Writing self-efficacy in nursing students: The influence of a discipline-specific writing environment

Abstract

Aim: To explore if writing self-efficacy improved among first-year nursing students in the context of discipline-specific writing. The relationship between writing self-efficacy, anxiety and student grades are also explored with respect to various learner characteristics such as postsecondary experience, writing history, English as a second language status and online versus classroom instruction.

Design: A one group quasi-experimental study with a time control period.

Method: Data was collected over the 2013-2014 academic year at orientation, start of writing course and end of writing course.

Results: Writing self-efficacy improved from pre- to post writing course but remained stable during the time control period. Anxiety was negatively related to writing self-efficacy but remained stable across the study period. Inexperienced students and students with less writing experience, appeared to over-inflate their self-assessed writing self-efficacy early in the programme. This study gives promising evidence that online and classroom delivery of instruction are both feasible for introducing discipline specific writing.

Keywords: self‐efficacy; undergraduate students; writing; writing anxiety; writing pedagogy; writing scaffold.

Figure 1

Study groups and context of participation over three measurement time points. Data was collected at T1 (T2 for online term 1 participants) during their first year orientation. T2 data was delivered and collected during the first classroom session for the classroom group and by email for the online group. T3 questionnaires were delivered and returned by email for all groups