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David Blakesley wrote:

>One key finding is that Directed Self-Placement is not simply a measurement
>of general confidence. There is convincing research demonstrating that
>self-efficacy (which is like task-specific confidence) has a positive
>correlation with actual writing ability. Erica Reynolds, now under Ed
>White's fine tutelage at U of A, synthesized that research nicely in the MA
>thesis she completed at SIUC last summer. Maybe Erica can chime in on this
>issue (?).

Erica Reynolds replied:

Thank you for the invitation, Dr. Blakesley. I have been watching the
recent flurry of posts this week with rapt interest. Please excuse the
length of my chiming.

The title of my MA thesis is Self-Efficacy and Directed Self-Placement:
Apprehension, Confidence, and Gender Components. Just to clarify,
self-efficacy is a concept borrowed from social psychology and refers to
people's judgments of their capabilities to organize and execute courses of
action required to attain certain goals. The following FAQs and responses
might answer some of the queries taking place recently on the listserv or
simply serve to create further avenues for questioning. Feedback welcomed.

***Can students really make the right choice, in terms of writing
composition placement, on their own?

Research on self-efficacy and its influence on writing indicate
that they can. Studies conducted by McCarthy, Meier, Rinderer (1985),
Bruning, Murphy, and Shell (1989), and Johnson and Pajares (1994), have
shown that self-efficacy, which is expressed as a situation and
subject-specific personal confidence in one's ability to successfully
perform tasks at a given level, is a strong predictor of actual ability.
Students who feel strongly efficacious that they will be able to perform
specified writing skills are indeed able to do so. Furthermore, strongly
efficacious writers produce writing which is superior in macro-level
qualities to writing produced by their low self-efficacious peers.

***Do apprehension, confidence, self-efficacy, or all three, in relation to
writing, play a role in a student's placement decision?

It is difficult to say, exactly, what determines a student's
ultimate placement decision. Ideally, the "directed" aspect of Directed
Self-Placement assumes the most influential role. In other words, students
read the brochure, reflect on their reading and writing abilities, and then
choose the course that best describes them. Certainly, it is possible that
a student may make a decision based on such factors as peer or parental
pressure. Barring uncontrollable external variables, however, research has
shown that a student's degree of apprehension, which is a tendency to
either approach or avoid particular situations, is, like self-efficacy, a
very strong predictor of success. Research by Daly and Miller (1975), Daly
(1978), Daly, Faigley, and Witte (1981), and Daly and Wilson (1983) has
shown that students with low apprehension with regard to writing are more
competent writers in terms of both skills and performance than are their
high apprehensive peers. Furthermore, there appears to be an inverse
relationship between strong writing self-efficacy and feelings of writing
apprehension. This relationship helps to explain the similarities between
confidence, self-efficacy, and writing apprehension. In other words,
students who feel self-efficacious (confident) about their writing ability
are also low in apprehension. Conversely, students who are highly
apprehensive (lack confidence) also report weak self-efficacy. Research
has shown that the role that writing apprehension assumes in undergraduate
student writing is predictive of what students will attempt with regard to
writing to begin with. This finding lends testimony to the idea that
students with high writing apprehension will be less likely to enroll in an
upper-level writing course. Furthermore, writing apprehension, like
writing self-efficacy, is thought to develop over time and as a response to
evaluative feedback. Students who feel highly apprehensive report having
experienced previous failures in terms of writing while students with low
apprehension report having experienced success. Interestingly, Daly and
Miller (1978) found that males report higher levels of apprehension with
regard to writing than do females and, as would be expected, report
previous experiences of failure as the reason.

***Are some categories of students, for instance males or females, more
capable than others of accurately assessing their own skills?

While little research has been conducted to address whether females
or males are more capable of accurately assessing their abilities, the
studies that have been done suggest that while both are surprisingly
capable of calibrating their skills, females appear to be more capable.
Research by Fox, Lundeberg, and Puncochar (1994) showed that while there is
a tendency for both men and women to be overconfident when assessing the
degree of confidence they have in their abilities, undergraduate men were
especially overconfident even when incorrect. Based on attitudinal research
with regard to writing and its dependence on success or failure in past
writing experiences, it is interesting that Knudson (1993) and Daly (1978)
have found that females have more positive attitudes about writing while
males have less positive attitudes and experience more apprehension.

***What if students see themselves as poor readers and writers, and are
actually very capable?

Gilles and Royer explain that their students who choose the basic
writing course see "themselves as poor readers and writers." And the
reasons their students cited most frequently for choosing the basic writing
course "centered on behavior and self-image." Although there is strong
evidence to suggest that students' levels of writing self-efficacy and
writing apprehension are valid predictors of success, Johnson and Pajares
(1994) report that some students indeed underestimated their confidence in
terms of writing performance. Roger Gilles maintains, however, that "this
is not necessarily a bad thing" and points out that students whose low
confidence is not justified "will undoubtedly realize this" after placing
themselves "and begin to build some confidence in their writing and perhaps
even learn not to sell themselves short in the future."

**What if students have an unfounded low opinion of their writing due to
general lack of self-confidence or an inflated opinion of their writing due
to high self-confidence?

Research, by Daly and Wilson (1983) and others, suggests that no
correlation exists between writing self-efficacy and general
self-confidence. Self-efficacy is subject- and situation-specific and
general self-confidence has not been shown to generalize across personality
or academic domains. Dale Schunk (1991) explains that even "within an
academic area, a high self-concept does not imply that students feel highly
confident in all academic areas." For instance, "students might judge
their competence high in science and mathematics, moderate in English and
social studies, and low in French and Latin" and within mathematics,
"students might feel efficacious about algebra but not geometry."

Again, please excuse the long post.

• Bruning, Roger H., Carolyn Colvin Murphy, and Duane F. Shell.
  "Self-Efficacy and Outcome Expectancy Mechanism in Reading and Writing
  Achievement." Journal of Educational Psychology 81 (1989): 91-100.
• Daly, John A. "Writing Apprehension and Writing Competency." Educational
  Research 72 (1978): 10-14.
• Daly, John A., Lester Faigley, and Stephen P. Witte. "The Role of Writing
  Apprehension in Writing Performance and Competence." The Journal of
  Educational Research 75 (1981): 16-21.
• Daly, John A. and Michael D. Miller. "The Empirical Development of an
  Instrument to Measure Writing Apprehension." Research in the Teaching of
  English 9 (1975a): 242-49.
• ---."Further Studeies on Writing Apprehension: SAT Scores, Success
  Expectations, Willingness to Take Advanced Courses and Sex Differences."
  Research in Teaching English 9 (1975b): 250-56.
• Daly, John A. and Deborah A. Wilson. "Writing Apprehension, Self-Esteem,
  and Personality." Research in the Teaching of English 17 (1983): 327-341.
• Fox, Paul W., Mary A. Lundeberg, and Judith Puncochar. "Highly Confident
  but Wrong: Gender Differences and Similarities in Confidence Judgments."
  Journal of Educational Psychology 86 (1994): 114-21.
• Gilles, Roger. "Confidence, Man." 15 May 1998. Online Posting. Writing
  Program Administrator. http://lists.asu.edu/archives/wpa-l.html. 1 March
  1999.
• Gilles, Roger, and Daniel J. Royer. "Directed Self-Placement: An Attitude
  of Orientation." College Composition and Communication 50 (1998): 10-11.
• Johnson, Margaret J. and Frank Pajares. "Confidence and Competence in
  Writing: The Role of Self Efficacy, Outcome Expectancy, and Apprehension."
  Research in the Teaching of English 28 (1994): 313-31.
• Knudson, Ruth E. "Development of a Writing Attitude Survey for Grades 9 to
  12: Effects of Gender Grade and Ethnicity." Psychological Reports 73
  (1993): 587-94.
• McCarthy, Patricia, Scott Meier, and Regina Rinderer. "Self-Efficacy and
  Writing: A Different View of Self-Evaluation." College Composition and
  Communication 36 (1985): 465-71.
• Schunk, Dale H. "Self-Efficacy and Academic Motivation." Educational
  Psychologist 26 (1991): 207-31

Erica J. Reynolds
Graduate Student
The University of Arizona