The Correlation between Law College Students' Self-Efficacy and their Writing Achievement in English Language

Nada M. Hindi, Instructor

	The Correlation between Law College Students' Self-Efficacy and their Writing Achievement in English Language
Al-Fatih journal
Article 1, Volume 11, Issue 64, 2015, Pages 1-22
Author
Instructor Nada M. Hindi
Abstract
There is no doubt that writing is one of the most difficult skills for second language learners to master, in particular, for law college students who learn English for legal purposes. Acquiring writing skills that are highly complex is not the only factor which makes students achieve success in writing. There are other factors which influence students' outcome achievement like having confidence in their own capabilities known as self-efficacy beliefs. The construct of self-efficacy has received increasing attention and has been proved to have a significant positive correlation with writing achievement. Consequently, students who have high self-efficacy in their own writing skills, are expected to accomplish writing tasks successfully, on the other hand, those who show low self-efficacy are expected to fail even before they start writing. The aims of this study are: 1.Investigating the correlation between law college students self-efficacy and their writing achievement in English language. 2.Identifying the difference in gender between male and female law students as for self-efficacy and achievement. 3.Identifying Law students' performance in the self-efficacy scale. To achieve the aims of the study, the following hypotheses have been posed: 1.There is a positive correlation between law college students' self-efficacy and their writing achievement in English language. 2.There is a difference in gender between male and female law students as for self-efficacy and achievement. 3.Law college students have self-efficacy in their writing capabilities. To achieve the aims of the study and verify the hypotheses, a sample of 40 students are randomly chosen from forth stage, law department, college of law and political sciences, Diyala university, in addition to 30 students who represent the pilot study. The students are asked to answer the self-efficacy scale for writing and to be compared with their writing achievement. By using certain statistical methods, such as t-test formula, Pearson correlation coefficient, Alpha Cronbach correlation coefficient, and spss, the following results have been obtained: 1. The computed r (0.929) is higher than the table one (0.25) at a degree of freedom of (38), which means that the correlation is positively significant. 2. Concerning the difference between male and female law students as for self-efficacy beliefs and writing achievement, it has been revealed that the computed t-value(1.43) is lower than the table one (1.68) at a level of significance of (0.05) and degree of freedom of (38), accordingly, the difference is not significant. 3.Since the mean score of students' self-efficacy is (45.43)which is higher than the theoretical mean (30), it means that law students have acceptable degree of self-efficacy beliefs in their writing capabilities. According to the study results above, the following conclusions can be put forwards: 1. There is a significant positive correlation between law students' self-efficacy and their achievement in writing. 2. There is no significant difference as for self- efficacy and writing achievement between male and female students. 3. When comparing the mean score of self-efficacy grades with the theoretical mean, it shows that law students have efficacy beliefs in their writing capabilities.
Keywords
Self; efficacy; legal English; writing achievement

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