective
strategy embedded in a self-instructional routine as well as individual explicit selfregulation procedures, including goal setting and self-monitoring (self-assessment plus
self-recording) of strategy use and effectiveness” (Sawyer et al 340).
With the shift in emphasis from writing product to writing process, composition
research examined the cognitive component of the writing process. A variety of
pedagogies emerged from this research to assist students with strategies for writing. This
study investigates the application of these pedagogies with high school students
exhibiting low self-efficacy for writing in an individualized educational setting.
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Writing Self-Efficacy
Bandura’s social cognitive theory argues that individuals will attempt situations they feel
they can regulate within their “perceived capabilities,” and they will avoid those situations within
their environment they cannot effectively control and manage (14). The belief individuals have
about their capabilities is a motivational construct known as self-efficacy. This construct
is instrumental to educational research on motivation and academic performance. “Selfefficacy is concerned not with the number of skills [people] have, but what [they] believe
[they] can do with what [they] have under a variety of circumstances” (Bandura, 37).
Individuals with high self-efficacy will set goals, work toward the completion of those
goals, and will not allow setbacks to deter them, while individuals with low self-efficacy
may be less focused on a task, less determined to complete a task, feel more threatened
by difficult or challenging tasks, and give up their pursuit of the task if it seems
insurmountable. Individuals with strong self-efficacy often find intrinsic value in
mastering a challenging task and do not allow failure to lessen their perceptions of their
capabilities. On the other hand, individuals with low self-efficacy are easily thwarted by
failure and attribute failures to their inability to accomplish a specific ask, resulting in
anxiety and avoidance behaviors (37).
In most recent years, writing self efficacy research findings have been applied to
the study of an array of instructional strategies. A review of the literature relevant to this
study includes research on the relationship between writing self-efficacy and writing
performance and the roles of modeling, self-regulation, and feedback.
In a field study conducted in by Scott Meir, Patricia R.McCarthy, and Ronald R.
Schmeck, Bandura’s self-efficacy model is used to determine the relationship between
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writing efficacy and writing performance. The quantitative study evaluates the writing of
three groups of college freshmen in two phases in an attempt to substantiate the belief
that the efficacy-writing relationship is lessened by four factors: outcome expectations,
locus of control, writing anxiety, and cognitive processes. The researchers investigate
the premise that performance feedback is “encoded and stored in memory as efficacy
expectations” and that individuals use these memories as a means to determine their
abilities in future events (109). Their measurement of student self-efficacy is based on
students’ ratings of their perception of ability to perform 19 separate writing tasks of
increasing difficulty. Their study’s findings suggest that “strength of efficacy
expectations is a good predictor of writing performance,” and that individuals with strong
self-efficacy are “better writers” (119).
Dale H. Shunk and Barry J. Zimmerman’s article “Influencing Children’s SelfEfficacy and Self-Regulation of Reading and Writing through Modeling” reviews the
effectiveness of an experimental social cognitive model as an instrument for shaping selfregulatory skills and increasing the level of self-efficacy for reading and writing. The
article supports Bandura’s concept that vicarious experiences can have a positive effect
on self-efficacy. The authors claim that observers learn through modeling, that viewing a
model performing an action successfully may lead to a raised sense of self-efficacy and
an awareness of learning progress that will “maintain their motivation for learning” (12).
They also claim that models can be used to teach self-regulation skills (12). The authors
discuss several studies that were conducted with elementary students of varying ability
levels and determined that students who were taught reading comprehension strategies
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using a combination of models and positive feedback “were able to develop selfregulatory competence in strategy application at the self-controlled level” (16). In
addition, the authors discuss studies on writing achievement where the use of modeling
and goal setting was shown not only to elevate the writing skills and self-efficacy of
elementary students, but was also instrumental in strategy maintenance and skill
transference (19). Based upon their own examination of theory and research findings, the
authors suggest that not only should classroom teachers teach self-regulation strategies
with content and allow students to practice these strategies, but that they should also use
differentiated instruction “depending on students’ learning capabilities, and . . . practice
differentiation with respect to students’ self-regulation capabilities” (21).
SRSD intervention studies with writing instruction have typically focused on
students with special needs or learning disabilities. Researchers Susan De La Paz and
Steven Graham’s study with “normally developing” middle school students investigates
the effects of explicit teaching strategies on the planning and revision stages of writing.
Guiding their research were the results of previous study findings indicating that students
rarely engage in any advance planning or revision practices during the composing
process. Their study utilized both an experimental group and a control group to compare
the use of the SRSD model with guided instruction, teacher modeling, and diagnostic
feedback for teaching essay writing to that of a traditional essay writing curriculum. The
researchers found that students in the experimental group wrote essays that “were longer,
contained more mature vocabulary,” and were of better quality than those written by the
students in the control group (695-696). The researchers also found that students who
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were taught composing strategies using the SRSD model internalized the strategies (694)
and applied them to future essay writing assignments (696).
The results of these studies indicate that the use of performance feedback,
models, and intervention strategies were effective for enhancing the self-efficacy of
student writers. Although this study will examine students in a non-classroom setting,
all of the instruction strategies addressed in the above-mentioned studies are relevant to
the home instruction program.
Motivation and the Teacher’s Role
In addition to studies that investigated the relationship between instruction
strategies and student self-efficacy, self-efficacy researchers have also examined the
problem of motivation. A review of the literature on motivation reveals that student selfefficacy for writing is affected by motivational factors such as interest, engagement,
teachers’ self-efficacy for writing, feedback, and the classroom writing environment.
Aspects inherent to the task of writing, such as the “complexity of the task; the solitary
nature of the activity, with no immediate feedback; and the effort needed to persist in the
task” are aspects that “can adversely affect writers’ motivation” (Hidi and Boscolo 145).
Authors Bruning and Horn assert that motivation to write is developed from a perception
of writing as a purposeful task that not only requires goal setting and strategies but also
the ability to “recontextualize” oral discourse (26). Students develop motivation to write
when they acknowledge the challenges inherent in writing, envision writing as rewarding,
and believe that they possess capability and control over writing tasks (27). Literacy
activities are social activities, and as such they should be the “classroom centerpiece”
27
where teachers encourage students to cooperate in tasks and projects, assign student
responsibility, and support responses “to ensure success” (29).
As adolescents wrestle with the difficult skills of the writing process, they waver
in their beliefs about “the relevance and importance of writing” (26). Teachers are the
role models for student writers; and as Bruning and Horn point out, they are influential
for developing motivation to write. “Their actions and the enthusiasm they portray
toward writing” directly impact student perceptions about writing (30). To instill positive
perceptions about writing, teachers must possess strong self-efficacy for the teaching of
writing. Efficacious teachers, say Bruning and Horn, view writing “as a crucial tool for
intellectual and social development;” (30) they develop a writing curriculum that
challenges their students, promotes engagement, encourages self-expression, and creates
interest (30).
Gary A. Troia, Shin-Ju C. Lin, Brandon W. Monroe, and Steven Cohen conducted
an empirical study of the influence of the writing workshop instruction approach on
writing performance and motivation. They examined the instruction practices of six
teachers and the literacy skills and motivation of eighteen elementary students over the
duration of one academic year. For the study, student participants were selected by their
teachers on the basis of writing ability. The researchers used two six-point motivational
scales, the Attitudes and Self-Efficacy Rating Scale, or ASERS to measure student
attitudes and self-efficacy beliefs for writing and the Writing Goals Scale, or WGS to
measure writing-related goals. The teachers in the study used the writing workshop
approach to teach four different genres-personal narrative, expository, poetry, and
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fictional narrative (85-86). The researchers examined the writing of the participants for
content and mechanics looking for growth in writing over the academic year. Their study
findings suggest that although good writers showed the most improvement in writing
performance, all students showed improvement in motivation toward writing tasks, The
study’s most significant finding was that those students whose teachers had the most
experience in teaching writing made the most progress, (97). The findings of the study
demonstrate that although struggling writers need additional support to improve their
writing performance, experienced teachers with self-efficacy for writing have the
greatest positive impact on student motivation toward writing.
The writing curriculum represents one aspect of motivation development.
Motivation researchers also find feedback and the classroom environment to be key
factors. Student writers of all ability levels require supportive feedback to handle anxiety
and effectively manage the challenges of writing. Authors Bruning and Horn explain that
in order “for students to engage fully and succeed in writing, they need to be able to tap
motivational resources embedded in the task itself . . . in their own interests and
motivational histories, and in the feedback they receive or give themselves during the
writing process” (31). When assigning complex writing tasks, these authors suggest that
teachers help students negotiate these tasks by setting goals and monitoring progress,
with supportive feedback. Students need to feel that they have control over their writing;
that they can acquire the skills necessary to complete the task; and that they are capable
of improvement (32). Teacher feedback should be specific and explicit and involve
comments regarding “organization, development, and form” in order to help students
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move forward in their writing (32).
Another important contributing factor for enhancing both student motivation and
self-efficacy for writing is the classroom environment. A review of the literature on this
topic reveals that teachers who demonstrate a genuine interest in student writers create a
“climate of trust, caring, and mutual concern” (34). A large part of forming a positive
learning environment is student choice. Zemelman and Daniels assert that when students
select their own subjects for writing, their interest for writing and their performance
“grows more than in programs where the teacher always sets the topic” (22). Other
authors point out that at-risk students are particularly affected by their learning
environment. In his article “Motivating At-Risk Students to Learn,” Edward R.
Hootstein comments that at-risk students are often “unable to see much connection
between school learning and their outside lives” (97). Motivating students to write
begins with topics they can understand and relate to themselves in a meaningful way.
The instruction should be aimed at developing skills students will find useful outside the
classroom.
To help lessen anxiety and make writing more meaningful to students, teachers
often look to themselves as models of mature writers. Apprehensive student writers often
engage in a considerable amount of negative “self talk” that erodes their confidence and
courage to write (Reeves 41). Teacher authors believe that teachers who write with their
students help students form a new outlook about themselves and about writing. Students
of teachers who write come to view themselves as individuals who have something
important to say and writing as a valuable real world task (Reeves 44). Many student
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writers also “believe that good writers write it right the first time. They define good
writers as those who work neatly and effortlessly, and make no mistakes” (Zemelman and
Daniels 24). Students who witness their teachers working through the writing processes
gain an understanding and appreciation for the skills, effort, and motivation required for
writing. Authors Zemelman and Daniels express the importance of the environment of
the classroom community as motivational factor:
What students learn about writing depends more than anything else on the
context in which they write—that is, on the ways in which writing is used
in the classroom group; the attitudes of the teacher toward the students and
toward writing itself; relationships among the students; the students sense
of what the teacher thinks about them; why they are writing; the tone of
the room, the school, and community; and the purposes for learning
implicitly expressed by that community. (50)
Bomer also sees the necessity for a good literate community. He views the teacher as a
facilitator who listens and provides advice and direction “that best fits the student’s
developing intention” and challenges the student’s growth within his or her ability (33).
The review of the literature regarding motivation reveals that what teachers do
and say in the classroom makes a difference. Adopting a student-centered approach to
the teaching of writing means that teachers demonstrate positive attitudes toward student
writers and writing and employ teaching strategies that help students gain both control
and confidence; it also means creating a supportive writing community by giving students
choices in writing assignments, providing explicit feedback, and modeling writing to
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develop the motivation to write. This study will examine the role the teacher plays in a
one-to-one instructional setting, the influence of his or her feedback, instruction
techniques, and attitude on student self-efficacy for writing, as well as the transference of
increased self-efficacy to the students’ classroom environment.
Individualized Instruction
A review of the literature of individualized instruction demonstrates an effort on
the part of educators to design and implement instructional materials that could support
independent study programs that could meet the needs of low-achieving students. During
the 1960s and 1970s, the mainstay of individualized instruction materials used included
visual and audiovisual. By the end of the 1970s, the educational merit of these materials
was challenged for their treatment of learners:
In most cases, the instructional method was text-based independent study,
sometimes with audio-visual supplements; learners worked in isolation
much of the time; there were seldom choices for more hands-on methods”
(Molenda 14).
These programs were too automated; they lacked the social aspect of the teacher-student
association.
More teachers today who are faced with meeting the needs of a diverse group of
students with a wide range of backgrounds use computer-based programs only as a
supplement to hands-on teaching. The best instructional approach is one that is tailored
for the individual. Lloyd K. Bishop, in his book, Individualizing Educational Systems,
brings into focus the necessity of teachers to personalize their instruction. He writes:
32
One of the major concerns of the teachers should be the way the child
feels about himself, his successes, and his failures, rather than how others
feel about him. The teachers are interested in his uniqueness rather than in
how he fits into a standard, arbitrary grade level (78).
This sentiment regarding student uniqueness is one that is echoed by others, such as
authors Howard E. Blake and Ann W. McPherson and teacher-author Carol Ann
Tomlinson. In their article “What is Individualized Instruction?,” authors Blake and
McPherson explain that the in the individualized learning environment, students have a
voice in the content and style of their learning; Under the guidance of the teacher, they
are allowed to generate the learning behaviors that conform to their pace (300). They
assert that “if a child doesn’t feel pretty good about himself, have some confidence in his
ability to succeed, and if he doesn’t feel good about school, enjoy being there, look
forward to returning each day, find it an exciting, fun place to be,” teachers will not be
successful in any content area they teach (304). Blake and McPherson, who prefer the
term “personalized” to “individualized,” claim that personalized teaching “is not a
program,” but “a way of performing in the classroom, based on a set of values about
children and schooling. It’s not a method; it’s an attitude” (305).
Another advocate for individualized instruction is author educator Carol Ann
Tomlinson. She developed a program known as differentiated instruction which
acknowledges the differences in students and the value of their potential. She argues
in The Differentiated Classroom Responding to the Needs of All Learners:
Every child is entitled to the promise of a teacher’s enthusiasm, time, and
33
energy. All children are entitled to teachers who will do everything in
their power to help them realize their potential every day. It is
unacceptable for any teacher to respond to any group of children (or any
individual child) as though the children were inappropriate, inconvenient,
beyond hope, or not in need of focused attention. (21)
According to Tomlinson, teachers should assume a dual role, one of “teacher-coach,”
and as a teacher-coach, they will “take time to interact with students, to connect with
them, to understand their needs, to provide needed information, advice, and feedback
about targeted skills, ideas, or issues” (45). Authors James W. Keefe and John M.
Jenkins also delve into the teacher-coach aspect of personalized instruction in their book
Personalized Instruction Changing Classroom Practice. They explain that the goal of
coaching involves helping students to understand concepts and to “construct meaning in
their experiences using resources related to their needs and interests (not unrelated
exercises)” (45).
The literature reviewed up to this point pertains to issues of self-efficacy and
aspects of classroom instruction. As this study focuses on one-to-one instruction in an
alternative setting, some of the literature regarding tutorial strategies for raising student
self-efficacy is an important inclusion here. Tutors are comparable to teacher-coaches in
that they are in a position of respect, and as such, they are able to affect the learner’s
motivation and self-efficacy for learning. Research with one-to-one instruction for
struggling writers provides evidence that assistance with skill mastery increased selfefficacy. Not only does one-to-one instruction reinforce the student’s mastery of writing
34
strategies, it also provides immediate feedback. This feedback, according to author
Howard Margolis, “is highly motivating,” because it sends the message about
competency that fulfills a “fundamental need” (226). Students who grapple with
emotional issues often experience high levels of anxiety that interfere with both retention
and motivation. One-to-one instruction with an experienced teacher who acknowledges
each student’s strengths and weaknesses can help reduce anxiety levels by teaching to the
individual. Other strategies of individualized instruction that are suited for the one-toone setting include modifying instructional materials, evaluating and monitoring progress
and direct instruction that “emphasizes proceeding in small steps” (Blake and McPherson
106).
Although the literature reviewed for this study is not comprehensive, a gap exists
regarding research for the study of the effects of teacher self-efficacy and student selfefficacy for writing within home-based instruction programs. This study will provide an
evaluation of the practices of teachers in a one-to-one home-based program pertaining to
the subject of self-efficacy for writing with medically-disadvantaged high school
students. The individualized instruction strategies utilized by classroom teachers are
appropriate for the population and setting; however, this study will examine to what
degree these strategies are implemented and to what effect they have on increasing
student’s self-efficacy for writing.
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Chapter 3
METHODS AND RESULTS
This study examines one school district’s individualized instruction program
aimed at providing instruction for students with temporary disabilities that prevent them
from attending their regular classroom program. As a majority of the adolescent students
enrolled in this non-classroom setting demonstrate low self-efficacy for writing, the study
explores the self-efficacy and teaching strategies of five of the program’s full-time
teachers and interviews eight of the program’s low-performing high school students to
investigate the influence of individualized instruction methods on student self-efficacy
for writing. This chapter focuses on methodology and data analysis. The chapter begins
with an explanation of the study’s participants, methods, instruments, and procedures and
the rationale for each. The latter portion of the chapter provides data and data analysis.
Participants and Context
The district’s home-based individualized instruction program has eight full-time
teachers, four part-time retired teachers, and six part-time teachers who are also full-time
regular classroom teachers. The program’s teachers vary in their years of teaching
experience and years in the program, and as the program includes students in grades preK through12, not all of the program’s teachers teach high school students. For the
purposes of the study, the researcher solicited responses from five of the program’s
teachers who teach exclusively for the program and were currently teaching high school
students or had previous experience teaching high school students in the program. Six
teachers were solicited, and five responded. The five respondents included two teachers
36
with over thirty years of teaching experience and more than twenty years of teaching
experience in the district’s home-based instruction program. Each of the other three
respondents have more than twenty years of teaching experience and from nine to sixteen
years of teaching experience in the program. Of the five teacher respondents, one was an
elementary Special Education teacher prior to teaching for the program, one was a high
school Spanish teacher, and two were secondary English teachers.
The student participants included eight high school students, four who were
current program students during the time of the study and four who had been enrolled in
the program during the previous school year. All four of the current students were
enrolled as full-time students receiving five hours of individualized instruction each
week, while two of the four formerly enrolled students had been enrolled part-time in the
program and were receiving three hours of individualized instruction each week with one
or more hours devoted to English instruction.
The home-based instruction program serves a diverse student population.
Students range in age from four to eighteen. Their ethnicity and English language
competency varies, as do their medical conditions, academic abilities, and performance
levels. The severity of the student’s medical condition determines the length of
enrollment in the program, and due to a wide range of medical conditions, the
demographics of the student population constantly fluctuates. During the time the study
was conducted, 62 students were enrolled in the program. Of these, 57 were enrolled as
full-time students. Of the 62 total students, 38 were Regular Education students and 24
were Special Education students. Twenty-two high school students enrolled at the time
37
of the study included 13 Regular Education students and 9 Special Education students;
six of the 22 high school students were enrolled part-time. The majority of the high
school students enrolled in the program for the 2011-2012 and the 2012-2013 school
years had three times as many males than females. The majority of the high school
students enrolled during the past two school years were white with the number of
Hispanic students rising from 2012-2013 to become the second largest ethnic group of
students enrolled in the program.
For the purposes of this study, I selected students that represent a current
sampling of the program’s students between the ages 15 to 18 in grades ten through
twelve. The sampling of the high school population I selected for the study included five
male students and three female students. Utilizing the program’s high school enrollment
data which demonstrated a predominance of male high school students, I selected three
male students and one female student for case study examination. Two of the case study
students are white and two are Hispanic. One of the four case study students was a
Regular Education student enrolled part-time; the other three case study students were
enrolled full-time, only one of which was a Special Education student. The four case
study students included two who were former home-based instruction recipients and two
who were receiving home-based individualized instruction at the time the study was
conducted. The rationale for selecting both former and current program students was to
investigate whether any enhancement of student self-efficacy for writing as a result of the
program’s teachers’ instructional strategies is transferred and maintained after students
return to their regular classroom programs and to determine which individualized
38
teaching strategies are applicable to other instructional settings.
Research Approach
This study adopts a mixed methods approach, which is most compatible for the
purpose of the study and the motivational construct under examination. The mixed
methods approach allows for the inclusion of both quantitative and qualitative data to
determine the type of teaching strategies employed, the effectiveness of each strategy on
the enhancement of student self-efficacy for writing in the program setting, and their
suitability for employment in other educational settings. Individual anecdotal evidence
from the participants provides additional qualitative data regarding student writing
performance and the concept of self-efficacy in a non-classroom instructional
environment.
The research questions, which are aligned with the study’s purpose, include three
questions focusing on the individualized teaching and motivational strategies of the
teachers and one question aimed at acquiring information about the teachers’ selfefficacy for teaching writing to low efficacious student writers in a home-based
individualized instruction program which imposes limits on time for writing instruction.
The four research questions are as follows:
1. How competent do the district’s individualized instruction program
teachers feel in the teaching of writing?
2. What instruction methods do the teachers use to enhance the writing
self-efficacy of their students?
39
3. Does an increase in self-efficacy for writing transfer to the student’s
performance in his or her regular instruction program?
4. What instruction methods do the teachers use that can be applied to
other teaching contexts?
Because of the uniqueness of the instruction program and the variance of each teacher’s
expertise and experience for teaching writing, the questions regarding teacher selfefficacy and selection of teaching methods are relevant to factors affecting student selfefficacy for writing. To answer the fourth question, each teaching strategy was examined
against those utilized in classroom instruction programs to determine which, if any, are
context specific and which are not. To find answers to all four research questions, I used
the responses to teacher surveys and questionnaire responses. I used the responses to
student interview to answer questions pertaining to student self-efficacy for writing and
the teaching methods deemed most effective for enhancing their self-efficacy.
Because of the teachers’ time restraints, I used a brief survey and questionnaire
that were distributed along with a consent form instead of interviewing each teacher. (see
Appendices A and B for survey and questionnaire). To obtain the student data, I chose to
informally interview students and request a writing sample rather than solicit answers to a
survey or questionnaire. Using this method, I was able to record student responses and
obtain more reliable data. Both the parent and the student gave consent. (see Appendix
C for student interview questions). Four of the eight students interviewed chose not to
submit a writing sample. To retain the confidentiality of all study participants, I removed
the names from all surveys, questionnaires, and writing samples. I used pseudonyms to
40
refer to all case study students.
Methods
I conducted the study in two data collection phases over a period of two months
during the latter portion of the 2012-2013 academic year. In the initial phase of the
study, the focus was on how teachers perceive the abilities of their students and their
ability to teach writing, as well as the strategies they use to motivate and teach writing to
high school students with low self-efficacy. The research goal was to obtain data that
would determine the following: 1) the teachers’ level of self-efficacy for teaching
writing; 2) how their self-efficacy influences their perceptions of their students; and 3)
the teachers’ selection of writing tasks and the teaching strategies they use to assist their
low-performing students. The survey consisted of ten questions to which the teachers
could answer with four possible choices ranging from 1, strongly agree to 4, strongly
disagree. I designed the questions to measure teacher self-efficacy for teaching writing.
A 1 or 2 response would indicate strong self-efficacy, while a 3 or 4 response would
indicate a weak self-efficacy. I also elicited teachers’ responses to a questionnaire
containing five open-ended questions which inquired about their perceptions pertaining to
student writing weaknesses and specific teaching strategies they used to improve student
writing motivation and performance.
In phase two of the study, I investigated the students, examined their perceptions
about writing and writers, their writing ability, their ideas about how teachers can assist
students with writing tasks, and whether the skills learned from the teaching strategies in
the home-based instruction program were transferable to classroom instruction. I
41
conducted informal interviews with students to assess their perceptions of writing,
writers, their own writing ability, and their teaching suggestions for helping students
experiencing difficulty with writing tasks. I also elicited writing samples from each
student but was only able to obtain four samples. I compared the students’ self-efficacy
perceptions to their writing performance. I used background information from student
files, as well as the students’ comments about themselves, their teachers, and writing to
complete individual case studies and then correlated this data with the responses of the
teachers to formulate answers to the study’s research questions.
Data Analysis
Data analyzed included the five teacher responses to the survey and questionnaire,
interview responses gathered from the eight student participants, and the four student
writing samples. Four of the five teacher participants provided a 1 or 2 response for all
questions referring to their perception about their ability to teach writing. One teacher
provided a 3 response to two of the survey questions, one pertaining to motivating
students to write and one involving feeling confident in one’s ability to teach all genres of
writing. Two of the ten questions inquiring about teachers’ perceptions about factors
influencing student writing performance resulted in a variance of responses ranging from
1 to 3. Three of the five teachers responded that the largest indicator of a student’s
writing performance is the amount of his or her previous writing experience, and that
individualized instruction has little affect on improving student writing performance.
The survey results demonstrate that a large majority of the program’s teachers feel
confident in their abilities to motivate and teach writing to the low-achieving high school
42
students they encounter in the program. Given their varied teaching backgrounds, the
teacher respondents report strong self-efficacy for teaching writing, suggesting that
several years of teaching experience in the program strengthens teacher self-efficacy.
The survey results indicate that the program’s teachers have mixed perceptions about
student writing improvement; however, sixty percent of responses rate writing experience
as the largest factor influencing student writing improvement, which supports Albert
Bandura’s theoretical view that experiences with previous mastery is a necessary source
for the development of one’s self-efficacy. A significant number of students enrolled in
the home-based instruction program have medical conditions that have led to sporadic
school attendance, reducing the total amount of classroom instruction time they receive.
Given the restricted number of hours teachers in the program can devote specifically to
writing instruction, a student’s lack of writing experience and previous mastery of writing
skills may not be improved upon by a temporary placement in an individualized
instruction program no matter how self-efficacious or experienced the instructor may be
in the teaching of writing.
I coded the data obtained from the teacher questionnaire responses into two
categories: 1) teacher perceptions of students taught and 2) teaching strategies which
included any modifications of writing tasks. In the first category, four of five teachers
state that the students lack motivation and self-confidence. One teacher reveals: “Most of
my students lack confidence in writing. I try to encourage [them] and just give more
practice.” When asked about the most beneficial methods used to motivate students, the
teachers’ responses varied: Two teacher’s responses focused on starting with
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paragraphing, “putting it all together,” and progressing to “more complex assignments,”
while others provided more detailed methods. One teacher explains her method for
motivating students to write. She relates:
I will write their words on a whiteboard, help them make corrections,
then have them copy the result and make their own improvements as they
copy. I will also dictate sentence answers that we have agreed upon. I do
the remembering; they do the physical writing.
For many of the program’s students, gaining confidence in writing ability can only be
achieved through anxiety reduction.
These teachers are also aware that for students to gain control over their writing,
they must start small to develop skills and then build upon those skills. Motivational
research supports a slow progression monitored by supportive feedback as effective for
reducing student anxiety and developing writing self-efficacy. For instance, Bruning and
Horn suggest that teachers act as negotiators who help anxious writers manage complex
writing tasks with goal setting, progress monitoring, and positive feedback (32). Another
teacher recognizes the need to approach writing tasks in small steps, yet she also
emphasizes interest as the starting point for motivating students: She writes:
[I] try to find a topic that interests them. [We] discuss different ideas
within the topic as we brainstorm. If it’s a longer paper, [we] make an
outline and a thesis statement. On a shorter paper, [we] write a topic
sentence. Then [we] fill in with details.
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Despite the time restrictions imposed by the program, the methods used by the teachers
indicate that they take time to teach writing. Not only do they take the time to teach, they
also demonstrate an interest in their students. They are responding to their students’
needs and assuming the role of “teacher-coach” that low efficacious writers need to
acquire the necessary writing skills and confidence.
Three of five teachers state that the students do not possess sufficient writing
strategies to organize and develop their ideas. The teacher respondents stated that they
teach outlining and brainstorming as organizational strategies; they also break down
longer writing assignments into shorter, more manageable portions and allow students to
select their own writing topics. The teachers find ways to teach writing within the time
restrictions of the program. Three teachers reported using journals and assigning short
writing assignments on a daily basis, while two teachers stated that they include writing
in other content areas and count the writing toward the student’s English course grade.
One teacher commented that the student’s ability level is the factor he uses to determine
the length and the amount of writing he assigns. For “advanced students,” he assigns “a
five paragraph essay every month,” and for the “lower level students,” he requires “at
least a paragraph.”
All of the teachers reported spending the majority of their writing instruction time
teaching prewriting and organizational skills and working with their students on thesis
statements, topic sentences, and paragraph development. One teacher explained how she
assists students who are experiencing difficulty. She said, “If they are unable to write, we
Usually talk about the topic first to get some general ideas. When they have narrowed
45
the topic, we discuss a topic sentence/thesis statement.”
Physical limitations are a common situation that the teachers face. Many of the
program’s students experience pain and fatigue when attempting to write. Three of the
five teacher respondents use dictation to help their students write. One teacher explained:
“We write in class. I’m the physical tool through which they write. I write for them,
acting as [their] hands and fingers.” Other types of adaptations or modifications are also
necessary for many of the students in the program. Three of the teacher respondents
stated that they modify or adapt writing assignments provided by the students’ classroom
teachers. Some reported shortening the assignment or substituting the assignment with a
less demanding task. Others stated that they allow students to use a computer to ease the
fatigue they experience when writing by hand.
As anticipated, the study results suggest that a variety of teaching styles and
methods are necessary to motivate many of the program’s students. The teaching
methods are comparable to those of classroom teachers; however, the program’s teachers
spend a significant amount of time working with students on smaller, manageable
portions of larger writing assignments or on more detailed writing tasks such as
developing a single paragraph. Not all classroom teachers may be able to devote large
portions of class time to accommodate students who need a slow and steady approach to
achieving writing tasks. Although the program’s teachers realize that their students will
be returning to classroom environments where dictation and/or computers are not
accessible, they also understand that helping students gain some mastery experience in
writing is invaluable for long-term success. In his theory for self-efficacy development,
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Bandura states that previous mastery experience is highly influential, because it serves to
authenticate one’s success or failure at a specific task (80). Students who have achieved
success with writing tasks in the past will most likely perceive themselves as capable and
will attempt new writing tasks. The program’s teachers strive to provide students with
writing instruction that will lead to mastery experience. One way they accomplish this
goal is through the use of journal writing. Similar to Atwell’s “dialogue journals” (165)
or Bomer’s “writers notebooks,” (70) these writing tasks are assignments students can
engage in and complete within the brief time they are enrolled in the program.
Student Perspectives
The data presented thus far provides the teachers’ perspectives about student
writing weaknesses, their ability to teach writing, and the teaching methods they use to
teach the writing skills and strategies that will lead to increased motivation, skill mastery,
and writing improvement. Student interviews and writing sample data were also
collected in this study to provide student views and opinions about writing and writing
instruction. To gain a more in depth examination of student writing issues and concerns,
I collected data for case studies of four students who represent the most accurate
demographic sampling of the home-based instructional program’s high school population
are included in the study. The case study students include Marina, a fifteen-year-old
Hispanic female, grade 10; Andrew, a seventeen-year-old white male, grade 11; Santiago,
an eighteen-year-old Hispanic male, grade 12; and Tanner, a sixteen-year-old white male,
grade 11. Both Marina and Andrew were enrolled in the program during the study.
Marina was enrolled as a full-time student for one academic quarter during the 2012-
47
2013 academic year. Andrew was enrolled as a part-time student in both the 2011-2012
and 2012-2013 academic years and is expected to continue his enrollment status for the
2013-2014 academic year. Santiago, who was a Special Education student, was enrolled
in the program prior to the time the study was conducted. He was enrolled in the
program on three different occasions for a period of approximately two months, once in
the 2011-2012 academic year and twice in the 2012-2013 academic year. Tanner, who is
also a former student, was enrolled in the program for one academic quarter during the
2012-2013 academic year. Both Santiago and Tanner were enrolled in the program as
full-time students.
Case Study No. 1: Marina
About thirty percent of the program’s students are enrolled in the home-based
instruction program because they have undergone a surgical procedure which either
requires continuous treatment or prevents them from being ambulatory for a period of
four or more weeks. The first case study student to be discussed in this chapter falls into
this category. Marina, a fifteen- year-old Hispanic sophomore female was enrolled in the
program for five weeks while she recuperated from minor surgery. Her program teacher
met with her two days a week for two and a half hours each day. As it was anticipated
that Marina would return to her regular classroom program after her recuperation, her
program teacher contacted her classroom teachers to request assignments missed and
future coursework. Marina’s class schedule included six courses, four of which she was
failing due to some difficulties comprehending the material. Marina expressed to her
program teacher that she enjoyed reading, so the teacher arranged to substitute s Spanish
48
course she was failing for a literature course. The literature course also involved writing.
For her sophomore English class, Marina was assigned to read a novel and complete
writing tasks associated with the novel. Although Marina was hesitant to take on another
course that would require more writing, her program teacher convinced her to make the
change by explaining that the extra writing practice she would receive in the one-to-one
setting would be beneficial.
When asked about her writing experience, Marina explained that most of her
writing success has been with journals, literary responses, and book reviews, and that her
teachers have commented that she expresses herself well. Despite her success with these
types of writing tasks, she said that writing persuasive essays and long research papers
are a challenge for her. Her inability to perform well on longer, more cognitively
demanding writing tasks has not adversely affected her feelings about writing, for she
stated that she enjoys writing. When asked what she enjoys most about writing, she
replied that she enjoys writing, because “it brings out your imagination and artistic
views.” Marina also stated that she has no difficulty starting a writing task and is able to
express herself well as long as the topic is of her choosing. She admitted that she has
difficulty staying focused on longer writing tasks and that grammar and spelling have
always been a challenge for her.
Marina stated that she has two strategies she uses when she encounters writer’s
block. When she has trouble starting, she gathers information about the topic and then
makes lists to help her generate writing ideas. When she encounters difficulty while
writing or revising a draft, she said that she will “skip over that part” and “return to it
49
later.” When asked about some of the ways teachers can help students with writing, she
stated that “teachers should give their students models and allow them to choose their
own topics.” During the interview, Marina was asked about her perception of good
writers and whether she felt that she was a good writer. She stated that her idea of a good
writer is “someone who is able to express their views and feelings in writing.” She also
stated that she feels confident about her writing ability and considers herself to be a good
writer. When asked about how she handles writing obstacles, Marina said that “[I] just
have to think hard about it.”
The information obtained from Marina’s interview shows that despite her
difficulties and below-average grades, she displays a strong self-efficacy for writing.
Marina’s responses also indicate that she has a low level of anxiety and believes that if
she “thinks hard” and applies the writing strategies she has learned, she can improve her
writing. Two sources of self-efficacy, mastery experience and persuasive verbal
feedback, may account for her confidence levels. Her classroom teachers have supported
her efforts; their compliments may have also influenced her ideas about what constitutes
good writing.
The writing sample Marina submitted supports her comments regarding grammar
and spelling, as well as her below-average writing grades. The writing sample is a threeparagraph literary response in which she was asked to compare two or more of the female
characters using examples from the text to support her claims. The writing contains
many sentence structure, capitalization, and spelling errors. She presents ideas that are
not well- supported with detailed examples as evident from this excerpt:
50
The house on mango street is about all these women that Esparansa writes
about and all there situations that they are in. Esparansa talks about how
these women rejret how there lives went and how trapped they feel in
there homes from one home to another.
Although this portion of Marina’s writing demonstrates that she comprehends the main
ideas, the ideas are not well-developed. As Marina essay continues, a pattern of poor
development emerges:
They go from there fathers home trapped into another mans home and they
don’t know what to do about it. These women are taken avantage of and
they really cant do anything about it….for example her friend sally was
being beat by her father. So she married off at a young age and she is still
stuck in the same place she has always been in.
In this passage, we see Marina attempting to explain that the female characters feel
trapped in difficult personal situations, but without specific text to define the characters’
feelings of entrapment, the description remains vague. Her inclusion of the example of
Sally is not sufficiently detailed to illustrate her main idea.
The errors in her writing indicate that she has an over-inflated perception of her
writing ability. This over-inflation may be a result of her teachers’ positive feedback and
her prior success with less demanding writing tasks. Marina displays the traits of an
efficacious writer—confidence, persistence, and resilience; she applies the writing skills
she has learned; yet, her self-efficacy does not solve her writing issues. She does not
appear to be a grade-driven student. Marina’s inflated self-efficacy acts as a barrier to
51
writing improvement. As a result, she may accept the average or below average grades
she receives while continuing to perceive herself as a “good writer.
Case Study No. 2: Santiago
About a fifth of the program’s students have medical conditions with symptoms
that flare up occasionally. After a brief hospital stay and medical treatment, these
students re-enroll in the program until their condition improves sufficiently to allow them
to return to their regular classroom instruction. Some of these students may exit the
program and re-enroll multiple times. Santiago, the study’s second case study student,
was enrolled in the program on three separate occasions, each lasting about two months.
His first period of enrollment occurred during the end of the 2011-2012 academic year.
He was enrolled twice during the 2012-2013 academic year. At the time of the study, he
was attending his regular classroom program.
Santiago is a seventeen-year-old Hispanic male who is a Special Education
student approaching his high school graduation. Santiago’s family lived in Mexico prior
to moving to California. He began attending school in California when he was nine years
old. Santiago comments that he never liked to read and that he was placed in Special
Education classes by the time he entered junior high school. He admitted that he has very
little writing experience and that when his teachers ask him to write essays, he often
procrastinates or fails to complete them. Santiago also explained that his individualized
instruction teachers, who were aware of his tendency to procrastinate, would allow him to
work on his essay drafts one paragraph at a time until he was finished. Then, he said,
“they would help me with my revisions the same way. I found that by writing longer
52
papers this way, I could actually complete a whole essay.” At the time of the interview,
Santiago stated that although he had not passed the (CAHSEE), California High School
Exit Exam, he would be receiving a waiver for the exam and would be graduating at the
end of the academic year. Waivers of the CAHSEE are common for Special Education
students who are unable to pass after taking the exams every year. Students who receive
waivers graduate high school with a Certificate of Completion in place of a diploma.
Although both Spanish and English are spoken in his home, Santiago prefers to
use English. He admitted that he has forgotten how to read and write in Spanish. When
asked about his opinions of the best ways teachers can assist struggling writers, he
commented: “My teachers did not make me do many writing assignments. Maybe
teachers should assign more so that students can get more writing practice.” Santiago’s
said that he is an “okay writer with most types of writing” but that “research papers are
hard.” When asked about his writing strengths, he stated that he is good at organizing his
ideas, using transitions, and “connecting each of his paragraphs to his thesis.” He
considers his main writing weakness to be a lack of interest, and said that he also
struggles with spelling, grammar, and paragraph development. When his teachers ask
him to revise his writing, he applies their comments and tries to improve for a better
grade. Santiago related that he has always had difficulty with writing, and that his
writing skills might improve if he “read more and tried harder.” He explained that since
his return to his regular classroom program, he reads more, but his writing habits have
“not improved much.”
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Santiago’s interview responses indicate a low self-efficacy for writing. Even
though he exerts effort with writing tasks, he is not consistent with his efforts due
primarily to lack of interest. His self-efficacy could be enhanced with additional writing
experience and continued teacher support. The individualized instruction he received
was effective in minimizing his procrastination; however, it does not appear that he has
gained a considerable amount of writing experience after returning to his regular
classroom instruction program.
The writing sample Santiago submitted is an essay about his goal to join the Air
Force. He explained that his medical condition causes him to be underweight so a career
in the military would require him to make substantial changes to his diet and exercise
regime. He said that his essay is about “how I will accomplish my goal to be an Air
Force pilot.” Santiago’s essay introduction is as follows:
Since when I first started high school I wasn’t really sure what I was going
to do when I’m done with school. I do have a career that I’ve always
wanted to is to go into the Air Force, because I have family member I look
up to that have served in the military. My main reason to go is because I
think the technology and the aircraft are fasinating to me.
Although Santiago’s writing contains errors, they do not interfere with meaning. His
introductory paragraph presents his reasons for choosing a career in the military, yet it
stops there and fails to address his thesis, which is to explain how he will accomplish his
goal.
As Santiago proceeds, he reveals how he will reach his career goal. His second
54
paragraph begins:
If I want to accomplish of going into the Air Force, first thing is first I will
have to study 2 times harder then I usually do so I can do well on the
CAHSEE and pass the exit exam. Then I could graduate school and get
all my credits with a diploma. The next thing I have to do is prepare for
my physical fitness.
In his second paragraph, Santiago begins to explain some of the tasks he will need to
complete. As in the introductory paragraph, the organization is poor and some of the
phrasing is repetitive.
As a high school senior, Santiago should have a better understanding of essay
structure; however, his low self-efficacy has been holding him back from gaining the
writing experience he needs to be a more efficient writer. His writing performance has
not improved since his most recent enrollment in the individualized instruction program.
It is not known if his Special Education teachers at his high school continued to assign
him essay tasks upon his return especially since the CAHSEE graduation requirement
was no longer an obstacle to Santiago’s graduation. Like many students who
graduate from high school with insufficient literacy skills, Santiago will have few
employment options available to him.
Case Study No. 3: Tanner
About a fourth of the program’s student population do not return to their regular
classroom instruction program after their enrollment in the program ends. Instead, they
enroll in another one of the district’s alternative education programs. The third case
55
study student to be discussed in this chapter belongs to this group of students. Tanner is
a sixteen-year-old white male who was enrolled in the program for the last quarter of the
first semester of the 2012-2013 academic year. When he enrolled in the program, he was
failing four out of six courses.
At the time of the interview, Tanner was a high school junior enrolled in an
independent study program in the district. He enrolled in the independent study program
because he preferred completing and submitting his school assignments via a computer.
He explained that although he enjoyed the one-to-one instruction he received in the
home-based program, he did not feel confident that he could earn passing grades if he
returned to his former classroom instruction program. When asked if he enjoyed writing,
he expressed that he “sometimes enjoys writing.” He stated that he has some writing
experience, and that he earned good grades for writing in elementary and junior high
school. Tanner admitted that he does not always “put in the effort to complete writing
assignments.” He identified his ideas and topic selections as his writing strengths and
grammar and spelling as his writing weaknesses. He explained that when he has trouble
starting a draft, he “brainstorms for ideas,” but when he encounters difficulty while
writing and revising a draft, he “always asks his teacher for help.” According to Tanner,
teachers can best help struggling writers by “showing an interest in them.” He also
added, “I always felt better when my teachers took the time to talk with me about my
writing.” When asked about his idea of a good writer, he related that “a good writer is
someone who can write fluently.” He said that he feels confident about his writing ability
and considers himself to be a good writer.
56
Tanner submitted an essay that he had completed for a class assignment. The
assignment was to explain the reasons why a computer game is his favorite. His essay
is poorly organized and his paragraphs are not well-developed. He employs an informal,
casual style to this academic writing task with phrases like: “Well, I am going to talk
about three things” and “with most weapons . . . and explosives to make uncle sam
happy.” The writing also contains a number of sentence construction errors that cause
reader confusion. For example, he begins his fourth paragraph with this topic sentence:
“With one of the greatest multiplayer experiences I have been through in awhile, there is
however a couple [of] minor defects with the single player.” This sentence appears to be
comparing two different player experiences; however, the comparison is unclear. In this
next excerpt, Tanner is explaining what he sees as defects in the game:
this game leaves many to be desired. Like when you order a squad of
players to move up. sometimes they will take cover on the wrong side of
the wall . . . . adding on to the last topic sometimes enemies will walk right
past each other almost forgetting the whole war itself.
From this passage, we see Tanner’s attempt to provide examples to illustrate his point
that the game has defects; however, he fails to be specific. As he continues writing, the
the clarity does not improve:
while other games are easy to pick up and play for shooter veterans this
game takes awhile to master because of all new aspects like cover systems
or deadly bullets. while some people may think this is normal, anything
that may seem out of place in a shooter is a bad thing.
57
Tanner may understand the video game he is writing about, but this understanding is not
transferred to the reader. He omits many details and explanations that are essential for
reader understanding. Tanner has knowledge about the game he is reviewing, but it is
not readily apparent from his writing. As a class assignment, this essay requires many
revisions.
Unlike Santiago, Tanner’s perception of his writing ability is inaccurate. His idea
of fluency is also inaccurate. Despite his struggles as a writer, he appears to enjoy
writing about the subject of computer games. If these flaws were pointed out to him, it is
likely that he would take the time revise, because he has been able to achieve some
success with writing tasks in the past and has a positive attitude; however, as his
independent studies program does not require him to write often or to complete many
essay-length compositions, it is difficult to determine if he will continue to maintain his
current level of self-efficacy as he moves forward toward graduation.
Case Study No. 4: Andrew
Although the purpose of the district’s home-based individualized instruction
program is to provide temporary instruction for medically-disabled students,
approximately one-third of the program’s student population have permanent medical
conditions that warrant continuous enrollment on either a part-time or full-time basis.
The fourth case study student is a part-time continuously enrolled student. Andrew, a
seventeen-year-old white male, has experienced gaps in his education due to several
hospitalizations and extended illnesses. Although a high school junior, he is two full
academic years behind his peers; he lags significantly behind his peers in reading,
58
writing, and mathematics skills. He reported that his medical condition causes him to
feel fatigued, and he is unable to work on his school assignments for more than an hour
without tiring. During the study, Andrew was receiving home instruction for three hours
a week for three of his six scheduled courses. Two of his three home instruction courses
were English courses. Andrew’s part-time enrollment in the program is expected to
continue during the 2013-2014 academic year.
Andrew stated that he does not like reading or writing, has very little writing
experience, and will only attempt writing tasks when his teachers require them. He
claimed that his only writing strength is “choosing writing topics.” When he is allowed
to write about topics he chooses, he said that he can sometimes write a paper, but will do
so “in the least possible number of pages.” He commented that spelling and grammar are
a problem for him, that he uses simple sentences and often runs sentences together with a
series of “ands.” He said that he researches a topic and brainstorms to help him start
writing, but when he experiences difficulty writing or revising a draft, he feels “helpless.”
If he is unable to proceed on a draft, he stated that he will either ask his teacher for
assistance or “just stop writing.” He said that he fails to complete many assigned writing
tasks due to frustration or a lack of interest. When asked about some of the ways teachers
can help students with writing, Andrew replied, “Teachers should talk to students and
find out what they want to write about.” Although he admitted that he does not like to
read, nor does he consider himself to be a good writer, Andrew explained that his idea of
a good writer is “someone who writes a good story.”
Andrew exhibits a weak self-efficacy for writing. His academic shortfalls have
59
created anxiety and eroded his competency beliefs. Like Marina, Andrew is also not
grade-driven; however, unlike Marina, Andrew has not experienced writing success, nor
has he acquired the cognitive strategies to help him overcome his writing anxiety. To
help increase his self-efficacy in writing, his teachers will first need to find ways to
reduce his anxiety. Contributing to his low self-efficacy are his lack of interest and his
dislike for reading. Encouraging him to write about his interests and teaching him the
strategies that will enable him to overcome writing obstacles are tasks that his
individualized instruction teacher can pursue during Andrew’s enrollment in the program.
His program teacher explains her concern for him:
He has both English 10 and 11 with me this semester. He doesn’t like
to read or write, and I don’t know how I’m going to get him to complete
the research paper requirement for his junior English. We have started
discussing topics, and I think he will be writing about a car building
project he and his father are currently working on. At least it’s a topic
he knows something about.
Although Andrew’s teacher finds his low self-efficacy for writing a challenge, she
realizes that the best instructional approach to fulfill the course writing requirement is to
utilize his interests.
Andrew’s writing difficulties represent some of the severe situations the district’s
individualized instruction teachers encounter. To meet the academic needs of these
students, the most effective approach is explicit instruction. Andrew’s teacher begins her
instruction with a topic of interest and then focuses on “outlining and a thesis statement”
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to provide him with a strategy in which to organize his ideas. During the drafting stage
the teacher responds to the strengths in his writing content that will encourage Andrew to
complete the writing project. Without explicit instruction and immediate feedback,
students who do not possess writing confidence or skills will give up. The desire to give
up on a writing task is especially true for students experiencing the symptoms of pain or
fatigue associated with a medical condition.
Andrew denied my request to submit a writing sample for evaluation. Although
I was unable to assess his writing ability, I chose not to omit him as a case study.
Unfortunately, the district’s individualized instruction program has more “Andrews” than
“Marinas” who often choose not to participate in academic activities they do not enjoy.
Out of the four students, Andrew is the only student to admit that writing causes him to
feel frustrated and “helpless;” he is also the only student to state that he does not like
writing and that he does not consider himself to be a good writer. Andrew exemplifies
the student Atwell describes as highly self-critical and dissatisfied (30); he is the student
whose classroom behavior causes teachers to feel perplexed. It is the Andrews that lend
value and significance to this thesis.
The study data suggests that the teachers are efficacious, highly trained, and
experienced; they have developed methods to enhance the self-efficacy of students with
temporary disabilities; and they act as teacher-coaches who go to great lengths to “teach
to the child.” The data obtained from students suggests that students often report
inaccurate perceptions about writing ability that influence their self-efficacy beliefs, and
that they do not have a clear understanding of what constitutes good academic writing.
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In the next and final chapter, I will compare the teachers’ perceptions with those
of the students, address answers to each of the four research questions and draw
conclusions from the research. I will make recommendations for Sunvale Unified School
District’s individualized instruction program based upon the information obtained from
these student case studies, teacher perspectives, teaching methods, and research
concerning the subject of self-efficacy.
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Chapter 4
CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
This study suggests that enhancing self-efficacy for writing among high
school students is a task not easily accomplished. Despite the efforts of a number of
self-efficacious and experienced teachers in one of SUSD’s individualized instruction
programs, high school students experiencing low self-efficacy for writing require a
considerable amount of time to repair their negative perceptions, recover from their
anxiety, and develop the writing skills that will foster an increase in self-efficacy. This
chapter will revisit Bandura’s four sources of self-efficacy, discuss their relevancy to
the case study students, provide answers to the four research questions, and make
recommendations for improvements to SUSD’s home-based individualized instruction
program.
Self-Efficacy Conclusions
Bandura states that individuals develop self-efficacy through “cognitive
processing” and reflection on the information they receive from four sources including:
1) previous mastery experience, 2) vicarious experiences in which their abilities are
compared to those of others, 3) persuasive verbal feedback from significant individuals,
and 4) “physiological and affective states” which influence one’s inner voice or self-talk
regarding ability (79). Teaching writing to adolescents with low self-efficacy involves
employing methods that encompass one or more of these sources to increase the number
of positive interactions and outcomes.
When students have very little or no previous mastery experience, the teachers
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in the study begin with small, manageable tasks and provide words of encouragement and
praise. In this way, students will have a repertoire of past skills and accomplishments to
draw upon when they are faced with new writing challenges. Each successive challenge
the student meets with success increases the amount of his or her mastery experience,
positive association, and perception about writing ability.
Both admittedly nonreaders, Andrew and Santiago are students whose selfefficacy for writing is weak due to insufficient mastery experience. Neither has a strong
foundation of writing skills and practice to develop positive associations that will help
him find intrinsic value in task mastery; therefore, they continue their cycle of avoidance
behaviors through resignation or procrastination. For students like Andrew and Santiago,
who show little interest in writing, teaching writing skills and strategies is not sufficient
to raise their self-efficacy. They need a teacher-coach who will take the time and make
the effort to interact with them and help them find meaning and value in writing tasks.
Andrew’s comment, “teachers should talk to students to find out what they want to write
about,” is his way of saying that he wants teachers to give students some control. The
research literature supports that students who write about self-selected topics develop a
greater interest in writing that leads to better writing performance. Thus, Andrew’s
mastery experience can be achieved through a caring, supportive learning environment
that fosters motivation and interest through student input. For Santiago, who reportedly
has more writing experience than Andrew, choice of writing topics is not a main concern.
He says that if he had received more writing opportunities and “tried harder,” he would
be a better writer. In order for students like Santiago to feel successful in writing,
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teachers should provide numerous opportunities for writing in a variety of genres as well
as explicit instruction and supportive feedback.
Although Marina and Tanner’s self-efficacy for writing is stronger than that of
Andrew and Santiago, their writing performance is not at grade level. Marina is most
confident when she writes response papers, because she feels that she is free to “express
her views and feelings” which are accepted by her teachers and peers. Despite her efforts
to persevere, she will require additional instruction and support for her writing to meet
the academic demands of her two remaining high school years. Having shared writing
experiences similar to Marina’s, Tanner has also developed an inflated perception of his
writing ability. In spite of his successful writing experiences in the past, he does not have
confidence in his ability to self-edit and “asks his teachers for help” with error revision
on drafts. Both Marina and Tanner illustrate that although one’s previous mastery
experience positively influences one’s self-efficacy, confidence alone is not sufficient
to improve writing performance. The extent of the skills obtained by previous
experiences is also a determinant for writing ability and subsequent performance.
All four case study students feel that teachers should allow students a choice of
writing topics; however, only Marina and Tanner enjoy reading and find value in the use
of models to teach writing. Marina’s comment that “teachers should give students
models” supports Tanner’s idea to write a review of a popular video game. He explained
that he often read reviews in gaming magazines and decided to write one of his own.
Using models is one way teachers can provide their students with vicarious experiences.
When students experience the writing of peers and others, such as professional writers or
65
their classroom teacher, they are more likely to attempt writing tasks and see them
through to completion. Evaluating examples of a finished product enables students to
envision the writing process, set goals for each stage in the process, and compare their
writing to that of other writers.
Persuasive verbal feedback, Bandura’s third source for self-efficacy, has been
influential in enhancing the self-efficacy of three of the four case study students. Marina
and Tanner both indicated that their teachers expressed an interest in them and their
writing, while Santiago explained how the program teachers went to considerable lengths
to help him complete an essay, providing persuasive verbal feedback for each stage of
writing.
Unlike the other three case study students, Andrew’s self-efficacy for writing
may not improve significantly with positive verbal feedback, because his writing anxiety
hinders his confidence level. Instead of feeling confident and in control, Andrew states
that he feels “helpless” when he encounters writing obstacles. Thus, in students like
Andrew, we see how one’s physiological and affective states, Bandura’s fourth source
of self-efficacy, can influence one’s perceptions about writing and writing ability. Once
Andrew is able to gain a sense of control over his writing through learned skills and
mastery experience, it is possible that the positive verbal feedback he receives from
teachers and peers he respects may cause his anxiety and negative self-talk to diminish
sufficiently to increase his self-efficacy for writing.
Research Conclusions
With this application of Bandura’s sources of self-efficacy to the case study
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students, I will now return to the teacher participants and address the results of the four
research questions posed earlier.
Question 1: How competent do the district’s individualized instruction program teachers
feel in the teaching of writing?
The teachers report a strong self-efficacy for teaching writing. They demonstrate an
interest in their students and display a genuine enthusiasm for writing. They feel most
confident in the areas of motivation, diagnostics, and supportive feedback. They report
three major obstacles to poor writing performance: low self-confidence, inexperience,
and a lack of knowledge of writing strategies.
Question 2: What instruction methods do the teachers use to enhance the self-efficacy of
their students?
The teachers use a variety of methods to enhance the writing self-efficacy of their
students. All of the teachers report allowing students to select their own writing topics,
as well as using aspects of the writer’s workshop approach. For instance, to help their
students get started, they teach their students a number of prewriting strategies such as
outlining, listing, brainstorming, clustering, and freewriting. They also devote a
considerable amount of instruction time to teaching students how to write thesis
statements and topic sentences. A majority of the teachers assign shorter writing
assignments, such as journals and literature responses; they also break up longer writing
assignments into smaller, more manageable portions and spend time on paragraph
development to motivate and encourage their students. To help their most troubled
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students, many of the teachers report the use of dictation. The students dictate their ideas
to the teachers, and then the teachers help them revise. Some teachers encourage the use
of computers.
Question 3: Does an increase in self-efficacy for writing transfer to the student’s
performance in his or her regular instruction program?
Although the program’s teachers are successful in raising the self-efficacy of the majority
of their students, individualized instruction has minimal impact on student writing
performance upon reenrollment in the regular classroom program. The limited number of
instruction hours program teachers have to teach writing influences the amount of writing
experience students can obtain during their enrollment. Any increase in self-efficacy a
student makes during his or her enrollment in the individualized instruction program may
be negated if the student does not feel capable of meeting the writing requirements of his
or her regular classroom program. The study results indicate that those students who
possess a weak self-efficacy for writing are poor writers. Regardless of individualized
teaching methods and interventions the program teachers utilize, the writing performance
of these low efficacious students will not improve significantly unless they increase their
writing skills and receive mastery experience. Study results also indicate that those
students who have strong self-efficacy but are poor writers maintain their current
level of self-efficacy for writing; however, these students may not demonstrate significant
writing improvement once they exit the individualized instruction program and enroll in
their regular classroom instruction program or other school program.
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Question 4: What instruction methods do the teachers use that can be applied in other
teaching contexts?
Many of the instruction methods the program’s teachers use are found in Special
Education and Regular Education classroom instruction contexts. The teachers motivate
their students to write by creating a non-threatening learning environment which includes
student choices and utilizing journals and other forms of expressive writing. To teach
essay writing, the teachers use the writer’s workshop approach. With their knowledge of
process writing, they teach a variety of prewriting and writing strategies that fit each
student’s learning style.
Recommendations
My recommendations for the teachers of the Sunvale Unified School District’s
individualized instruction program include: 1) to continue the use of the student centered
approach, the writer’s workshop, and direct instruction methods; 2) include teacher
modeling of writing and reading aloud; and 3) increase the communication between
teaching staff and the students’ classroom teachers. Of these three recommendations, the
second may be the most difficult to accomplish given the small number of instruction
hours the program’s teachers are allotted each week; however, it is vital that students
understand what is expected of them. All four case study students have an inaccurate
perception of good academic writing which could help explain why self-efficacy alone is
not sufficient. Therefore, correcting student perceptions about writing is a necessary first
step toward self-regulation and writing improvement.
The study results demonstrate that the teachers adopt a student centered approach
69
for the teaching of writing that increases the amount of mastery experience students
require to bolster their self-confidence and motivation to write. Use of the writer’s
workshop method of writing instruction ensures that students learn the process writing
skills and strategies they will use in their regular classroom program. Direct instruction
methods are useful for teaching students who have poor writing skills and/or anxiety. As
many of the program’s students are poor writers with low self-efficacy, individualized
instruction that includes direct instruction for specific tasks such as writing thesis
statements or paragraph development helps them both skills and self-confidence.
Reading aloud with students helps increase comprehension, retention, and
appreciation. For those students who dislike reading, teachers can select texts with
popular adolescent themes to interest them and motivate them to read. Teachers can also
introduce classic literary works to add variety. As mentioned in the literature, teachers
can teach students the value writing has in the real world (Reeves 44) by sharing their
writing with them. Teachers do not have to allocate more time to their limited teaching
schedule to accomplish this goal. Journal writing, for instance, can be an experience in
which both teacher and student participate and share their ideas and writing concerns.
Through association with real world writers, students learn what it means to be a
good writer, for good writing is not only about being able “to express [one’s] views and
feelings,” being “able to write fluently,” or even telling “a good story” as some of the
students suggest. The students have a limited view of what it means to write. They need
to be taught that being a good writer means taking time, rewriting, and perseverance.
The study results show that the program’s students exhibit gains in both self-
70
efficacy for writing and writing improvement; however, these improvements are only
minimally transferred upon the student’s return to his or her regular classroom program.
Many of the students return to a classroom environment in which the teacher may not be
able to offer individualized assistance. The student may lapse back into old behaviors,
such as procrastination or avoidance as in Santiago’s and Tanner’s situations, and find
themselves struggling to keep up with classroom writing tasks. To help maintain the
gains made during enrollment in the individualized instruction program, the program’s
teachers should communicate student needs, interests, and accomplishments with the
student’s classroom teacher prior to the student’s return to facilitate the transition and
help ensure student progress.
Although this study focused attention on a home-based individualized instruction
program, the research has implications for other teaching environments. Classroom
teachers can use the self-efficacy data to better understand how students may
misinterpret their writing performance and modify both instruction and teacher feedback
to assist students with forming accurate self-efficacy judgments. An abundance of lowefficacious writers are common in high school environments where requirements are
rigid and expectations are high. The personalized teaching methods employed by the
study’s teachers demonstrates a caring attitude that encourages reluctant adolescent
students to engage in writing. Teachers in all instruction environments can adopt a
personalized teaching approach that includes a curriculum and an attitude responsive to
student interests and learning styles.
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APPENDIX A
TEACHER SURVEY
Instructions
Circle the number that reflects your level of agreement or disagreement with the
statements below.
1 = strongly agree
2 = agree
3 = disagree
4 = strongly disagree
1. I am able to accurately diagnose student writing strengths and
weaknesses.
1234
2. If my students experience difficulty starting a writing assignment, 1 2 3 4
I would be able to suggest ways to begin.
3. I am able to motivate my students to write.
1 2 3 4
4. If one of my students could not complete a written assignment,
I would be able to accurately assess whether the assignment was
at the correct level of difficulty.
1 2 3 4
5. I am able to provide helpful written and verbal feedback to my
students.
1 2 3 4
6. I am confident in my competence to teach writing conventions.
1 2 3 4
7. I am confident in my competence to teach all genres of writing.
1 2 3 4
8. A student’s performance on writing tasks depends mostly on his
or her previous writing experience.
1 2 3 4
9. A student’s improvement in writing performance is mostly due to 1 2 3 4
individualized instruction.
10. My students return to their home school prepared to meet the
writing challenges of their English classroom.
1 2 3 4
Adapted from Hoy & Woolfolk, 1993, Elementary School Journal, 93. pp. 355-372.
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APPENDIX B
TEACHER QUESTIONNAIRE
Instructions:
Answer the questions 1 – 5 below based upon your teaching experience with students
in the program.
1. Within the instructional time limits of the program, how often do you ask your
students to write? Are the students able to complete the required writing
assignments?
2. How do you assist students who experience difficulty completing writing
assignments due to medical issues? (i.e., chronic fatigue, soreness or pain)
3. What aspect of writing do your students struggle with the most?
4. What methods are the most beneficial for teaching writing to students who are
either unmotivated or lack confidence in their writing performance?
5. In your opinion, what is the largest factor impeding student writing performance?
73
APPENDIX C
STUDENT INTERVIEW QUESTIONS
1.
Are you a native English speaker? If not, when you begin speaking
English?
2.
Does you native language affect your writing performance in English? If
so, in what ways?
3.
Does your current medical condition hinder you from completing writing
tasks?
4.
How much experience do you have writing essays and research papers?
5.
What do you consider to be your writing strengths?
6.
What do you consider to be your writing weaknesses?
7.
What do you do when you have trouble starting a draft?
8.
What do you do when you have trouble writing or revising a draft?
9.
In your opinion, what are the best ways teachers can help students with
writing?
10.
Do you enjoy writing? Why or why not?
11.
Do you feel confident about your writing ability?
12.
What is your idea of a good writer?
13.
Do you consider yourself to be a good writer?
74
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