Predicting Faculty Intentions to Assign Writing in Their Classes

Abstract

Teachers who offer undergraduate courses agree widely on the importance of writing assignments to further undergraduate education. And yet, there is a great deal of variance among teachers in their writing assignments; some teachers assign no writing whatsoever. To determine the variables that influence the decisions of teachers about whether to assign writing, we predicted their intentions to assign writing from attitudes, subjective norms, perceived control, and perceived difficulty pertaining to assigning writing. Zeroorder correlations and hierarchical regression analyses implicate attitude and perceived difficulty as the most important predictors of teacher's intentions to assign writing in two studies.We also obtained open-ended belief statements in Study 1 and used them to obtain quantitative belief data in Study 2 to find and validate the importance of the impact of particular specific beliefs on intentions to assign writing. Teachers who offer undergraduate courses agree widely on the importance of writing assignments to further undergraduate education. And yet, there is a great deal of variance among teachers in their writing assignments; some teachers assign no writing whatsoever. To determine the variables that influence the decisions of teachers about whether to assign writing, we predicted their intentions to assign writing from attitudes, subjective norms, perceived control, and perceived difficulty pertaining to assigning writing. Zero-order correlations and hierarchical regression analyses implicate attitude and perceived difficulty as the most important predictors of teachers' intentions to assign writing in two studies. Predicting Faculty Intentions to Assign Writing in Their ClassesWe also obtained openended belief statements in Study 1 and used them to obtain quantitative belief data in Study 2 to find and validate the importance of the impact of particular specific beliefs on intentions to assign writing.

Postsecondary Faculty Attitudes and Beliefs about Writing-Based Pedagogies in the STEM Classroom

“…However, the use of writing in STEM classrooms is limited in scope ( Stroumbakis et al. , 2016 ; Trafimow et al. , 2017 ), and where it is assigned, it tends to be used by localized practitioners rather than systemically adopted across disciplines ( Rivard, 1994 ; Poock et al.…”

“…, 2018a ). However, there is an even greater dearth of research focused on faculty beliefs about using writing in STEM undergraduate classrooms; what does exist suggests that faculty assignment of writing is also more tied to beliefs and attitudes than to awareness of research regarding effective classroom use ( Salem and Jones, 2011 ; Trafimow et al. , 2017 ).…”