The Impact of Teacher Education Writing-Intensive Courses On Preservice Teachers’ Self-Efficacy for Writing and Writing Instruction

Abstract

In the United States, changes to policy as well as practice are negatively affecting writing instruction for K-12 students. While workforce demands continue to require more writing competence, public schools are shying away from including more writing instruction as they struggle to meet increasing testing demands. Additionally, teachers consistently report that they feel inadequately prepared to teach writing and feel low self-efficacy for their own writing abilities. In this multiple-article dissertation, a mixed methods quasi-experimental research design was used to compare the self-efficacy of preservice teachers taking writing-intensive education courses to those in non-writing-intensive courses. Systematic classroom observations, instructor interviews, and preservice teacher surveys were utilized to collect data.

Results of the first study show that the Preservice Teacher Self-Efficacy for Writing Inventory (PT-SWI) provides reliable and valid scores for measuring preservice teacher self-efficacy for writing, preservice teacher self-efficacy for writing instruction, and the effectiveness of the teacher preparation program for teaching writing. The second study shows that preservice teachers enrolled in writing-intensive courses do not differ from preservice teachers enrolled in non-writing-intensive courses in their self-efficacy toward writing and writing instruction. However, preservice teachers who write more often do show higher levels of self-efficacy for writing instruction than preservice teachers who write less than three times per week. Finally, study three shows that the beliefs of the instructor have a direct impact on the preservice teachers. Instructors who feel they are themselves writers and can teach writing, generally have preservice teachers with more positive views of writing. Combined, the results of these three studies show that writing beliefs influence how confident preservice teachers feel about teaching writing.