A Primary Research On Writing Self-efficacy Of The High School Student

Writing self-efficacy is a new realm in China's educational psychology. By now, few experts devote to the research on it and no systematic theory and measuring instrument is set up. In order to fill in the blank, this research designed a set of measuring tools with high credibility and validity, which was based on the structure of writing self-efficacy, to analyze the status and characteristics of high school students in our country. This research can be benefit to national writing self-efficacy research and to writing teaching reform. Based on others'achievement and interview, the study formed it's own theoretical framework and designed a questionnaire to survey writing self-efficacy of high school students. The questionnaire was based on another answer-opening questionnaire on 146 objects and the exploring factor analysis on the first results of 174 objects questioned. There are 389 objects undergoing the final questionnaire. The result, whose validity and credibility is high, is analyzed by several statistical methods. The confirmatory factor analysis has been done. The difference of writing self-efficacy of high school students in different schools, grades and genders also got investigated. And relation between writing self-efficacy of high school students and learners'achievement on writing is discussed. The results showed that: (1) The structure of writing self-efficacy of high school students could be divided into two parts: writing task and writing competence self-efficacy. Writing competence self-efficacy could be divided into four sections further: structuring, choosing, expressing, and modifying self-effect. (2) Questionnaire of writing self-efficacy of high school students was designed on the base of the structure for writing self-efficacy of high school students. With high validity and credibility, the questionnaire could be used as a kind of assessment tool among high school students. (3) The high school student had the average level of writing self-efficacy. (4) Students in different kinds of school had different self-efficacy in writing, writing tasks, writing competence and other aspects. Generally speaking, students'writing self-efficacy in exemplary schools was much higher than those in common middle schools and vocational schools. (5) Writing self-efficacy of high school students developed with grade level. And the differences lied in general writing self-efficacy, writing competence and other expressive self-efficacy. (6) Writing self-efficacy of high school students differed on genders. Female students usually enjoyed higher self-efficacy not only in general but also in writing task, writing competence and other expressive competence. (7) Writing-high-scoring students had better writing self-efficacy. While writing-lower-scoring ones had lower writing self-efficacy.