Gender, Writing Self-Efficacy, and Help Seeking

Abstract

This study was designed to examine gender, writing self-efficacy, and help seeking among undergraduates. The study spanned 8 years and involved 6 undergraduate cohorts (N= 671); 340 of the participants were international NESB students, and 331 were domestic native-English-speaking students. Data were collected at a liberal arts university in Southern California and included assessment of writing self-efficacy belief; reading scores based on the Gates-MacGinitie Reading Test, Level AR; an in-house writing test; SAT verbal and writing scores; frequency of help-seeking behavior; and composition grades. The results showed no gender differences with respect to writing self-efficacy belief but did show a significant gender difference with regard to writing performance. In addition, the results showed an inverse relation between writing self-efficacy and help-seeking behavior: Specifically, the international NESB students had lower self-efficacy scores than their domestic counterparts but sought help significantly more frequently. Furthermore, the international NESB students outperformed the domestic students in composition as measured by grades.

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