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Gap Between Self-Efficacy and College Students’ Writing Skills

This study explores the disparity between college students’ self-efficacy beliefs regarding their writing skills and their teachers’ perceptions of the latter. It also examines ways to improve the academic writing instruction provided by the institution, and the impact of a first-year introductory academic-writing course. A total of 151 third-year students and 133 lecturers in a teacher-training college answered separate questionnaires consisting of open- and closed-ended questions. The findings indicate the gap between the students’ relatively strong sense of efficacy and the level on which the lecturers perceived the students’ writing skills to lie. Both groups expressed doubts concerning the value of the academic writing course and made similar recommendations for ways to promote the level of academic writing in the college. The importance of enhancing student self-regulation in writing is thus discussed.