College English writing affect: Self-efficacy and anxiety

This article describes a research project into the self-efficacy and anxiety of college English students at four universities in China. A total of 738 participants completed a questionnaire measuring self-efficacy and anxiety in writing in English. This was immediately followed by a writing task. The questionnaire used a seven point Likert type scale to measure self-efficacy and anxiety in writing. The questionnaire also included open ended questions concerning student perceptions of effort, actual effort and parental pressure. The quantitative data relating to self-efficacy and anxiety were analysed using structural modelling techniques. In the first instance, confirmatory factor analysis provided evidence for the validity of constructs. Subsequently a full structural model was hypothesised and tested. The hypothesized model indicated that both anxiety and self-efficacy predicted writing performance. However, in a re-specified model a better fit was achieved. The final model indicated that the relationship between writing performance and anxiety was mediated by self-efficacy. This supports Bandura (1986) social cognitive theory of learning that perceptions of affect can influence self-efficacy beliefs. From the open ended data the results indicated that anxious students were more likely to experience parental pressure, have low effort perceptions and low actual effort; those students with high efficacy were more likely to have high effort perceptions, were less likely to experience parental pressure and were likely to spend longer studying English. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.