The Effect of a Pre-Writing Strategy on the Writing Apprehension Levels of Science Students

Science students are required to produce technical writing in the form of lab reports, student posters, conference papers and journal submissions. However, students commonly report writer's block when engaged with such writing activities. To address this issue several pre-writing strategies have been developed to unblock including free writing. In this study, students' writing apprehension levels towards technical writing were investigated by means of a Writing Apprehension Test (WAT) in the context of an English for Academic/Scientific Purposes (EAP/EScP) course in a Chemistry Department in Higher Education. Subsequently, students were introduced to a pre-writing exercise and WAT scores were determined post teacher intervention. Finally, students were instructed to produce written work in terms of a short story involving technical concepts of their field and WAT levels were determined anew. Interestingly, results show an increase in apprehension levels upon engagement with the pre-writing exercise. The effect is not alleviated in the technical writing stage nor does it increase in size.