How do college students plan and self-perceive themselves in writing? ¿Cómo planean y se autoperciben en la escritura los estudiantes universitarios?

Abstract

Writing is a complex act that imposes simultaneous demands on the writer. Recent research shows that students show great difficulties in this process, especially when it comes to producing academic texts, which can have a negative impact on their learning. The present research, correlational-transversal, aimed to relate the knowledge of the planning process and the way in which university students self-perceive themselves in writing. 2 instruments were employed: a survey on writing planning and a questionnaire of self-perception of university students as readers/writers, to a probabilistic sample of 348 students from 11 academic programs of a higher education institution in Colombia. The Chi-squared χ² test was applied, with 95% confidence, from which significant relationships were found between the variables. The results show that when students plan their writing, they take into account their audience, as well as the purpose of their writing, finding a significant relationship between these variables (p-value - 0.0185). In the same way, an association was found between those who set goals for writing and motivation (p-value 0.0004). A correlation is observed between university students who structure complete sentences when they write and the ability to present their ideas clearly and precisely (p-value 0.0021), as well as to adequately organize the elements of an explanatory-expository text, with the knowledge of textual structures (p-value 0.0248). It is important to make university students aware of textual planning in order to produce quality writing. Higher Education Institutions should design and implement educational programs that promote academic writing in the curriculum as part of the integral formation of students, since it is an indispensable factor in the world of work.