Researchers interested in psychological factors affecting writers in higher-education institutions, or academic writers, are concerned with internal variables affecting writing productivity; however few empirical studies explore these factors with samples of students who are in the process of earning master's or doctoral degrees (i.e., graduate students). In this study, we examined writing anxiety, self-efficacy, and emotional intelligence in a sample of graduate students at a large, research-intensive university in the United States. Using a survey, we collected measures on these variables in addition to demographic information from the participants. We then used the measures to descriptively compare groups of students with similar characteristics and to run three regression models to identify which variables best predicted writing anxiety. Our findings indicate self-efficacy is a statistically significant and large predictor of writing anxiety while emotional intelligence (EI) is not, though descriptive data showed moderate effects between EI and first language (i.e., whether or not a student reported English as a first language). In the presence of self-efficacy, gender remained a significant predictor of writing anxiety, while first language did not. We discuss implications for future research and practice focused on helping graduate student academic writers succeed.Graduate Students as Academic Writers 3 3 Graduate Students as Academic Writers: Writing Anxiety, Self-Efficacy, and Emotional
IntelligenceBased on global trends, only 1.6% of students are expected to complete an advanced research program, such as a doctoral degree (OECD, 2014). The low percentage of advanced degree recipients may be due to many different factors. However, writing is one known barrier for individuals aspiring to a master's or a doctoral degree (from here on referred to as graduate students). For example, nearly 50% of graduate students pursuing doctoral degrees in the United States leave the university without completing their degrees, dropping out during the research proposal or dissertation-writing phases (Cassuto, 2013;Harris, 2011). Belcher (2009a) vividly describes her experience as a master's degree student as follows: "When I started graduate school…my first quarter was tough… I began to suspect that everyone but me knew how to organize their time, do their research, and write successful papers" (p. 186). In a career where academic writing -that is, writing for academic purposes such as classroom assignments, theses, or publications in academic journals -is so central to the evaluation of one's success, understanding why graduate students struggle with writing and finding solutions to low writing productivity would benefit both the students and the institutions supporting them. Although studies have well documented the success of writing support groups at higher institutions in addition to providing frameworks for creating the writing groups (e.g., Boice, 1987;Murray & Newton, 2009;Murray & Thow, 2014), this study ...
