Teachers’ self efficacy: A critical link between the writing teacher and the teaching of writing in the Belizean primary school

Teaching writing requires adequate training in writing pedagogy, a love for writing, and the ability to recognize the magnitude of writing power. Even though Belize’s official language is English, for most, English is a second language, with Kriol considered the Lingua Franca of Belize. For this reason, writing can be a struggle for many and a challenge for teachers to meet the needs of their students. The purpose of this study was to explore a process-oriented writing approach that examines writing pedagogies on teachers’ self-efficacy in the teaching of writing at the primary school level. A pre-test post-test quasi-experimental study was conducted to hypothesize the effect of a nine-week writing intervention through the comparison of the pre-test and post-test scores. The data was analyzed using IBM SPSS 30. Paired Sample t-tests were used to answer research questions 1 and 2 to detect if there was a significant difference in teachers’ Personal-Efficacy and General Efficacy after a nine-week intervention in the teaching of writing. This was examined using three sub-scales, each for Personal and General Efficacy, namely efficacy in Engagement, efficacy in Instructional Strategies, and efficacy in Classroom Management. The study concluded that the nine-week writing intervention had a significant positive effect on teachers’ personal and general efficacy in writing. Suggestions were recommended for focusing on applied implications, participant diversity, and policy development in future research.