Do individual differences matter to learners' writing ability?

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine whether individual differences such as gender, interest level in writing an essay, and familiarity with and self-efficacy in writing various genres could account for 103 English-as-a-foreign language learners' writing ability. Learners' interest levels in writing an essay, familiarity with writing various genres, and self-efficacy in writing various genres were measured using four questionnaires that were administered over a period of ten weeks. An average score for each of the above variables was obtained and used for regression analysis. The learners' writing ability was represented by the average of three writing tests scores. Results show that gender, interest level in writing an essay, and familiarity with and self-efficacy in writing various genres contributed to a total of 25% of the learners' writing ability variance. Gender was highly significant and interest level in writing an essay was marginally significant, but familiarity with and self-efficacy in writing various genres were not significant.