Perceived Self-Efficacy And Class Engagement

Perceived self-efficacy is a student's judgment concerning his capabilities to organise and to execute courses of action required to attain a certain level of performance. These self-perceptions students have about their capabilities influence choices they make and the courses of action they pursue especially in writing. A low self-efficacy will lead to beliefs that things are tougher than they really are which can produce anxiety, stress, a narrow vision of how best to solve a problem, lower confidence, and reduced morale, which thus affects students' performance in writing. Writing is a fundamental tool used in all areas of education, and writing self-efficacy is a student's belief in his capabilities as a writer.

Students must be able to communicate adequately through the written word, and when a student experiences low writing self-efficacy, his performance on essays, written assessments and exams such as the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) suffers. Weak performance on standardised writing scores and classroom writing assessments can be the product of lower self-efficacy, including writing self-efficacy. Perceptions of efficacy influence how people behave, think, feel, and self-motivate, and these judgments of self-efficacy affect what students do by influencing the choices they make, the effort they expend, the persistence and perseverance they exert with obstacles and the thought patterns and emotional reactions they experience with writing.


A strong sense of self-confidence can serve a student well academically, and a strong self-efficacious reaction to writing an essay can engender greater interest in and attention to writing. This can also produce greater feelings of self-worth. Therefore, the necessity for developing and nurturing student writing and academic self-efficacy is fundamental to students’ success.

Past research established a direct correlation between writing self-efficacy and academic achievement. Researchers tried to understand the cognitive processes underlying student compositions and the correlation to writing self-efficacy. For example, agreed that self-efficacy and writing are related, and continued inspection concerning self-efficacy beliefs is a promising area of research in order to better understand student writing. It is reported that writing self-efficacy predicted the writing performance of undergraduates in college. It is assessed confidence with writing skills and undergraduates and reported a significant correlation between students' confidence in their writing skills and their holistic score on a 20-minute essay.

When students have little confidence in their writing capabilities, a sense of pessimism and negative thinking pervades their thought processes. Students with positive expectations, resulting from a strong sense of self-efficacy, approach written tasks with optimism and continue to strive in the face of difficulty; those with low self-efficacy give up on their goals when writing and withdraw their effort, which can have an impact on academic achievement and success in school. Gender and physiological differences also have a role in writing self-efficacy and student achievement. There is a direct correlation between student writing self-efficacy, student's self-regulatory skills, gender and physiological states, and a student's potential academic ability with writing.

Article By: Dissertation Writing Service UK