Design and validation of the Academic Writing Teaching Practices Questionnaire

Abstract

Academic writing is a key skill in the university context. However, there is little evidence on how it is taught, especially in disciplinary subjects. Based on this need, the objective is to develop and conduct an exploratory validation of the psychometric properties of the subscales in the Academic Writing Teaching Practices Questionnaire (student version). The research employed an instrumental approach and involved 1,109 university students from Chile. The subscales were developed based on a previous qualitative phase and a literature review. To assess content and response validity, the instrument was reviewed by nine specialists and piloted with 30 students. An exploratory factor analysis and reliability analysis were performed to analyse its internal structure. The findings showed adequate indices, resulting in an instrument composed of 43 items distributed among seven dimensions/factors: 1) importance, 2) context, 3) planning, 4) implementation, 5) assessment, 6) feedback, and 7) self-learning. It is concluded that the instrument could provide information for the development of teaching in this area.