Implicit writing beliefs and their relation to writing quality

Writers have beliefs that may influence engagement during writing and consequently effect writing quality. Students completed a writing beliefs inventory that identified transmissional and transactional beliefs. Transmissional beliefs reflect limited cognitive and affective engagement during writing whereas transactional beliefs reflect higher engagement. Relations between writing beliefs and writing quality were examined with a different group of students. ANOVA results indicated that students with low transactional beliefs scored low on organization and overall writing quality and students with high transactional beliefs scored high on idea-content development, organization, voice, sentence fluency, conventions, and overall writing quality. Results indicate that individuals hold implicit writing beliefs that can be measured and that relate in stable and predictable ways to writing quality.

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