Confidence and Competence in Writing: The Role of Self -Efficacy, Outcome Expectancy, and Apprehension

This study investigated the relationships among self-confidence about writing, expected outcomes, writing apprehension, general self-confidence, and writing performance in 30 undergraduate preservice teachers over one semester. Results supported social cognitive theory and prior findings reporting a relationship between confidence in one's writing abilities and subsequent writing performance. A regression model consisting of the variables noted above and a pre-performance measure accounted for 68% of the variance in writing performance. Students' beliefs about their own composition skills and the pre-performance measure were the only significant predictors. Writing apprehension was negatively correlated with writing self-confidence but was not predictive of writing performance. General self-confidence was correlated with writing self-confidence, expected outcomes, apprehension, and performance but was not predictive of writing performance in the regression model. Results and implications are discussed, especially as they relate to the need for context-specific assessments of confidence in one's own capabilities and to pedagogical obligations. In Social Foundations of Thought and Action, Bandura (1986) argued that the beliefs people hold about their abilities and about the outcome of their efforts powerfully influence the ways in which they will behave. Of all beliefs, self -efficacy, "people's judgments of their capabilities to organize and execute courses of action required to attain designated types of performances" (p. 391), is regarded by Bandura's social cognitive theory as the most influential arbiter in human agency and helps explain why people's behavior may differ markedly even when they have similar knowledge and skills. That is, what people do is often better predicted by their beliefs about their capabilities than by measures of what they are actually capable of accomplishing.