Abstract
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.
Degree
MA
College and Department
David O. McKay School of Education; Teacher Education
Rights
https://lib.byu.edu/about/copyright/
BYU ScholarsArchive Citation
Romrell, Kathleen Marie, "Creating an Instrument to Explore the Self-Efficacy of Writing Instructors to Teach Apprehensive Writers" (2022). Theses and Dissertations. 9800.
https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/9800
Date Submitted
2022-12-12
Document Type
Thesis
Handle
http://hdl.lib.byu.edu/1877/etd12638
Keywords
self-efficacy, teacher attitudes, writing apprehension, test construction, exploratory factor analysis, freshman composition
Language
english