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Self-efficacy in academic reading and writing.

Moira Maguire, Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching Dundalk Institute of Technology.

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Academic reading and writing

Students typically engage with their discipline through reading and writing (usually about their reading).

Academic reading and writing are complex literacy practices. They may be unfamiliar and are challenging to many.

Students’ beliefs impact their engagement with, and experience of, academic reading and writing.

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Academic reading and writing self-efficacy (SE).

Negative association between writing SE and plagiarism (Finn & Frone, 2004).

Writing SE shown to predict writing performance (e.g. Pajares, 2003, Prat-Sala & Redford, 2012), but other work has found small to no effects (see Mitchell et al, 2017).

Complicated by measurement of both SE and outcomes.

Writing self-efficacy helps to keep students writing (Mitchell & McMillan, 2018).

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Some evidence from DkIT

Academic reading and writing SE measured in Nursing, Midwifery and Health Students at two points across 1st year (Maguire, Everitt Reynolds & Delahunt, 2013).

Reading and writing SE strongly associated with each other and authorial identity and seeing oneself as a novice writer.

Reading and writing SE associated with deep and strategic learning strategies.

Considerable variability among students; mature students reported higher reading and writing.

Beliefs fairly stable, although students more likely to see themselves as novices at time 2.

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Some evidence from DkIT

Development of academic reading and writing closely intertwined (Everitt Reynolds et al., 2018; Maguire et al., 2020).

Reading, practice and feedback are crucial (Everitt Reynolds et al., 2018; Maguire et al., 2020)

Need both the ‘why’ and the ‘how’ (Delahunt et al., 2012; Maguire et al., 2013).

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This has informed..

Student Support

Curriculum design,

Professional development.

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Focus on sources of self-efficacy

Mastery experience- opportunities to practice and succeed; support goal setting

Vicarious experience – identifiable models and strategies.

Verbal persuasion – specific, process-focused, supportive feedback.

Internal states – clarify expectations; supportive environment

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Academic writing as a journey

  • Promote an understanding of academic reading and reading as ongoing processes.
  • Discuss expectations and why they matter.
  • Make space for reading.
  • Provide constructive, supportive feedback, including self-assessment and peer feedback.
  • Provide support beyond the first year, as writing tasks become more challenging.

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Some programme focused questions

What messages do your students get about academic reading and writing?

What, where and when are they taught?

Where do they get an opportunity to discuss disciplinary expectations?

What kind of opportunities do they have to develop their reading and writing across the programme?

What feedback do they get on their writing, and can they use it to feedforward?

What support is available?

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Student reviewers

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References

  • Delahunt, B, Everitt-Reynolds, A, Maguire, M & Sheridan, F.A. (2012). Situating academic writing in the undergraduate curriculum: Some reflections. All Ireland Journal Higher Education, 4(2), 69.1-69.10.
  • Everitt-Reynolds, A, Maguire, M & Delahunt, B (2018). ‘‘They don’t want my opinion do they?’: Authorial identity and transitions into and within higher education. In K Spelman Miller & M Stevenson (eds). Transitions in Writing. Brill, Boston, pp. 143-169.
  • Finn, K. V, & Frone, M. R. (2004). Academic performance and cheating: Moderating role of school identification and self-efficacy. Journal of Educational Research, 97. 115-122.
  • Maguire, M., Reynolds, A., & Delahunt, B. (2020). Reading to Be: The role of academic reading in emergent academic and professional student identities. Journal of University Teaching & Learning Practice, 17(2).
  • Maguire, M., Reynolds, A., & Delahunt, B. (2013). Self-efficacy in academic reading and writing, authorial identity and learning strategies in in first year students. All Ireland Journal of Higher Education, 5(2), 111.1-111.17.
  • Mitchell, K.M., McMillan,D.E. & Lobchuk, M.M. (2019). Applying the ‘Social Turn’ in writing scholarship to perspectives on writing self-efficacy. Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education, 15.
  • Mitchell, K.M. & McMillan, D.E. (2018). A curriculum-wide assessment of writing self-efficacy in a baccalaureate nursing program. Nurse Education Today, 70, 20-27.
  • Pajares, F. (2003). Self-efficacy beliefs, motivation and achievement in writing: A review of the literature. Reading & Writing Quarterly, 19, 139-158.
  • Prat-Sala, M. & Redford, P. (2012). Does self-efficacy matters? The relationship between self-efficacy in reading and in writing and undergraduate students’ performance in essay writing. Educational Psychology 32, 9-20.