Single Paper Session 25

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Chinese Students’ Implicit Beliefs about Writing

Keywords
education;L1;writing beliefs;writing to learn
Domain
Higher Education

Abstract

The way in which an individual approaches writing and prioritises goals influences the cognitive processes involved in writing. Five writing beliefs have been identified--transmissional, transactional, revision, audience, and planning--and have been found to contribute, to varying extents, to the development of ideas and content, as well as to the overall quality of the text (White and Bruning, 2005; Sander-Reio et al., 2014). This research employed Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and Exploratory Structural Equation Modelling (ESEM) to evaluate the goodness of fit of three hypothesized models (five-factor model, two-factor model, and high-order factor model) based on theses beliefs when applied to Chinese students writing in Mandarin Chinese. The participants were 312 international students aged 18 or over, whose native language is Chinese, and who are accustomed to studying in Chinese educational settings. The results show that ESEM is a more substantive method of interpreting students' beliefs about writing. Chinese students hold all five of these beliefs, which are distinct from one another. However, the strongest correlation was found between revision and planning, which differs from the Transmissional-Planning (TMP) and Transactional-Revision (TARA) structures (the high-order factors model) suggested by Baaijen and Galbraith (2025). This study suggests that writing belief models could be developed by introducing types of revision (Galbraith & Torrance, 2004, p. 65): (i) reactive revision (or editing), which relates to planning and involves refining the text to align with pre-established goals, and (ii) proactive revision, which the TARA model assumes involves identifying potential ideas in the initial draft and developing them in later iterations.

Language choice in master's thesis writing: a motivational perspective

Keywords
academic writing;L1;L2;motivational and emotional factors in writing
Domain
Motivational, Social and Affective Processes

Abstract

Research topic / aim and theoretical frameworkAcademic writing in English is increasingly common in master’s theses in non-anglophone countries. This dominance of English has raised research concerns about preserving local languages as languages of science, while the student perspective within these multilingual tensions has been limited. In this scope, it is important to investigate students’ motivational rationales for choosing the language of their master’s thesis where a genuine choice exists. This study investigates master’s thesis writers’ motivational rationales for language choice in a Finnish multilingual university context.Methodological designWe conducted qualitative content analysis of open-ended survey responses gathered from 213 master’s students of engineering with Finnish or Swedish as their native language (language of thesis n=154 English n=62 Finnish). In the first, data-driven analysis phase, we focused on identifying common categories in the motivational rationales provided for their thesis language choice. In the second phase, guided by self-determination theory (Ryan & Deci, 2020), the identified categories were linked to the motivational spectrum, ranging from external to introjection to integration/identification. The purely intrinsic motivational category was not identified in the present research. FindingsPreliminary findings indicate that language choice is shaped by a multifaceted mix of (1) external motivation (supervisor preferences, perceived institutional norms or company needs); (2) introjected motives (anticipated visibility, career benefits, wider audience); (3) integrated/identified motives (attachment to language, ease of writing, proficiency). The choice of language (English / Finnish) is encountered across categories. We aim to provide crosstabulation and frequencies of the categories and choice of language to indicate group level and individual level variation. Relevance to domain of writing The study offers new understanding of the qualitative variation within motivational rationales for language choice of multilingual thesis writers from a self-determination theory perspective. These findings have implications for thesis supervision practices, higher education policies, academic writing instruction and motivational research on writing in multilingual university contexts.ReferencesRyan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2020). Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation from a self-determination theory perspective : Definitions , theory , practices , and future directions. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 61(April), 101860. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cedpsych.2020.101860

Student teachers’ self efficacy for academic writing

Keywords
academic writing;motivational and emotional factors in writing;proficiency;writing skills
Domain
Higher Education

Abstract

University students need to develop their academic writing skills to enhance success in their studies and future professional lives. Confidence in one's own writing ability, self-efficacy, has proven to be an important factor both for writing individual texts and for developing general writing skills (Bruning & Kauffmann, 2016), and studies have shown that self-efficacy can vary depending on the task and area (Bandura, 1997) and that writers who demonstrate stronger self-efficacy are more likely to complete their tasks and increase their text quality, regardless of how good their actual skills are (Grenner et al., 2021; Raedts et al., 2007; Sehlström et al., 2023; Schunk, 1991). This study aims to investigate how student teachers’ confidence in coping with the task of writing academic text develops during their studies, and is guided by these questions: 1. Which skills do student teachers rate as high and low? 2. How does the estimation develop during the study period? In a cross-sectional study, student teachers (n≈100) from different semesters of the Primary School Teacher Programme answered 19 statements in a self-assessment scale developed for academic writing. The assessment responses were analyzed based on the engagement in planning, translation, and revision processes (draing on the Hayes and Flower (1980) model). Initial results indicate that student teachers have a high level of self-efficacy for aspects of writing related to translating (e.g., good skills in transcription, grammar and spelling), slightly lower self-efficacy for revision aspects (e.g., reading and revising the text, identifying what works, and determining what help is needed). Student teachers report the lowest self-efficacy for aspects related to planning (e.g., identifying goals before writing, drafting, or coming up with ideas) and motivational aspects (e.g., continuing to work on the text even if you get stuck). In the next step, the results will be differentiated between the student teachers in different semesters. The study contributes to an understanding of how writing develops in young adults, and how teaching about academic writing at university level can be conducted.