Self Efficacy In Writing Performance Psychology Essay

egotism Efficacy In Writing Performance Psychology EssayWriting, is a complex serve well and competent composition is frequently accepted as being the last language skill to be acquired. Al-Mekhlafi, 2011 Due to its complex process, written material is regarded as a challenging childbed not sole(pre nominated) for native speakers of a language but besides for second language learners. As it is the case for any new(prenominal) acquired skill, penning skill besides evolves continuously until the product, a piece of writing, meets the forecasts of both the writer and reader. However, when it comes to learning how to apply certain conventions of writing in a baronial learning environment, the social function and responsibility of the learner becomes even more important.As cited in Sheila Matoti and Almon Shumba (2011), writing problems identified by previous studies atomic number 18 grammar, spelling, punctuation, expression, and the skill to explain, building and interp ret facts as well as vocabulary and referencing. Although it force out be claimed that the problems listed above push aside be fixed, to a certain extent, through formal program line and learners effort, it is a fact that having some sort of knowledge round ones capabilities and skills can indeed play an important role in motivating human behaviours. (Bandura,1986) agree to Banduras Social Cognitive Theory, individuals possess a system of self-beliefs that enables them to exercise control over their thoughts, feelings, and actions. (as cited in Garcia Fidalgo,2008, Rahimpour Jahan, 2010, Al-Mekhlafi, 2011, Shah et al. 2011, Galligan ,2011, Alexander Schmidt, 2012). Broaddus (2012) explained that companionable cognitive theory forms the roots of both writing self-efficacy and motivation both of which change from course to course, depending on students engross, efficacy for performing tasks in the course, and different social and environmental factors. In other words, learner s whitethorn create their own path of learning through engaging themselves in tasks. Therefore, students set their goals for learning a specific subject. egotism-efficacy is a construct proposed by Bandura (1977) and has been well-tried in a variety of fields, foc utilise on a variety of topics. Broaddus (2012) and Bong (1999) define self-efficacy as peoples convictions about their own capability for palmyly penalize a course of action that leads to a coveted outcome. Schmidt and Alexander (2012) argued that self efficacy is not only a topical but also make iting(a) disposition requiring learners or participants in a inquiry to evaluate their beliefs in their future abilities. Therefore, self-efficacy requires self-evaluation, about what one can do and what can be improved. As well as self-evaluation, there argon two more factors affecting self-efficacy modeling (coaching) such as coding the information for retention, being capable of producing the presented patterns, and maintaining a certain direct of motivation goal setting, such as acquiring skills and knowledge or making good grades. (Schunk, 2003).When considered specifically for the writing ability, writing self-efficacy translates into a strong sense of confidence for the task of writing.( Pajares Valiante,1997). In other words, once learners have sufficient self-belief in their ability to write in their second language, their interest in writing may increase, they may display constant efforts, and great eagerness and resiliency when they are working on a writing task. In his study conducted in 2012, Broaddus concluded that journalism course students who hold gritty self-efficacy for grammar have put more effort into their m management and environmental resources enchantment studying and it was found that these high efficacy attitude towards grammar resulted in better grammar skills. This was interpreted as these students determine where the challenge or obstacle related to the task li es and they develop strategies so as to succeed in their writing assignments.Garcia and Fidalgo stated in their 2008 study that in difficult tasks such as writing which includes more recursively employed cognitive processes, self-efficacy plays a the key role. While acquiring writing skills, students need to use their cognitive, behavioral and motivational engagement and learning.Recently, an enormous amount of research has been done on the writing composition proceses that student writers undertake(Erkan Saban, 2011). Although writing instruction has gone through numerous changes, according to an action research carried out by Yavuz and Gen ( 1998), students melt down to display negative attitudes towards writing. Yavuz and Gen (1998) concluded their research findings as, for students writing is an obligation in aim to pass final exam. Erkan and Saban (2004) suggest that this attitude can be interpreted as students apprehension and lack of self-efficacy in writing.The reason fo r students apprehension and lack of self efficacy may be due to exceptional time allocated for writing practice in classes. As cited in Leki and Carson (1994), according to the results of structured interviews of a study, university students who completed language courses in intensive English program at five different university reported that they only spent 10 % of their time on writing assignments across the curriculum. However, it should be noted that in order to succeed in their schoolmanian studies, second language learners, especially the students at universities are required to gain a certain ability to write well since writing is integral to donnish success.Although the time spared for writing practice may not always be possible, the use of a variety of writing assignments, with clear, concise evalution criteria, could foster student writers in the development of their self-efficacy while dealing with a writing task. (Broaddus, 2012)When examined specifically, Turkish s tudents practising the conventions of writing in English, even students who are proficient at other language skills share the same problems with writing they are afraid to make writing errors they lack self-efficacy in writing.(Erkan Saban, 2011)In her study, Erkan concluded , similar to previous research findings, it was substantiate that the degree of students negative attitude, writing apprehension, does affect Turkish Tertiary train students writing operation. In other words, the higher the apprehension, the weaker the writing skills / performance. This aspect of Erkans study, one that specifically looks at descents amid writing apprehension and writing performance, is an expansion in the research area since the number of studies conducted to analyze second language learners wiriting apprehension is actually few.However, as cited in Garcia and Fidalgo (2008), Bandura maintained that misjudgement in ones beliefs about potential performance may be detrimental, which is pro ved by some research that it can be prevalent in writing classes.Although there is a great number of research examining the relationship amidst self-efficacy,to the best knowledge of the researchers Rahimpour and Jahan, there is no research on relationship between general self-efficacy and writing (Rahimpour and Jahan, 2010). Rahimpour and Jahan claimed that all the previous research mainly rivet on the investigation of self-efficacy among groups with a very limited range of progression. Therefore, Rahimpour and Jahan determined their research area as the impact of self-efficacy and proficiency on EFL learners written task performance regarding load, fluency, complexity, and trueness. The participants chosen were low-proficiency and high-proficiency learners of English aged between 18-25. In addition to completing three separate tasks, the participants were asked to fill out the General Perceived Self-Efficacy questionnaire, through which the participants level of confidence was aimed to rate. The results indicated that there was a of import relationship between self-efficacy and personal tasks in terms of concept load in high proficieny participants however, there was not a significant relationship when it came to fluency, complexity, and accuracy only for low but also high proficieny participants performance.Another area of research on self-efficacy is related to help meetking which is recognized as a component of self-efficacy. Help seeking is comprised of two types of behaviour adaptive and nonadaptive behaviours. (as cited in Williams Takaku, 2011) Various studies yielded significant coefficient of coefficient of correlational statisticss between self-efficacy and help seeking. Williams and Takaku cited that while high self-efficacy students tend to express high help seeking behaviour, low self-efficacy students, despite being under similar circumstances, less willing to seek help. It is commonly accepted by researchers in the field that just a s help seeking, self-efficacy belief has been found to be a predictor of academician success. In addition to their teachers, most(prenominal) students may seek help at writing centers remedial courses in the institutions they attend. Writing centers have been proved to be helpful when it comes to improving students writing performance.Williams and Takaku (2011) hypothesized that writing self-efficacy would forge writing performance. The participants of the study were both native and nonnative university students who attended a one semester intensive writing course for all content areas. In air to the researchers anticipation, the analysis showed that the frequent visitors to writing center in order to receive professional assistance from the writng center staff, managed to get higher grades than the ones who did not. What makes the results of the study more far-famed is the fact that these results apply for both ESL learners and native-English- speakers. When the results are ge neralized, it can be argued that when appropriate assistance is reard, every student practising the conventions of writing can improve himself or herself.A study carried out ,by Shah,Wan Mahmoud, Din,Yusof, Pardi in 2011 with Malaysian secondary school learners in order to determine the students self-efficacy in writing. The results indicated that there is ,indeed, a large, significant collateral correlation between self-efficacy and writing performance. That is, it was,again, confirmed that learners with high self-efficacy tend to pursue opportunities to write, put more effort into writing, and be more persistent in seeking writing competence.Another research conducted by Early and De Costa-Smith, in 2011, confirmed Banduras social cognitive theory. To put it differently, self-efficacy beliefs can be developed by mastery experience, social models and lived experiences, and social persuasion. The impact of multiple opportunities to practice any genre, along with peer and teacher f eedback and interaction during the intervention may play a key role on the increase in students self-efficacy beliefs related to the genre. All in all, while strong efficacy leads to success, overly high or low efficacy can undermine the proper development of cognitive, social, emotional, and behavioral skills. (Broaddus, 2012)On the other hand, Igo (2002) asserted that the students overestimated their self-efficacy because of several reasons, namely, high school teachers failure to provide appropiate and correctional feedback, the teachers negligence of promoting the immenseness of producing good work, and teachers overappraisal of mere student participation in the writing process. Conversely, when individuals see that another person, in our context a classmate, performing a desired task, self efficacy believes are positively affected. To pplace this into the context of university English preparatory school classrooms, when a student witnesses that a friend of his or her succeeds in writing a well-organized sample, he or she may be more willing to try writing an essay on his own. As Broaddus (2012) cited observers self-efficacy beliefs would be reduced if they see their peers repeatedly fail to accomplish a required task.Whether high or low, self-efficacy in writing has a crucial role in students writing performance. Broaddus (2012) cites from Bandura (1997) and draws our vigilance to environmental context and says that it often affects efficacy. In a formal language learning environment where there is only limited time can be allocated to writing, it is an undeniable fact that determining students with low self-efficacy and assisting these students while they are developing their writing skills is highly important. Instructors should not only provide the standardised techniques of writing and provide corrective feedback on vocabulary and grammar but also provide one-to-one assistance whenever their students seek help. The amount of assistance provided by teachers should also have limits. As cited in Broaddus (2012), Bandura (1997) says Successes achieved with external assistance carry little efficacy value because they are likely to be credited to external aids rather than to personal capabilitiesMETHODParticipantsParticipants were 20 Turkish learners of English at a preparatory school of an English medium university, Turkey. The participants initially took a standard language proficiency probe prepared by the preparatory school raveling office. The proficiency test consisted of 80 four-option multiple choice questions before the semester started. The multiple choice items aimed to test the students level of grammar, vocabulary, and reading comprehension abilities, The passing grade for the proficiency test was determined as 60.The students who got lower than 60 took the lieu test consisting of 80 questions. The students were also required to write an essay on a topic provided by the testing office after completing the multiple choice section. According to the placement test produces, the students were placed in three different levels-A, B, and C levels. The intermediate level students were placed in A level classes. In other words, the participants can understand and speak English with some confidence and they have the grammar and the vocabulary to talk and read about a wide number of subjects. Moreover, they can esteem and consciously improve their own pronunciation. They have studied all the main tenses and can confidently make sentences, question forms and clauses in all of them. However, intermediate students are only in the start phase of improving their use of phrasal verbs and modal verbs. On the other hand, intermediate level is equivalent to IELTS pretend 4.5 5.5, TOEFL IBT pee 55, TOEIC score 450 650, Cambridge PET.Out of 20 participants, there were only 3 students who were private high school graduates. In Turkey, private high schools English curriculum is more intense when compared to s tate schools English curriculum. Both males and females were involved in the study. They ranged in age from 18 to 20.InstrumentThe questionnaire administered in the study was developed for the purpose of assessing global students in Marquette University, U.S.A. Marquette University is a private university in Milwaukee, U.S.A. The development of the questionnaire was one of the four assessment areas that Marquette university aimed to assess the four advanced ESL academic bridge courses, one of which focused on international students efficacy in their writing performance. The original questionnaire is a 36-item self-assessment scale to grade the strength of participants belief, or self-efficacy, in their writing performance. However, the questionnaire used to investigate the relationship between students self-report on their writing efficacy and their writing performance is a 20-item questionnaire. The reason why the original questionnaire was not used in the current study was the fa ct that some of the items did not serve the purpose of the study. The adopted writing efficacy questionnaire features 20 items with positive polarity (I can).The instrument of 20 item questionnaire was used to assess students self- efficacy beliefs related to the skills needed in different essay organizations and other factors that determine students writing performance as successful or unsuccessful. Some of the investigated factors through the questionnaire are brainstorming, outlining, as well as their self- efficacy in terms of grammar, vocabulary, and spelling. Level of efficacy in writing ability was metrical on a five point- likert scale included the responses (usually not true of me, somewhat true of me, usually true of me, always or close always true of me). The questionnaire will be used as the independent covariant when the relationship between self-efficacy and writing advance is investigated.ProcedureQuestionnaire is distributed to participants at the beginning of the semester as a self-completing questioonnaire. Since they were not received any writing instructions before the semester, it is assumed that this questionnaire served to measure their self-efficacy without any intervention of teacher. During the semester, they learned basics of essay writing such as paragraph organization, thesis statement and some grammar backup.Quiz advance which will be used as the dependent variable in my essay are based on the Second Quiz, took after XXXXXXX which constitutes 20% percent of the midterm grade.FindingsSelf-Efficacy of ParticipantsTable 1.MeanStandard DeviationCoefficient of interpretationitem3topic sentence3,750,640,17item11clear thesis statement3,750,790,21item20 exploitation my independent thinking3,700,660,18item14 effectively brainstorm3,650,810,22item9support /develop main point3,600,600,17item1 abbreviation3,500,610,17item8spell, capital, punctuation3,450,830,24item13a good conclusion3,450,760,22item17wording, gram., pun,spelling3,400, 880,26item15outline to logically organize3,400,750,22item10a good introduction3,400,820,24item7various sent.structures3,350,590,18item6vocab/ word forms3,250,550,17item4paragraph organization3,150,670,21item18effectively write under time constraints3,130,560,18item16revise to improve dev. org.3,050,690,23item19write quickly in English2,951,030,35item2paragraph2,950,510,17item12different types of organization2,850,930,33item5academic style savour2,580,670,26Above table shows descriptive statistics of items used in the questionnaire. Since the questionnaire is composed of Likert scale questions, 1 stands for the utmost score and 5 is the highest possible score. According to this table, participants self-efficacy is relatively high in items like topic sentence, clear thesis statement, using my independent thinking, effectively brainstorm and support/develop main point where average hit are above 3,50 over 5. Their weakest points are stated as academic styletone, different types of o rganization, paragraph and write quickly in English, where averages are below 3 over 5. Generally speaking, participants seem to be confident in idea development and they feel themselves relatively weaker in the structural aspects such as academic style and tone.Coefficient of variations, deliberate by dividing standard aberrancy to mean for each items show how responses are dispersed in each item. Highest dispersion is observed on item19, write quickly in English and on item12, which measures self-perception about the ability to use different types of organization, both coefficient of variations are above 0,34. Lowest hemorrhoid are observed on these items topic sentence, support/develop main point, summary, vocab/word forms and paragraph, all of them are 0,17.descriptive statistics give some hints about overall level of self-efficacy of participants, and it is almost sure that this is not something uni-dimensional. However a multivariate analysis is beyond the limits of this ess ay and number of cases is very small to conduct further analyses. so remaining parts of this essay will be based on the assumption that self-efficacy is uni-dimensional, something possible to measure in a single dimension.Efficacy oodles of respondents are calculated on their raw scores obtained by using above described self-efficacy questionnaire. Total efficacy score is calculated by using a simple summation of responses. Theoretical maximum score is 100 showing the highest self-efficacy score, and minimum theoretical score is 20, indicating that respondent stated him/herself on the lowest end in each question.Table . Descriptives of Self Efficacy ScoresAverageStd. Dev.Min.Max.Efficacy66,157,345386Descriptive statistics are presented above. Mean self-efficacy score is 66,15 with a standard deviation of 7,34. Coefficient of variation (V) is 0,11, indicating a low level of variation. Minimum score is 53, which is above theoretical minimum and observed maximum 86 is below theoretic al maximum. These findings show that scores are located between 60 and 90.In order to facilitate interpretation of analyses, all raw scores are transformed to standardized (Z) scores. Newly created self-efficacy scores have a mean of 0 and standard deviation of 1. Distribution of this new scores are presented in the below histogram. Although number of participants is limited (we have only 20 cases), this distribution is very close to be normally distributed.Figure . Histogram of Standardized Self Efficacy ScoresMeasurement of Academic Performance Quiz ScoresIt is so far argued that quiz scores are used to measure academic performance of participants. Quiz scores are graded over 100.Table . Descriptives of Quiz ScoresAverageStd. Dev.Min.Max.Cause and Effect Quiz Scores60,057,785283Above table shows that average quiz score is 60, and standard deviation is 7,78. If we consider that range between minimum and maximum scores is only 31, it is possible to conclude that quiz scores are rela tively less dispersed.Correlation AnalysisOur expectation is that academic performance of students is correlated with their self efficacy. As one students is more confident about his/her efficacy, it is expected that he/she performs better in courses and as he/she performas better academically his/her self efficacy increases. Since flush of causality is not clear correlation analysis is the best tool to present the nature of the relationship between self-efficacy and academic performance.In our cases, self-efficacy of participants are measured by using a self completed questionnaire and their self efficacy scores are calculated based on their answers meanwhile their quiz scores are accepted as indicators of their academic performance.Table . Correlation AnalysisCompare and Contrast QuizSelf Efficacy0,60Above table shows that correlation coefficient between self efficacy and compare and contrast quiz scores is 0.60. Correlation coefficient is a score located between -1 and 1, where -1 stands for perfect negative correlation and 1 stands for perfect positive correlation. As this coefficient comes closer to 0, it shows that power of relationship is relatively week, if it is 0, it means that there is no relationship between examined variables.A correlation coefficient of 0.60 means that there is a positive correlation between self efficacy of participants and their academic performance, a finding not falsifying our expectations. If we emphasize on the strength of this relationship, 0.60 shows a more than moderate relationship between our two variables.This finding shows that there is a positive relationship between self-efficacy of participants and their academic performance. As ones self efficacy increases, his/her academic performance also increases and since correlation coefficient is a symmetrical measure this finding also shows that as ones academic performance increases his/her self-efficacy also increases.Although the measurement of self-efficacy precedes the measurement of academic performance it is not sufficient to talk about a causal relationship between self-efficacy and academic performance because self-efficacy of participants most probably affected by their previous academic performance, such as their performance in the high school or other exams they attended. Consequently evaluate self-efficacy scores as an indicator of academic performance is a less risky choice compared to using them to forecast future academic success. In order to make such a forecasting, we need much more detailed measurement of academic performance and self-efficacy and higher number of respondents.Anova TestA further analysis is conducted to see whether there is a significant difference between students, based on their self-efficacy scores. Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) is preferred because it allows us to test statistical significance of an intervening factor on a dependent variable. We expect that students having high level of self-efficacy are more successful in academic terms. Above discussed measurement of self-efficacy is accepted as the independent variable and Quiz Scores are dependent.Since self-efficacy is an interval level variable, recoding these scores to a nominal level variable is needed. It is preferred to use standardized self-efficacy scores to facilitate interpretation.Standardized self-efficacy scores are recoded as follows Those having a score less than 0 are recoded as low efficacy and those having a score less than or equal to 0 are accepted as high efficacy. 12 students are categorized as low-efficacy students and 8 are grouped as high efficacy students.Table . Descriptives of Quiz Scores according to the Level of Self EfficacyAverageStd. Dev.Std. ErrorNLow Self Efficacy57.333.450.99512High Self Efficacy64.1310.73.7728Total60.057.781.73920Descriptive statistics of both groups are presented above. It is known that overall average of quiz scores is 60.05 with a standard deviation of 7.78. Students with low self-efficacy scores have an average of 57.33 and standard deviation of this group is 3.45. Meanwhile, students having high self-efficacy scores are also more successful in quizzes, their average is 64.13. At this point, we need to consider that standard deviation of these students is very high, 10.7 compared to other students.Table . ANOVA ResultsSum ofSquaresDf.Mean SquareF.Sig.Low Self Efficacy221.411221.414.300.05High Self Efficacy927.541851.53Total1148.9519Above presented results of ANOVA shows that difference between average quiz scores of low self-efficacy and high self-efficacy students is statistically significant. F score is 4.3 and this score is statistically significant at 0.05 level. Thus, we can falsify our hypothesis that group means are equal, meaning that students with high self-efficacy scores have higher scores in the Quiz, than students with low self-efficacy scores.Similar to correlation analysis, ANOVA analysis does not allow us to make generalizations about th e causal relationship between self-efficacy of students and their academic performance. However, it is clear that there is a statistically significant difference between these two groups of students. I believe that causal relationship has to elaborated by using more sophisticated data analysis tools and using these instruments with higher number of participants.DISCUSSIONThis essay targeted to discover whether there is a relationship between students perceptions about their efficacy in the English language and their academic performance. Literature review led us to think that there is a positive relationship between self-efficacy scores of students and their academic performance. There are a lot of reasons of this relationship discussed in details in literature review section of the essay.Our hypothetical expectation is that as self-efficacy scores of students increase, their academic performance in writing also increases. Since this relationship is recursive, meaning that self- eff icacy leads to better performance in exams and better performance may also lead to higher self-efficacy, causal relationship wont be tested in this essay.In order to measure self-efficacy of students, an adopted sport of the questionnaire developed by the Marquette University has been used with 20 students at the beginning of semester. Original questionnaire was shortened to limit it with writing related items. By using these questionnaires, an index of self-efficacy is calculated and standardized. Meanwhile academic performance of students are measured with their grades in a Quiz held on XXXth week of the semester.Correlation analysis showed that there is a positive correlation between self-efficacy of students and their academic performance. With a coefficient of 0.60, this relationship seems to be moderately powerful. As a result of restrictions of correlation analysis, it is not possible to understand style of causality between these two variables.My second analysis also showe d that difference between mean quiz scores of students with high and low level of self-efficacy is statistically significant. Standardized self-efficacy scores are transformed to a binary variable. ANOVA showed that these two groups have different mean quiz scores and this difference is statistically significant.While correlation analysis showed that there is a positive relationship between self-efficacy scores and academic performance ANOVA results presented that students having high and low level self-efficacy scores have different quiz scores. Both findings indicate that self-efficacy scores matter.It is so far argued that these findings cannot give any idea about direction of causality, since relationship between self-efficacy and academic performance is recursive. However, my analyses presented the existence of a relationship and it deserves further discussion.It is possible to repeat this exercise with a larger sample and to prevent a possible falsification of hypotheses as a result of small sample size. Questionnaire revised to measure self-efficacy may be refined and developed to make a better measurement of this concept. Fu