Abstract
Argumentative essay writing is essential for English as Foreign Language (EFL) students but complicated and challenging to learn. Besides the difficulties, students often do not have belief in their argumentative essay writing skills. One approach that may facilitate students' self-efficacy is knowledge-building-based (KB-based) instruction based on knowledge-building pedagogy. The KB-based instruction aims to provide a comfortable learning environment with the online collaborative working platform (Knowledge Forum) where students feel safe contributing their ideas needed for writing argumentative essays. This study aimed to see if EFL students can improve their self-efficacy of English argumentative essay writing after implementing the KB-based instruction. The participants who were university non-English major freshmen (n=66) were divided into the control group (n=34) with the conventional writing instruction and the experimental group (n=32) with the KB-based instruction. The questionnaire of English Argumentative Essay Writing Self-Efficacy (AEWS) with five dimensions was adapted from the Self-Efficacy for Writing Scale (SEWS) (Bruning et al., 2013), which was administered to the 66 participants before and after the study. The statistical results indicated that the two groups did not significantly differ in terms of the "ideation," "conventions," and "self-regulation" (p>0.05); however, significant differences were found in terms of "argument writing ideation" and "argumentative essay writing self-regulation (p<0.05)." The results suggested that the KB-based instruction could improve students' self-efficacy on argumentation due to the KB-based instruction did create an environment where students could generate ideas collaboratively and comfortably. Pedagogical implications and future applications were also discussed.
Author Information
Li-Jen Wang, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Taiwan
Paper Information
Conference: ACE2021
Stream: Foreign Languages Education & Applied Linguistics (including ESL/TESL/TEFL)
This paper is part of the ACE2021 Conference Proceedings (View)
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To cite this article:
Wang L. (2022) Improving EFL Students’ Argumentative Essay Writing Self-efficacy through Knowledge Building Based Instruction ISSN: 2186-5892 The Asian Conference on Education 2021: Official Conference Proceedings https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2186-5892.2022.42
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2186-5892.2022.42
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