Attitudes of the preparatory class students towards the writing course and their attitude-success relationship in writing.

Abstract

This study aims to explore the attitudes of Turkish EFL students towards the writing course at university and to investigate the relationship between students’ attitudes and their overall proficiency in writing. The participants were 782 students from various departments in the pre-intermediate, intermediate and upper-intermediate levels in a preparatory program. The data were collected through questionnaires administered to the students before and after they took the writing course. The students were asked to reflect their attitudes towards the writing course as pre- and post-tests. In addition, their writing scores in the proficiency exam were assessed, and the relationship between students’ average attitude scores and their overall writing proficiency was compared and contrasted. Our results revealed that there was a slight decrease in their attitudes towards writing in the post test, which was not statistically significant. On the other hand, the overall writing proficiency results revealed that the students’ attitude towards writing skill had a positive effect on their proficiency in writing.