Exploring Writing Self-Efficacy among Malaysian Tertiary English Learners

Despite being exposed to the language for more than ten years, writing is one of the key challenges for Malaysian English language learners. This is largely due to the influence of their first language and lack of confidence or appropriate platforms to use English effectively. This study examines whether writing self-efficacy influences writing performance across three dimensions: ideation, convention, and self-regulation. The Self-Efficacy for Writing Scale (SEWS) developed by Bruning et al. (2012) was employed to assess these dimensions in a sample of 448 participants from a local tertiary institution in Malaysia. A quantitative approach was used, with an 18-item questionnaire distributed to participants, and the data analysed using SPSS for descriptive analysis. The findings reveal that among the three dimensions of writing self-efficacy, writing convention had the highest average mean score of 3.75, followed by self-regulation at 3.35, and ideation at 3.34. These results suggest that, despite commonly being considered weak in English writing, the participants demonstrated higher confidence in their linguistic abilities, particularly in spelling and sentence completion. The study underscores the need for future research to explore the relationship between each dimension of writing self-efficacy and learners’ writing performance in greater depth. This could help identify more effective strategies to promote English writing skills among learners.