EFL Instructors and Student Writers’ Perceptions on Academic Writing Reluctance

Abstract

Students’ disengagement in class activities is usually interpreted from the instructors’ viewpoints, disregarding students’ perceived causes of the phenomenon. This study investigated instructors and students’ perceptions on writing reluctance, aiming at exploring possible convergence and divergence between the participants’ ideas. Twelve instructors and thirty seven students completed a questionnaire developed by the researchers. It includes linguistic factors (e.g. task difficulty, linguistic competence and content knowledge), psychological factors (e.g. readership, self-confidence, anxiety, and motivation), methodological factors (e.g. strategy training, feedback, and L1 writing experience) and interpersonal factors (e.g. warmth, enthusiasm, and vigor). The mean scores of the participants were then calculated and compared. Results indicated that the participants’ perceptions on reluctance to writing diverge to a large extent. ‘Task difficulty’ was reported by the instructors as the most influential factor in academic writing reluctance. From the learners’ point of view, however, ‘lack of readership’ was considered as the most important factor in this regard.</p