Journal Review : Identify Its Structure

How to read a journal article?

Read a journal article will be more easily understood once you understand the structure of each component. Journal article normally contains; abstract, literature review, methods, results, and conclusion. Let me show you how it works with a journal article below.

College Students’ Writing Self-Efficacy and Writing Self-Regulated Learning Strategies in

Learning English as a Foreign Language

Abstract

The abstract is normally one paragraph that appears before the article. The abstract provides a summary of the entire article. You should read it carefully to determine the following what topic are the authors studying? What was their primary finding?

Abstract

This study aims to examine how writing self-efficacy and writing self-regulated learning (SRL) strategies are related to writing proficiency among college students in an English as a foreign language (EFL) context. The Questionnaire of English Writing Self-Efficacy (QEWSE) and the Questionnaire of English Writing Self-Regulated Learning Strategies (QEWSRLS) were administered to 319 sophomore Chinese students. Their writing proficiency was measured by their writing scores on the writing section of the College English Test Band 4 (CET-4). The results showed that EFL students reported a moderate level of self-efficacy and infrequent use of SRL strategies in the course of writing. Moreover, both writing self-efficacy and writing SRL strategies contributed significantly to the prediction of students’ writing proficiency. Since self-efficacy and self-regulation are crucial to students’ writing proficiency, the current study provides classroom teachers with insights about how to incorporate instructions into EFL classrooms to improve students’ writing outcomes.

Literature Review

You should read it carefully to determine the following what topic are the authors studying? What was their primary finding? Literature Review The literature review provides information about past studies that have been done on this topic. You should read it carefully to determine the following literature review is often at the beginning of the article. You can identify it because it contains citations, like "(McCloud and Miller, 2008)" How have these past studies led the authors to do this particular study? What are some of the most important past findings on this topic?

Literature Review

A large body of research has investigated the relationship between writing self-efficacy

and writing proficiency (e.g., Bruning et al., 2013; Prat-Sala & Redford, 2012; Villalón, Mateos,

& Cuevas, 2013; Wang, Hu, Zhang, Chang, & Xu, 2012). Studies also found the mediational effect of writing self-efficacy on the association between writing proficiency and affect constructs (i.e., anxiety or motivation) (Woodrow, 2011; Zhang & Guo, 2012). Self-efficacious student writers were highly motivated (Zhang & Guo, 2012), experienced less anxiety, exerted more effort and ultimately did well in writing (Woodrow, 2011). Writing self-efficacy was also positively associated with other motivational attributes such as value of writing, self-concept, self-efficacy for self-regulation, task-approach goals, and performance-approach goals, but negatively correlated with performance-avoidance goals (Pajares, 2003; Pajares et al., 2000; Pajares & Valiante, 2001). Attempts were also made to investigate gender differences in writing self-efficacy (e.g., Anastasiou, & Michail, 2013; Pajares, 2003; Villalón et al., 2013).

Methods

The methods section provides information about the individuals that the authors studied and the methods section follows the literature review. It can often be identified because it will have a title of "methods" or "methodology" the way that they conducted their analysis. You should read it carefully to determine the following: Is the study qualitative (based on interviews, ethnography, participant observation, who were the participants in this sample? What makes them unique? Is the sample a good representation of the entire population? If not, how are they different? (content analysis), quantitative (based on statistical analysis), or multi-method (includes both qualitative and quantitative analysis) Please note: you are not expected to understand the exact methodology used to analyze the study, but you should be able to answer the above questions.

Method

Participants

Convenience sampling was employed, and participants consisted of 330 sophomores

from seven intact classes enrolled in College English Course at two major universities situated in

Northwest China. Sophomore students were selected because they have received sufficient writing instructions and practice. The two universities are both tier-one public universities and the curricula and textbooks of English courses are similar for non-English major students in China.

Instruments

The Questionnaire of English Writing Self-Efficacy (QEWSE) was adapted from the

Self-Efficacy for Writing Scale (SEWS) (Bruning et al., 2013), which was to measure middle

and high school students’ writing self-efficacy, as well as the Questionnaire of English Self-

Efficacy (QESE) (Wang & Bai, 2017), which was to measure EFL students’ general English

self-efficacy.

Procedure

The Institutional Review Board (IRB) of the researchers’ university approved the study

and all participants returned signed informed consent forms upon entering the study, which

specified the purpose of the study, the participants’ roles in data collection, and the confidential

and voluntary nature of the research.

Data Analytical Procedure

Descriptive statistics such as means and standard deviations of the participants’ writing

self-efficacy, writing SRL strategies and students’ writing proficiency were reported and

interpreted. Pearson correlation coefficients were used to represent the relationships between

writing self-efficacy beliefs, writing SRL strategy use and writing proficiency.

Results

The results section provides information about what the authors found when they analyzedThe results section follows the methods. It will often have the title "results" or "findings"their data Please note: you are not expected to be able to read the tables/graphs or to understand the numbers provided by the authors. Instead, you should focus on the text of the results section.You should read it carefully to determine the following:o What were some of the authors' main findings?

Results

EFL Students’ Writing Self-Efficacy and SRL Strategy Use

The first purpose of the study was to investigate the status quo of writing self-efficacy

beliefs and writing SRL strategy use among college students. The study found that EFL students

reported moderate levels of self-efficacy in writing, which was largely consistent with previous

studies (Kim et al., 2015; Wang et al., 2012; Zhang & Guo, 2012). The participants expressed

relatively higher levels of self-efficacy for Organization and lower levels of self-efficacy for the

Use of English Writing, which suggested that students felt more efficacious in paragraph

construction and idea development, but less efficacious in doing practical writings such as

sending e-mails to their friends or writing diaries in English.

Correlation between Self-Efficacy, SRL Strategies, and Writing Performance

The second research purpose was to examine the relationships between writing selfefficacy,

writing self-regulated learning strategy use and students’ writing proficiency. The

results revealed that writing self-efficacy was positively associated with writing proficiency,

which echoed results from previous studies (Bruning et al., 2013; Pajares, 2003; Pajares et al.,

2000; Pajares & Valiante, 2001; Prat-Sala & Redford, 2012; Zhang & Guo, 2012). This study

also noted that students’ writing proficiency had a stronger correlation with self-efficacy for

Grammar than with self-efficacy for Ideation.

Predictive Effects of Writing Self-Efficacy and Writing SRL Strategies

The MANOVA results found no gender differences in writing self-efficacy, writing self-regulation,

and writing proficiency. These findings were partially consistent with Villalón et al.’s

(2013) study, which found gender differences in writing proficiency but no gender differences in

writing self-efficacy. These findings, however, contradicted results from some previous studies

(e.g., Andrade et al., 2009; Pajares & Valiante, 2001), which found gender differences in writing

self-efficacy and writing proficiency favoring girls.

Conclusion/Discussion

The conclusion or discussion section summarizes the authors' main findings and explains why the findings are so important the conclusion or discussion section follows the results section. It will often have the title 'conclusion" or "discussion" You should read it carefully to determine the following o What limitations of the study do the authors identify (if any)?o What were the authors' overall findings?Why are these findings important? ns for future research do the authors make (if any)?

Conclusion

The study is also significant in providing information about the contribution of each

individual factor of writing self-efficacy and writing SRL strategy use to student’ writing

performance. EFL teachers should encourage students to adopt more review and revision

strategies in writing and provide more writing resources and opportunities for them to practice.

Additionally, it is imperative for EFL teachers to focus on the instruction of various genres of

writing and emphasize the pragmatic aspect of writing in both academic and practical contexts.

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