Do Students’ Beliefs About Writing
Relate to Their Writing Self-Efficacy,
Apprehension, and Performance?
Joanne Sanders-Reio, Ph.D.
Outline of This Presentation
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Context of this research line
Introduction to beliefs about writing
The current study
Related studies
Context of This Research Line
Testing instructional strategies I learned as a
professional writer/editor and used as a corporate
trainer
• Did they really work?
• Would expert writing/editing practices work in an
academic setting?
Beliefs About Writing
• Social cognitive theory has established the
importance of beliefs, especially self-efficacy
beliefs, which are
• Related to performance in various domains
• Inversely related to apprehension
• Beliefs about writing reflect one’s views about
• What good writing is
• What good writers do
• Distinct from writing self-efficacy beliefs
• “The knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs that students hold about
writing play an important part in determining how the composing
process is carried out and what the eventual shape of the written
product will be.” Graham et al. (1993, p. 246, emphasis added)
• “Filters leading students to represent the task of…writing to
themselves in a particular way” with the various models of writing
created by these beliefs leading to ‘different engagement patterns.’”
Mateos et al. (2010, p. 284)
This research line investigates the relation of beliefs about
writing to
• Writing performance
• Writing self-efficacy and apprehension
Review of the Literature
& Conceptual Framework
Beliefs About Writing
• Palmquist & Young, 1992
• Examined the belief that writing is an innate skill that
some have and others lack
• Undergraduates who believed in the innateness of
writing skills were
• More apprehensive about writing
• Gave lower assessments of their own writing skills,
abilities, and work
• “The belief [in innateness] itself may contribute to the
students’ apprehension about writing.” (p. 151)
• Silva & Nicholls, 1993
• Studied the beliefs underlying six traditions of teaching
writing
• 1) Personal involvement, 2) Writing for understanding, 3)
Mechanical correctness, 4) Collaboration, 5) Cognitive strategies,
6) Models of good writing
• Developed two genre-neutral scales
• Characteristics of good writing espoused by each tradition
• Writing strategies that emerged from each tradition
• Second-order PCA of the resulting components yielded four
emphases
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Personal meaning and enjoyment of words
Recursive approach fostering understanding
Focus on audience and strategies
Surface correctness and form
• Students beliefs reflected the pedagogy of their teachers,
suggesting that these beliefs may be socially constructed
• White & Bruning, 2005
• Examined two independent beliefs adapted from Schraw &
Bruning’s (1996, 1999) studies of beliefs about reading
• Transmission
• Writing is a means of reporting what authorities think
• Writers stick to established information and arguments
• Transaction
• Writers should be emotionally and cognitively engaged
• Writing helps one deepen one’s understanding of the concepts
one writes about as well as one’s own views
• Those with high Transmission beliefs received lower writing
grades
• Transmission not related to self-efficacy or apprehension
• Transaction beliefs positively related to writing self-efficacy
but not apprehension
• Mateos et al., 2010
• Studied White & Bruning’s (2005) Transmission and
Transaction beliefs in conjunction with SchommerAikens’s/Perry’s (2004) epistemic beliefs
• Transmission
• Negatively related to academic achievement
• Positively related to Simple Knowledge (knowledge is comprised
of discrete facts, not complex, conceptual structures)
• Transaction
• Positively related to academic achievement
• Negatively related to Simple Knowledge, Fixed Ability
(intelligence is fixed, not malleable), and Quick Learning (learning
occurs immediately or not at all)
• Suggested that constellations of beliefs may work in
tandem
Two Additional Beliefs
Audience Orientation
• Research Literature
• Silva & Nicholls (1993)
• Those using deep as opposed to surface approaches have a
stronger sense of audience (e.g., Lavelle, 1993)
• Research emphasizing discourse communities (e.g., Beach &
Frederick, 2006)
• Research from Writing and Rhetoric (e.g., Miller & Charney, 2008)
• Kellogg’s Model of Writing Development (2010)
• Practice Literature
• Mindsets and procedures of professional writers and editors
• Technical writing texts
Recursive Process
• Research Literature
• Silva & Nicholls (1993)
• Process model of writing (Hayes & Flower, 1980)
• Practice Literature
• “Writing is rewriting.” (Murray, 1991, p. vii)
• “Rewriting is the essence of writing.” (Zinsser, 1976, p. 4)
Kellogg’s Model of
Writing Development
• Based on
• Cognitive Load Theory
• Expertise Theory
• Bereiter & Scardamalia’s (1987) model of
writing development
• Bereiter & Scardamalia proposed a two-stage theory
1.
2.
Knowledge Tellers—Record what they know about a topic
primarily as their ideas occur to theme
Knowledge Transformers—Are aware of the discrepancies
between what they intended to write and what their text
actually says. Revise to bridge those gaps. Refine their
understandings and rethink their ideas as they work.
• Kellogg added a third stage
3.
Knowledge Crafters—Tailor their work to an audience that is
richly represented in their minds.
• Differences between the stages
• Cognitive Load
• The number of perspectives and representations writers at different
stages maintain as they work
• Demands on working memory and central executive functioning
• Knowledge Tellers have one main perspective, their own. They have
only a tenuous grasp of what their manuscript actually says
• Knowledge Transformers consider two perspectives, their ideal text
and their actual manuscript
• Knowledge Crafters juggle three rich and stable representations of
their work: their ideal paper, their actual text, and the text as they
think their readers will understand it
• Focus
• Knowledge Tellers—Themselves
• Knowledge Transformers—Text
• Knowledge Crafters—Audience
• Writers move from stage to stage only after many of their
writing skills have become fluid and their ability to represent
their text in its ideal and actual forms is well developed and
stable.
• It thus takes writers roughly 10 years to master each of the
first two stages.
• Only experts and those who write extensively reach Stage 3,
normally not before adulthood and then in only a few genres.
• Kellogg defined stages but did not see them as entirely
discrete. Writers in Stage 1 may have some conception of their
audience, but it would be sketchy and unstable.
Beliefs About Writing and
Kellogg’s Model
• Stage 1. Knowledge Telling
• Transmission
• Stage 2. Knowledge Transforming
• Transaction
• Recursive Process
• Stage 3. Knowledge Crafting
• Audience Orientation
Writing Self-Efficacy
• One’s beliefs about one’s own writing skills
• Positively related to writing performance and negatively
related to writing apprehension in more than 30 years of
research with students ranging from 4th graders to
undergraduates (e.g., Bruning, Graham, Schunk, Zimmerman)
• Correlations between with writing performance have ranged
from 0.03 (Pajares & Johnson, 1994) to 0.83 (Schunk & Swartz, 1993),
clustering around 0.35.
• The first generation of writing self-efficacy scales emphasized
mechanical writing skills (e.g., Meier et al., 1984)
• The second generation of measures also addressed
substantive writing skills (e.g., Pajares & Valiante, 1999) and writing
self-regulation (Zimmerman & Bandura, 1994)
Writing Apprehension
• Traditionally defined as fear and avoidance of having one’s
written worked evaluated (Daly & Miller, 1975)
• This traditional measure does not include a possible additional
source of writing apprehension—anxiety about making
mechanical errors (Smith et al., 2006)
• Negatively related to writing performance
• Correlations between writing apprehension and writing
performance have ranged from -0.28 (Meier et al, 1984) to -0.57
(Pajares & Johnson, 1994)
• Negatively related to writing self-efficacy
• In the Pajares group’s path analyses, writing self-efficacy reduced
and even nullified writing apprehension (e.g., Pajares & Valiante,
1997)
Purpose of the Study
Research Questions and Hypotheses
Purpose of the Study
1. Augment White & Bruning’s (2005) work with Transmission
and Transaction by adding two additional beliefs about
writing, Audience Orientation and Recursive Process
2. Combine and expand existing measures of Writing SelfEfficacy to include self-efficacy for both substantive and
mechanical writing skills as well as writing self-regulation
3. Expand Daly & Miller’s (1975) measure to include
apprehension about making mechanical errors
1. What are the relations among beliefs
about writing, self-efficacy, apprehension,
and performance?
Hypothesized that…
a) Transaction, Recursive Process, and Audience Orientation
would relate significantly and positively to self-efficacy and
performance, and negatively to apprehension
b) Transmission would relate significantly and negatively to
performance and self-efficacy, and positively to
apprehension
c) All three types of writing self-efficacy would significantly
and positively relate to performance, and negatively to
apprehension
d) All three types of writing apprehension would significantly
and negatively relate to performance
2. What are the unique contributions of
beliefs about writing, self-efficacy, and
apprehension to performance?
Hypothesized that…
a) Transaction, Recursive Process, and Audience Orientation
would significantly and positively predict performance
b) Transmission would significantly and negatively predict
performance
c) All three types of writing self-efficacy would significantly
and positively predict performance
d) All three types of writing apprehension would significantly
and negatively predict performance
e) The beliefs about writing would explain variance in
performance above and beyond that accounted for by selfefficacy and apprehension
Method
Participants
• 738 undergraduates at a large, research-intensive, Hispanicserving public university south Florida
• 86% women
• 68% Hispanic, 16% white, 11% black, 2% Asian
• Mostly juniors (68%) and seniors (24%)
• Family background
• 88% of their fathers and 91% of their mothers had graduated
from high school
• 32% of their fathers and 32% had graduated from college
• 14% of their fathers and 13% of their mothers held an advanced
degree
• First language—37% Spanish, 31% English, 3% other, 28%
raised bilingually
Measures
Beliefs About Writing Survey (Sanders-Reio, 2010)
Subscales
• Transmission, α = .65
• The most important reason to write is to report what authorities
think about a subject.
• Transaction, α = .78
• Writing helps me understand what I’m thinking about.
• Recursive Process, α = .72
• Writing is a process of reviewing, revisioning, and rethinking.
• Audience Orientation, α = .85
• Development, Clarity, Organization, Argumentation, Logic, Ability to
read an audience
• Good writers anticipate and answer their audience’s questions.
Writing Self-Efficacy Index (Sanders-Reio, 2010)
• Based on Zimmerman and Bandura’s (1994) Writing SelfRegulatory Efficacy Scale of 25 items
• Added questions addressing substantive and mechanical
writing issues
• Participants indicated their self-efficacy by making a hash
mark on a 10-mm line marked 1 to 100
• Subscales
• Substantive, α = .98
• Development, Argumentation, Organization, Ability to meet the needs of
the audience
• I can logically make the points I want to convey.
• Self-Regulatory, α = .94
• Getting started, Keeping oneself going, Being able to get help
• I can start writing with no difficulty.
• Mechanical, α = .95
• Grammar, Spelling
• I can correctly punctuate the papers I write.
Modified Writing Apprehension Test (Daly & Miller, 1975,
Sanders-Reio, 2010)
• Assesses polar aspects of a single factor, fear and
avoidance of having one’s work evaluated as
opposed to enjoyment of sharing one’s written
work with others
• 5-point Likert scale
• Subscales
• Dislike Writing , α = .92
• I expect to do poorly in composition classes even before I enter
them.
• Enjoy Writing , α = .92
• I like seeing my thoughts on paper.
• Apprehension About Grammar, α = .87
• I’m afraid that I may make a punctuation error.
Writing Performance
• Students’ grades on a 5- to 8-page, structured, takehome assignment, an analysis of a video about three
preschools in light of learning theory
• As compared to the usual measure in much research
and many high-stakes tests (a single sample written
in 20 to 30 minutes in response to a prompt)
• More authentic
• Emphasizes skill over speed
• Reduces discrimination against students unfamiliar
with the topic
• Allows students to use a full complement of writing
strategies, including revision
• More in line with the recommendations of writing
researchers (e.g., Murphy & Yancey, 2008) and the National
Council of Teachers of English (2008)
Examination of the Measures
Beliefs About Writing Survey
• Exploratory Factor Analysis
• Divided the data set into two subsets of equal size (ns = 369)
• Employed EFA on the first subset to investigate the factor structure
and reduce the number of items
• Used principal-axis factoring and promax rotation because of the
hypothesized underlying theoretical structure and our expectation
that the factors would correlate
• The EFA revealed four factors explaining 43% of the variance
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Audience Orientation
Recursive Process
Transaction
Transmission
• The items forming Transmission and Transaction were not identical to
those used by White and Bruning (2005)
• Factor intercorrelations ranged from -.10 to .54
• Confirmatory Factor Analysis
• Arranged the 31 items identified in the EFA in four empirically
identified factors
• Overall, the goodness-of-fit indicators revealed that the CFA
model had an acceptable fit to the data
• The χ2 analysis suggested that the data did not fit the model
adequately; yet, χ2 tests have been shown to be especially
sensitive to larger sample sizes
• However, the following indicators indicated an acceptable fit
between the data and the model, and thus factorial validity
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χ2/df ratio, 2.31
Root mean square error of approximation, .059
Comparative fit index, .91
Adjusted good-of-fit index, .90
Writing Self-Efficacy Index
• Three components according to both the scree plot and the
Kaiser criterion
• Explained 63% of the variance
• Substantive
• Self-Regulatory
• Mechanical
Modified Writing Apprehension Test
• The three new items formed a new component, Apprehension
About Grammar, for a total of three, as indicated by both the
scree plot and the Kaiser criterion
• Explained 56% of the variance
• Dislike Writing
• Enjoy Writing
• Apprehension About Grammar
Protocol
• Participants completed the surveys in 20 to 40
minutes of class time with respect to the writing
they do at the university.
• They took the surveys after they understood the
writing assignment, but before they could begin
working on it, as Bandura recommended (Pajares,
1997)
• Students received extra credit for participating.
No one refused the opportunity.
Results
Grades
• All participants uploaded their papers to Turnitin.com to check
for plagiarism
• Two professors, one the actual instructor and another who
has taught the course, assigned grades from A to F, including
pluses and minuses.
• The College of Education requires the students to earn at least a C
to pass the course. Those who fall short can rewrite.
• Students had to demonstrate basic competence with respect to
the course content and both substantive and mechanical writing
skills to pass
• Interrater agreement between the graders, .93, was calculated
via correlational analysis
• Grades
• Mean = 8.1 (B-)
• 30% received an A or A-, 29% earned less than the C required.
• Correlation between the students’ grade and the grade they
predicted they would receive (survey): 0.13
Testing the Hypotheses
1. WHAT ARE THE RELATIONS AMONG
BELIEFS ABOUT WRITING, SELF-EFFICACY,
APPREHENSION, AND PERFORMANCE?
Correlation of Beliefs About Writing, Self-Efficacy,
and Apprehension with Performance
Grade
Beliefs About Writing
Transmission
Transaction
Recursive Process
Audience Orientation
Writing Self-Efficacy
Substantive
Self-Regulatory
Mechanical
Writing Apprehension
Dislike Writing
Enjoy Writing
Apprehension About Grammar
Note. N = 738. *p < .05; **p < .01; *** p < .001.
-.20***
.01
.12**
.18***
.18***
.15***
.23***
-.17***
.11**
-.26***
Correlations
• Most Adaptive Belief: Audience Orientation--strongest
positive relations with writing grade and writing self-efficacy
• Belief Most Related to Enjoy Writing: Transaction—Also
strongest positive correlate of writing self-efficacy. Did not
relate to writing grades.
• Most Maladaptive Belief: Transmission--negatively related to
writing grades and writing self-efficacy. Positively related to
Apprehension About Grammar.
• Correlations between writing self-efficacy and grades were
within the range reported in previous research, but somewhat
lower than the norm.
• Apprehension About Grammar had a stronger negative
relation to grades than the traditional Dislike Writing.
Simultaneous regressions
a) Transaction, Recursive Process, and Audience Orientation
would positively predict self-efficacy and performance, and
negatively predict apprehension—Partially supported,
Recursive Process not significant
b) Transmission would negatively predict performance and
self-efficacy, and positively predict apprehension—
Supported, only belief related to Apprehension About
Grammar
c) All three types of writing self-efficacy would positively
predict performance, and negatively predict apprehension—
Partially supported, only Mechanical Self-Efficacy related
to grades and Apprehension About Grammar
d) All three types of writing apprehension would negatively
predict performance—Only Apprehension About Grammar
was significant
Testing the Hypotheses
2. WHAT ARE THE UNIQUE
CONTRIBUTIONS OF BELIEFS ABOUT
WRITING, SELF-EFFICACY, AND
APPREHENSION TO PERFORMANCE?
Summary Hierarchical Regression Analysis
Predicting Writing Performance from Beliefs
About Writing, Self-Efficacy, and Apprehension
Writing Grade
β
Step 1. Beliefs About Writing
Transmission
Transaction
Recursive Process
Audience Orientation
Step 2. Writing Self-Efficacy
Substantive
Self-Regulatory
Mechanical
Step 3. Writing Apprehension
Dislike Writing
Enjoy Writing
Apprehension About Grammar
Total R2
Note. N = 738. *p < .05; **p < .01; *** p < .001.
ΔR2
.08***
-.15***
-.11**
.07*
.19***
.03***
.04
-.02
.09*
.03***
.01
.02
-.19***
.15***
Hierarchical Regression
a) Transaction, Recursive Process, and Audience Orientation
would significantly and positively predict performance—
Audience Orientation the most powerful and adaptive belief,
Recursive Process a positive predictor, Transaction a negative
predictor here
b) Transmission would significantly and negatively predict
performance--Supported
c) All three types of writing self-efficacy would significantly and
positively predict performance—Mechanical Self-Efficacy the
only significant predictor
d) All three types of writing apprehension would significantly and
negatively predict performance—Apprehension About
Grammar a strong negative predictor above and beyond all
of the beliefs
e) The beliefs about writing would explain variance in
performance above and beyond that accounted for by selfefficacy and apprehension--Supported
Hierarchical Regression
• The model explained 15% of the variance in writing grades
• Beliefs about writing explained 8.4% of the variance
• Each of the four beliefs about writing independently and
significantly predicted writing performance.
• Audience Orientation was the most powerful predictor
• Audience Orientation and Recursive Process were positive
predictors
• Transmission and Transaction were negative predictors
• Self-efficacy for Mechanical writing skills was the only
significant predictor (positive)
• Apprehension About Grammar explained variance above and
beyond the effects of both beliefs about writing and writing
self-efficacy.
Discussion
Beliefs About Writing
• Beliefs about writing related to writing selfefficacy, apprehension, and performance
• Predicted unique variance in writing grades
• Correlations between beliefs about writing and
performance were modest, but meaningful
• Adhering to a belief does not ensure the skill or will to
act on that belief.
• Audience Orientation
• The most powerful and adaptive belief
• Related to expert practice
• Aligned with classic characteristics of good writing—
Development, Clarity, Organization, Argumentation
• Recursive Process
• A positive predictor
• Hypothesize that this belief will be more adaptive
with longer assignments held to higher standards,
such as dissertations and articles written for
publication
• Transaction
• A negative predictor here
• Strong correlate of Enjoy Writing and writing selfefficacy. Enjoyment may be able to keep writers working
when extra effort is required
• Hypothesize that this belief, too, will be more adaptive
with longer assignments held to higher standards
• Transmission
• Maladaptive
• Negatively related to self-efficacy and positively related
to apprehension, particularly Apprehension About
Grammar
• Can foster a mechanical and/or self-protective approach
to writing entailing stringing quotes, plugging new text
in set formats, and couching established arguments in
new words
Writing Self-Efficacy
• Associated with stronger writing performance
and lower writing self-efficacy
• A more modest predictor than in other studies,
but within the range of previous work
Writing Apprehension
• Associated with lower writing grades
• Apprehension About Grammar accounted for
unique variance
Implications
Theoretical
• Supports Bandura’s (1997) views about the importance of
beliefs
• Possibility that constellations of beliefs affect performance in
tandem
Practical
• Supports the possibility that beliefs about writing could be a
worthwhile leverage point in teaching students to write
• Fewer assignments with more revision cycles
• Fostering a sense of audience
• Making sure strategies like using quotes do not deteriorate into
mechanical cutting and pasting
• New methods of teaching grammar and correctness that
minimize counterproductive anxiety
Future Studies
• Studies of expert writing practice
• Related refinement of Kellogg’s model
• Instruments
• Conducting an EFA/CFA of the writing self-efficacy measure
• Adding items to the Apprehension About Grammar subscale of the Modified
Writing Apprehension Test
• Refining the Beliefs scale
• Items
• Additional beliefs
• Investigations of the mechanisms through which beliefs about
writing
• Affective (apprehension)
• Cognitive (choice of writing strategies and processes)
• Research with other types of participants, writing
assignments, and contexts
• Experimental and intervention studies
• Investigation of the beliefs related to other activities and
disciplines