How to measure PhD students’ conceptions of academic writing – and are they related to well-being?

Abstract

This study investigated PhD students’ conceptions of writing and how they saw themselves as writers. The Writing Process Questionnaire was created to analyse PhD students’ ideas of academic writing. In addition, it was of interest, what the relation between conceptions of writing and the PhD students’ well-being was. The participants were 669 PhD students from a major Finnish university who volunteered to fill in a questionnaire. The present study covered scales for measuring six distinct theoretical constructs that were created by forming sum variables of 26 questions: Blocks, Procrastination, Perfectionism, Innate ability, Knowledge transforming, and Productivity. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used to verify the six-dimension construct. Exhaustion, stress, anxiety and lack of interest all correlated positively with Blocks, Procrastination, and Perfectionism, and negatively with Productivity. Confirmatory factor analysis conducted by LISREL confirmed the six-factor structure of the writing scale. In conclusion, there is good evidence that the questionnaire is a reliable and valid tool, and it captures some essential aspectsof academic writing process and its emotional dimensions.