HAWTHORNE AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE AND LITERACY, Vol. 31, No. 1, 2008. pp.

30 42 30 Volume 31 Number 1 February 2008 Students beliefs about barriers to engagement with writing in secondary school English: A focus group study Sean Hawthorne WESTERN SPRINGS COLLEGE , AUCKLAND

This paper presents findings about student beliefs regarding the barriers they face in engaging with writing tasks in English. The participants were 28 Year 10 English students from two Auckland secondary schools. The students represented engaged writers and reluctant writers from the two schools. Results suggest that interest in a topic and the perceived relevance of the task to

the student is the main factor influencing engagement. Other findings suggest that reluctant writers are more likely to be influenced by teacher, self-belief, and knowledge and skill factors than engaged writers, who are more likely to want choice and control over their writing. Some gender differences also appeared; in particular girls appeared to be more aware of the influence of

self-belief factors on engagement, and reluctant girls were particularly influenced by teacher factors. This study informs English teachers of factors that are important in improving the engagement of students in writing tasks. Introduction The purpose of the study reported here was to explore student beliefs and thoughts about the writing tasks they were asked to do

in their secondary school English classes and how they felt about them. In particular, the study focused on the potential barriers to engaging with writing that the students identified, and on what teachers of English could do to improve engagement. It was expected that students would be able to clearly describe what they found de-motivating about writing tasks they

were asked to do in English classes. The results from these focus group discussions give some clear indications of what is needed to improve student engagement with writing. In this article the term engagement is used because it is a useful metaconstruct for discussing complex tasks such as writing (Fredricks, Blumenfeld, & Paris, 2004). Engagement has three

dimensions: behavioural, emotional and cognitive, and all three are relevant when discussing engagement with writing tasks. Students need to be more than just behaviourally involved in a task to be engaged . Rather, it is the quality of thought and

purpose that they bring to their involvement that is crucial to being engaged . While there has been a significant amount of comment on how to improve student engagement in writing, particularly by advocates of the process approach to teaching writing (Atwell, 1998; Calkins, 1994; Graves, 2003; Graves & Stuart, 1985; Pritchard & Honeycutt, 2006), little of this work actually

refers to the growing research into motivation (Bruning & Horn, 2000; Hidi & Boscolo, 2007). Although we now seem to have a good understanding of the processes involved in writing, we have a lot to learn about how to develop motivation to write (Bruning & Horn, 2000). In an activity as complex as writing, issues of engagement assume great

importance as it is necessary for developing writers to persist and practise skills to become proficient (Hayes & Nash, 1996). Recent reports into students writing highlight that the writing performance of adolescents is of concern. In New Zealand, for example, the In Focus: Student Outcome Overview 2001 2005 kit prepared by the Ministry of Education (2006) reports

on analyses of the writing achievement of students from Year 5 to Year 12, and concludes that the writing skills of many secondary school students are no better than that of many primary school students (Ministry of Education, 2006, p. 13). These results are of concern because students need to be able to express their thoughts and knowledge

effectively in writing if they are to participate actively in modern society. If they are reluctant to write at school, students may find themselves unable to engage fully with a society that requires proficiency in many written genres. English teachers know that as students progress through primary to secondary school their liking for English decreases significantly. This decrease in

positive opinions about writing is of concern because it affects student engagement and achievement (Abu-Hilal, 2000; Boyd, 2002; Bruning & Horn, 2000; Coldwell & Holland, 2001; Flockton & Crooks, 1998, 2002; Hansen, 2002; Smith & Elley, 1997). It is the purpose of this study to help teachers understand what turns students on or off writing so that we can improve

their engagement with this essential skill. Method Participants Participants were 28 (15 boys and 13 girls) Year 10 students drawn from two co-educational secondary schools from different parts of Auckland. The first school is a decile 7 central city school with a role of approximately 900 (where the researcher teaches), and the second is

a decile 4 West Auckland school with a roll of approximately 1500 (Decile is an approximate measure of the socio-economic status of the neighbourhood the school draws from. A 10 point scale is used where 10 is high and 1 low). Both schools have ethnically diverse populations, although the central city school has a larger proportion of Pakeha (European) New

Zealanders. HAWTHORNE AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE AND LITERACY, Vol. 31, No. 1, 2008. pp. 30 42 31 Australian Journal of Language and Literacy

HAWTHORNE AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE AND LITERACY, Vol. 31, No. 1, 2008. pp. 30 42 32 Volume 31 Number 1 February 2008 Focus groups were formed with students on the basis of their level of reluctance to write. Two focus groups from each school were formed, each of seven students. This provided

enough variety of responses and experiences to keep new ideas flowing but was small enough that every person could feel heard (Krueger & Casey, 2000; Morgan, 1997). All students in the groups had completed a questionnaire developed specifically for this study (The Survey of Motivation to Engage in Writing [SMEW]) that measured their level of engagement with writing prior

to involvement in the focus groups. The questionnaire was administered to the complete Year 10 cohorts in two schools during an English class. The students in the groups reflected differences in levels of engagement with writing tasks, coming from either the top or bottom quartile of scores from the questionnaire administered at their school. Engaged Groups

(E1) This group consisted of four boys and three girls. The mean score from the survey results for the participants in this group was 3.82 (out of a possible 5). In this report the students in E1 are given names starting with A . (E2) This group consisted of four boys and three girls. The mean score from

the survey results for the participants in this group was 3.42. In this report the students in E2 are given names starting with S . Reluctant Groups (R1) This group consisted of four boys and three girls. The mean score from the survey results for the participants in this group was 2.48. In this report the

students in R1 are given names starting with D . (R2) This group consisted of three boys and four girls. The mean score from the survey results for the participants in this group was 2.39. In this report the students in R2 are given names starting with T . Procedure The focus groups began with the researcher

(as facilitator) describing the purpose of the group and briefly stating the kinds of questions or topics that would be covered in the 50-minute discussions. The students were asked to respond to a range of guiding questions about what types of writing they liked or disliked and what helped or hindered their engagement with writing in classroom situations. During the

50 minute discussions the students spontaneously clarified and elaborated on each other s comments and clearly felt able to agree or disagree with one another. To ensure the actual words and behaviours of the participants in the research were recorded accurately, the focus group sessions were audio-taped (Morgan, 1997). The researcher facilitated each of the focus groups to ensure consistency

of

approach in the discussions. All of the audio-tapes were later transcribed verbatim. Thematic content analysis The transcripts generated from the audio-tapes were read through carefully once by the researcher, and notes were made summarising significant or noteworthy comments and identifying themes that emerged during these first readings. The participant responses were divided up into units

of meaning (i.e., quotes on particular topics) and these were then grouped into larger categories. These categories were initially based on the discussion prompts put to the groups but were amended to reflect the broad themes that emerged in the comments. After feedback on the categorisation was received from other researchers, six broad themes were decided upon which covered most

of the comments made by the students, and also reflected the theoretical conceptualising of reluctance to write that has underpinned this research. Finally, each student response was analysed and coded. The unit of analysis used in the coding was the expression of a complete idea (comment). This meant it was possible for responses to contain more than one idea and

thus result in more than one coding category. To verify the reliability of the researcher s coding, one of the classroom teachers independently coded approximately 40% of the transcript responses. There was 89% agreement between the two coders in their coding judgements. Results In total, 591 complete ideas (comments) from across the four groups were

coded and placed into one of six themes. The six themes were interest/relevance factors, choice or control factors, environmental factors, knowledge or skill factors, self-belief factors and teacher factors. The frequency of comments within each theme, and group, is shown in Table 1. Group commonalities Results show that interest in a topic, or its

perceived relevance, is the predominant factor that the students attribute to engagement with writing tasks. This was a common finding across both the engaged and reluctant groups. The other common finding between the groups was the influence of environmental factors. Interest/Relevance Factors The most significant theme to come through the focus group discussions was the

importance of interest in a topic and the perceived relevance that the students felt about the writing tasks they were asked to do. In total, comments related to this theme (whether positive or negative) accounted for 36% of all the comments the students made. In each group, except group E2, HAWTHORNE AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE AND

LITERACY, Vol. 31, No. 1, 2008. pp. 30 42 33 Australian Journal of Language and Literacy

HAWTHORNE AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE AND LITERACY, Vol. 31, No. 1, 2008. pp. 30 42 34 Volume 31 Number 1 February 2008 Table 1. Frequency of Each Category of Comment Within Each Group Student comments Engaged Frequency of Reluctant Frequency of on various themes Groups Comments Groups Comments Within Engaged Within

Reluctant E1 E2 Groups R1 R2 Groups Comments No. No. No. % No. No. No. % Interest/Relevance factors 85 28 113 40 54 49 103 33 Choice & Control factors 21 12 33 12 13 4 17 5 Environmental factors 25 33 58 21 32 18 50 16 Learning/Knowledge/ Skill factors 21 14 35 13 22 23 45 14 Self-Belief

factors 17 6 23 8 21 15 36 12 Teacher factors 6 11 17 6 40 21 61 19 Total Comments 175 104 279 182 130 312 this area was by far the most commented on by the students (group E2 placed environmental factors slightly above interest/relevance). Group E1, the group with the most engaged students, made the

most number of comments in this area (49% of their comments were about interest and relevance). This suggests that for these students, who are comfortable in their ability to write and who enjoy writing overall, their interest in a topic and its perceived relevance to them is by far the most significant factor influencing their engagement. The following

quotes from students in each group exemplify the common concern with interest across the four groups. ALEX: The more you care about the topic the more you ll care about the writing. ALICE: If you give people topics that they are interested in or motivated about that helps. SHELLY: The more you write about something that you don t

want to write about, the more you hate writing and don t want to do it. DAN: (People) just can t be bothered. The topic s not interesting or they just don t like writing DEREK: I don t like writing essays about things that I don t give a crap about, basically. TOM: Topics. There s just nothing of interest. It s just a waste of time

if you don t like it. Students were also concerned about how often they were given topics to write about that they perceived of as having no relevance to their own lives or goals, or where they could not even see the need for doing the writing task.

AARON: I don t care about teenage issues much because they re a bit trivial really. DON: I don t like it when you re just copying something that you ve been asked to write down. I don t see the point. DEBRA: I don t like writing about the past. I hate the past. I mean, who cares? DIANE: I quite

like writing my opinion about real stuff. TRACY: [Why can t we write about] what s happening in today. Like what s happening in the 21st century. TOBY: Not like old stuff like Egyptian stuff and World War 2 stuff. TAMMY: Yeah, like something that s real. Environmental factors After interest/relevance the next largest category for overall comments

being made was the influence of environmental factors on student engagement with writing. The environmental factors included working at home or at school, working alone or collaboratively, the classroom atmosphere and also the medium that was used to do the writing and the time given to writing tasks. Both groups of writers appear to find the same environmental factors

enhance or hinder engagement with writing. For example, all groups commented on the fact that they usually preferred to work on computers rather than handwriting for their writing tasks. The reasons for this ranged from finding it physically easier to type than to handwrite through to preferring the end look of what they had produced on the computer.

SHANE: It s better on computers. DAVE: Let us do assignments on computers. That s good. That helps with my writing cos it s easy. You don t get a sore hand from writing. TRELICE: If you re writing s usually messy you can write better on computer. It was also noted that disruptive or distracting students in classes hinder engagement.

This theme was important in all four groups but there were a few points of difference between the engaged and reluctant writers. The engaged students from group E1 were usually able to work around any distractions. ABBY: If you want to work you sometimes have to separate yourself from the talkers so you won t be distracted.

On the other hand, the reluctant writers in group R2 let disruption become a reason not to have to engage with the writing tasks. TRACY: half the people in our classes won t listen to the teachers anyway. We just talk anyway so there s no point trying. HAWTHORNE AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE AND LITERACY, Vol.

31, No. 1, 2008. pp. 30 42 35 Australian Journal of Language and Literacy

HAWTHORNE AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE AND LITERACY, Vol. 31, No. 1, 2008. pp. 30 42 36 Volume 31 Number 1 February 2008 Time and place factors were also commonly mentioned as influencing engagement. That is, students commented that they sometimes found the time of day in which they were asked to complete

writing tasks a hindrance to their engagement. They did not get enough time to complete a task properly or they mostly preferred to do writing at home in their own environments. ABBY: [Some] tasks could be spread out a bit more. ANN: I much prefer to do [my essays] at home. SALLY: The time of day as

well. Like if it s first period sometimes you re ugh or last period when it s too hot and you re bothered and tired and you just want to go home. SEAN: [at home] you can do what you want, listen to music DAVE: It s not good to write in the last period. TANIA: I don t like writing after school. Another

trend in the comments on environmental factors was whether or not students were allowed to work in groups or discuss their ideas and drafts. While a few students across the groups preferred to work individually, most preferred being able to share their writing with a partner or group because this helped them feel good about what they had written

and also gave them further ideas. ABBY: I think we should have more discussions in class, because it helps you get more passionate about stuff when you re getting different points of view. Arguing with someone will make you more interested in it. SALLY: I don t know, but, well there are other people here to

help you. You can get other people s ideas about what you re writing. DIANE: I like projects and stuff where you have to do lots of things together. TANIA: If you talk about it with a friend then you get a detention. It depends on the teacher but lots of my teachers won t let us talk then

write. Apart from these two thematic categories, where there was significant uniformity in the number and tenor of comments being made, the other four categories showed differences between the groups that are discussed next. Group differences The most striking differences that emerged between the two groups of students were in the frequency

of comments made about the importance of teacher support and the influence choice and control factors had on levels of engagement. Reluctant girls made the most comments about the effects of teacher influences on their engagement with writing, and the reluctant groups expressed more negative beliefs about themselves as writers. The

results presented in Table 1 show that there were some differences in the frequencies of comments made between the engaged and reluctant groups. The two areas that are statistically significant, and that are focused on below, are those associated with teacher factors and choice and control factors. Teacher factors The most significant area of

difference between engaged and reluctant students was the contrast in the number of comments made on the influence of teacher factors. The students in the reluctant groups accounted for 78% of the comments associated with the positive or negative influence of the teacher. An independent t-test was conducted to compare the frequency of comments made on teacher factors for

engaged students (M = 1.21, SD = 1.31) and reluctant students (M = 3.93, SD = 4.36). There was a significant difference [t(26) = -2.23, p < .05, partial eta squared = .15] in the frequency of comments on this area made between engaged students and reluctant students. The following comments from students in the reluctant writer groups highlight

teacher behaviours that the students felt would affect their engagement with their work. DIANE: Some teachers just explain it, to the point where they think that they ve done enough explaining... and then they look at us like we should know by now. DEBRA: Teachers are good when they re not, like, too strict but

when they will help you and listen to you. TRELICE: Explain things properly. Instead of just making us writing it down and we don t know what to do. TANIA: The way they teach it. Teachers need to explain things better. One complicating factor in this result was the marked difference between the reluctant boys

and reluctant girls for this category, which makes it more likely that the differences in regard to teacher factors are more significant for reluctant girls than for reluctant boys. Girls made 57 (73%) of the 78 comments relating to the positive or negative influences teachers can have on engagement with writing. In this small study, however, even this large

difference in the frequency of comments on this issue was not statistically significant. When looked at in combination with group membership, results showed that girls in the reluctant writer groups (R1 & R2) made 49 (86%) of the 57 comments made by girls about the effects of teacher factors. This suggests that for girls who are reluctant

to write the way they perceive the teacher has an important role in their reluctance to write. Choice and control factors The next most significant difference between the two types of groups was HAWTHORNE AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE AND LITERACY, Vol. 31, No. 1, 2008. pp. 30 42 37

Australian Journal of Language and Literacy

HAWTHORNE AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE AND LITERACY, Vol. 31, No. 1, 2008. pp. 30 42 38 Volume 31 Number 1 February 2008 that associated with choice and control factors. The engaged students made 66% of the comments associated with the effects of having choice or control, or the lack of it, on

their engagement to write. An independent t-test was conducted to compare the frequency of comments made on control factors for engaged students (M=2.36, SD=1.78) and reluctant students (M=1.21, SD= 1.19). While not significant [t(26) = 2.00, p =.058, partial eta squared = .13], the result suggested that engaged students were likely to be more aware that being able to adapt

or mould tasks to suit their particular interests, or strengths in terms of writing genre, were important in motivating them to do their best with the writing. ABBY: [You should] have choice about your topics and what to write about. ALICE: If you give people topics that they are interested in or motivated about that helps.

SHELLY: [I like creative writing because] it gives you the freedom to do what you want. SAM: [I don t like] formal writing and essays where you ve got like, I don t know, a rigid way of doing it. The group with the highest overall levels of engagement (E1) contrasts markedly with the group with the

lowest levels of engagement (R2). Twelve percent of the comments in E1 dealt with the importance of having choice, or not, in their engagement with tasks. This contrasts with only 3% of comments from R2. A one-way between groups analysis of variance was conducted to explore the frequency of comments made regarding control effects. When scores for frequency

of comments made between the four different groups were compared there was a statistically significant difference in scores for the four groups [F(3,24) = 3.45, p <.05, partial eta squared = .30]. Post hoc comparisons using the Tukey HSD test indicated that the mean score for group E1 (M = 3.00, SD = 1.63) was significantly different from group R2 (M

= 0.57, SD = 0.79). Groups E2 and R1 did not differ significantly from any of the other groups. The students in group R2 also expressed the fact that they experienced very few opportunities to choose any of their own writing tasks. This latter group disliked writing so much, however, that the ability to choose between different types of

writing tasks made little difference to their overall engagement, because any task that involved writing was regarded in the same negative light. TANIA: We never get to write about anything we want. TRACY: I can never think of what to write. For all types of topics. TOBY: I ve just got nothing to write about. Self-belief

factors Students in the reluctant groups made 61% of comments related to the selfbelief theme. Although there was no statistically significant difference

between groups, the results suggest that reluctant students may be more aware that belief in themselves as writers plays a potentially important part in determining levels of motivation or engagement with writing tasks. An interesting result was the difference in the results by gender for self-belief factors. Girls made 37 (63%) of the 59 comments on self-belief factors. This

result raised the possibility that girls were more aware of the potential effects students beliefs about themselves as writers could have on their engagement with writing. It is also possible that for girls self-belief issues may be more important in terms of how much they will engage with writing tasks than for boys. Groups E1 and E2 made

only passing comments about how a sense of failure might stop (other) students from wanting to write, whereas groups R1 and R2 spoke personally about how experiencing failure, or believing that they would fail, was an important factor in hindering their engagement with writing. DAN: I hate knowing how dumb I am. Like, being in a low class

I just feel like shit and don t want to do any work. DEBRA: People just think I know I m not going to do well so what s the point of trying. DAVE: If you think you re going to do badly people think they re just not going to do well so it s stops them trying. TRELICE:

I worry about the teacher marking it all the time. TRACY: I was never any good at writing at school. TAMMY: Yeah. I used to write quite a lot at Intermediate, cos it was easy and now the standards got too hard and it s just really boring. Knowledge, skill and learning factors The fourth

area of difference was the number of comments students made about how their knowledge, or skill, or feeling that they were learning something, influenced their levels of engagement. The reluctant writers made 56% of the comments about the influence that knowledge and skill had on their engagement. Of interest was the fact that they made 69% of the com-

ments about how knowing something or knowing they had the skill to do a writing task (being self-efficacious for writing) improved their writing engagement. This suggests that for reluctant writers much of their reluctance may arise from a feeling that they do not know what to do for a task or how to approach a task and that they don t

know what to write about in terms of content. Many of the reluctant writers in this study mentioned being required to write about topics about which they had no background knowledge and that this had a negative impact on how motivated they were to attempt the task. HAWTHORNE AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE AND LITERACY, Vol. 31,

No. 1, 2008. pp. 30 42 39 Australian Journal of Language and Literacy

HAWTHORNE AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE AND LITERACY, Vol. 31, No. 1, 2008. pp. 30 42 40 Volume 31 Number 1 February 2008 DEBRA: [Writing about] a holiday or something is alright cos you know what you re doing so you can write. TRACY: Cos you don t understand what you have to

do. TANIA: Essays. Yeah, and speeches. I hate writing them because you don t know what to do. Discussion The students in this study were able to make some very clear statements about what aspects of writing tasks improved their engagement. Overwhelmingly, interest in and perceived relevance of the tasks they were asked to

write about were the main factors that made students more or less engaged. Interest in a topic is thought to have positive influences on a student s writing because it links what students know about a topic with what they value. For example, high levels of topic knowledge, interest and discourse knowledge have all been found to have positive impacts on

the quality of narrative writing in ninth grade and undergraduate students (Shell, Bruning, & Colvin, 1995). This was supported by the results of this study where many of the reasons students gave to explain why they preferred some topics or types of writing over others had to do with their topic knowledge or knowledge of how to write in

that style of writing. This seems particularly important with the most reluctant writers who often lack both the skills in how to write in particular styles, as well as lacking topic knowledge to have anything to actually write about. The implication for teaching is that we should be careful to give students the opportunity to write on topics they

are knowledgeable about and to teach them the topic and discourse knowledge they need to be able to do the task. Although Bruning & Horn (2000) have noted that there is still not a lot of empirical evidence about the importance of providing students with authentic tasks, this study strongly supports the conclusion that students need to

see the links between the work required of them and the real world or the personal goals they have set for themselves. Providing students with real audiences or purposes to direct their writing helps build an awareness of audience in them as writers, and helps connect with their personal interests and goals. If we only give students writing

tasks that have no real context or a purpose that makes no connections with what the student values or perceives as being important we cannot blame them for having little interest in trying to communicate their knowledge and ideas. One of the issues in secondary schooling that may affect teachers ability to give authentic writing tasks is the pressure exerted

by the national qualifications. These privilege a small number of writing tasks and also decrease the authenticity by setting very short and controlled time constraints on the production of the writing, and often only have the artificial audience of the assessor . The effect of these qualifications on student writing and motivation needs to be further examined.

The results of this study support previous research that shows that engagement is also influenced by students perceptions of teacher warmth and interest in them and their work (Wentzel, 1997). This was especially evident in the results of the reluctant girls. The reasons behind this result need further investigation, but it is possible that reluctant girls are more affected

by perceptions of teacher support because they may share the stereotypical view that girls should be able to write better than boys and that they should enjoy it more (Pajares, 2003). Rather than attributing their reluctance to write as something that they are able to control and manage themselves, the reluctant girls in this study appear to place

more responsibility for their engagement at the feet of the teachers than other groups of students. The present study also supports previous research that self-perception and belief is an important factor influencing levels of engagement with a task (Klassen, 2002; Pajares & Valiante, 2006). People s beliefs about their abilities in particular domains are known to be important

in motivating them to do what they can to achieve. One area that needs future research, however, is the suggestion in this study that girls seemed more aware of the effect of self-belief on engagement. Conclusion The goal of this study was to find out what students felt helped or hindered their engagement with writing tasks.

This study supports the findings of prior research identifying four conditions that are required to enhance the motivation to write. Namely, (1) Nurture students functional beliefs about writing. (2) Foster student engagement through authentic writing goals and contexts. (3) Provide a supportive context for writing. (4) Create a positive emotional environment in which to write (Bruning & Horn, 2000). In

addition, this study suggests that teachers of English can improve the engagement of their students in writing tasks by: (a) allowing students choice in their tasks wherever possible; (b) explaining the purpose and relevance of each task; (c) allowing students chances to collaborate on tasks; (c) being open to negotiation about deadlines, task expectations etc so that students

perceive them as realistic; (d) ensuring students have understood all of the components in the task; (e) ensuring students have been taught the knowledge and skills or strategies needed to complete the task successfully and (f) giving feedback that is constructive and detailed. References Abu-Hilal, M. M., (2000). A structural model of attitudes towards school

subjects, academic aspiration and achievement. Educational Psychology, 20(1), 75 84. Atwell, N. (1998). In the middle: New understandings about writing, reading and learning (2nd ed.). Portsmouth: Boynton/Cook Heinemann. HAWTHORNE AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE AND LITERACY, Vol. 31, No. 1, 2008. pp. 30 42 41 Australian Journal of Language and Literacy

HAWTHORNE AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE AND LITERACY, Vol. 31, No. 1, 2008. pp. 30 42 42 Volume 31 Number 1 February 2008 Boyd, F. (2002). Motivation to continue: Enhancing literacy learning for strugglingreaders and writers. Reading & Writing Quarterly, 18, 257 277. Bruning, R., & Horn, C. (2000). Developing motivation to

write. Educational Psychologist, 35(1), 25 38. Calkins, L. M. (1994). The art of teaching writing (2nd ed.). Portsmouth: Heinemann. Coldwell, M., & Holland, M. (2001). Challenges at 12 and 16: Views on some aspectsof secondary education in a former coal mining Town in Northern England. International Electronic Journal for Leadership in Learning, 5(15). Flockton, L.,

& Crooks, T. (1998). NEMP writing: Assessment results 1998 (No. NEMP REPORT NO. 12). New Zealand: Ministry of Education. Flockton, L., & Crooks, T. (2002). NEMP writing: Assessment results 2002 (NEMP REPORT No. 27). New Zealand: Ministry of Education. Fredricks, J., Blumenfeld, P., & Paris, A. (2004). School engagement: Potential of theconcept, state of the evidence.

Review of Educational Research, 74(1), 59 109. Graves, D. (2003). Writing: Teachers and children at work (20th Anniversary Edition). Portsmouth: Heinemann. Graves, D., & Stuart, V. (1985). Write from the start: Tapping your child s natural ability to write. New York: Dutton. Hansen, S. (2002). Writing sux! Boys and writing: What s the problem? Set: Research Information

for Teachers, 1, 38 43. Hayes, J., & Nash, J. G. (1996). On the nature of planning in writing. In C. M. Levy & S. Ransddell (Eds.), The science of writing, theories, methods, individual differences and applications. (pp. 29 54). New Jersey: Erlbaum, Mahweh. Hidi, S., & Boscolo, P. (Eds.). (2007). Writing and motivation. New York: Elsevier. Klassen, R.

(2002). Writing in early adolescence: A review of the role of self-efficacybeliefs. Educational Psychology Review, 14(2), 173 204. Krueger, R., & Casey, M. A. (2000). Focus groups: A practical guide for applied research (3rd ed.). Sage Publishers Inc. Ministry of Education. (2006). In focus: Information kit: Student achievement in New Zealand. Wellington, NZ: Ministry of Education. Morgan, D. (1997). Focus groups

as qualitative research (2nd ed., Vol. 16). Sage Publications. Pajares, F. (2003). Self-efficacy beliefs, motivation and achievement in writing: A review of the literature. Reading & Writing Quarterly: Overcoming Learning Difficulties, 19(2), 139 158. Pajares, F., & Valiante, G. (2006). Self-efficacy beliefs and motivation in writing development. In C. MacArthur, S. Graham & J. Fitzgerald (Eds.), Handbook of

writing research (pp. 158 170). New York: The Guildford Press. Pritchard, R., & Honeycutt, R. (2006). The process approach to writing instruction: Examining its effectiveness. In C. MacArthur, S. Graham & J. Fitzgerald (Eds.), Handbook of writing research (pp. 275 290). New York: The Guildford Press. Shell, D., Bruning, R., & Colvin, C. (1995). Self-efficacy, attribution, and outcomeexpectancy

mechanisms in reading and writing achievement: Grade-level andachievement-level differences. Journal of Educational Psychology, 87(3), 386 398. Smith, J., & Elley, W. (1997). How children learn to write. Longman. Wentzel, K. (1997). Student motivation in middle school: The role of perceived pedagogical caring. Journal of Educational Psychology, 89(3), 411 419.