Writing self-efficacy in nursing students: The influence of a discipline-specific writing environment

To explore if writing self-efficacy improved among first-year nursing students in the context of discipline-specific writing. The relationship between writing self-efficacy, anxiety and student grades are also explored with respect to various learner characteristics such as postsecondary experience, writing history, English as a second language status and online versus classroom instruction.

A one group quasi-experimental study with a time control period.

Data was collected over the 2013-2014 academic year at orientation, start of writing course and end of writing course.

Writing self-efficacy improved from pre- to post writing course but remained stable during the time control period. Anxiety was negatively related to writing self-efficacy but remained stable across the study period. Inexperienced students and students with less writing experience, appeared to over-inflate their self-assessed writing self-efficacy early in the programme. This study gives promising evidence that online and classroom delivery of instruction are both feasible for introducing discipline specific writing.