Perception of Difficulties and Learners’ Reasons in Academic Writing: A Self-Imposed Prophecy

Abstract

As a writing teacher, i find teaching writing most challenging. To begin with, writing skills are not meant to be taught, and students cannot just “know how to write” after they had attended lessons on writing skills. Writing is a process. Learners may master one process easier than others. Academic writing is a fear many undergraduates face when they enter higher institution. To make matters worse, learners may “acquire” their fear for writing in high schools. When they enter universities, the difficulties of writing reach a different level- especially for those who already feared essay writing in schools. One may see the fear of academic writing in universities as the unresolved fear from essay writing in high schools and this unresolved fear snowballed into the fear of academic writing in universities. This study is done to explore the fear of writing among undergraduates. This quantitative study is done investigate if there is a relationship between beliefs, expectations, behaviour and results when it comes writers’ perception of writing difficulty. 373 participants were purposely chosen to participate in this study. They are undergraduates in a public university in Malaysia who attended one semester of academic writing. The instrument used is a survey. A summary of the findings showed interesting information the reasons why learners find academic writing difficult. The summary also revealed the sources of fear of academic writing and their influence on the learners.