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Creating an Instrument to Explore the Self-Efficacy of Writing Instructors to Teach Apprehensive Writers

Writing apprehension is a writing difficulty that can impair the writing experiences of students. While researchers have proposed many interventions that teachers can implement to assist their students who struggle with writing apprehension, there has not been an instrument that is designed to measure teacher self-efficacy to help these same students. This study created such an instrument, entitled the Self-efficacy to Teach Apprehensive Writers Scale (STAWS), using Tschannen-Moran and Woolfolk Hoy’s (2001) Teacher Sense of Efficacy Scale and Daly and Miller’s (1975) Writing Apprehension Test as model instruments. The new instrument was designed to measure writing instructor self-efficacy to teach their students who struggle with writing apprehension. Results from an exploratory factor analysis indicate that the STAWS represents a two-factor construct, measuring teacher self-efficacy to (a) engage apprehensive writers (α = .80), and (b) identify and meet the needs of apprehensive writers (α = .79). This two-factor solution explains approximately 58% of the variation in responses from instructors of first-year writing. While the instrument still needs to be validated, preliminary analysis indicates that instructors of first-year writing may experience moderately high self-efficacy to teach their apprehensive writers. First-year writing instructors appear to feel slightly more confident in their ability to identify and meet the needs of apprehensive writers than they are to engage these writers. Future research should focus on validating the instrument and using it to explore different types and demographic groups of teachers, including different levels of experience with sources of self-efficacy.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:BGMYU2/oai:scholarsarchive.byu.edu:etd-10809
Date12 December 2022
CreatorsRomrell, Kathleen Marie
PublisherBYU ScholarsArchive
Source SetsBrigham Young University
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typetext
Formatapplication/pdf
SourceTheses and Dissertations
Rightshttps://lib.byu.edu/about/copyright/

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