The Development of Writerly Self-Efficacies: Mixed-Method Case Studies of College Writers Across the Disciplines.

摘要

This thesis investigates the development and influences of the writerly self-efficacies of three college students transitioning between first-year composition requirements and disciplinary coursework. Mixed-methods--- including interviews, quantitative surveys of writerly selfefficacy, and portfolio analysis---provide insights into how students understand their abilities as writers. Students expressed both generative and disruptive self-efficacy expectations toward writing and learning. These self-perceptions were informed by mastery experiences, social persuasion, vicarious experiences, and affective states surrounding writing. For some students, first-year composition was a meaningful transition for positive efficacy expectations. The study results support the importance of recognizing students' strengths, conferencing pedagogies, sponsoring co-curricular writing experiences, discouraging normative comparisons, and teaching for genre awareness. Interviews and the quantitative self-efficacy measures revealed at times contradictory data, confirming the importance of triangulation in studying writerly selfefficacies. Implications for classroom instructors are also discussed, including strategies for teaching to support generative self-efficacies toward writing performances and learning writing.