Writing Skills among University Students

Abstract

The 21st century is a highly competitive era that requires international cooperation and communication with global society.   The objectives of this study are to determine the level of writing skills among university students, and to determine the relationship between their awareness on the importance of reading for their writing.  The instrument is a questionnaire adapted from Zainal et al. (2011) and Asbjørnsen et al. (2021). The study involves a total of 750 students from 15 school at Southwest University of Political Science and Law in Chongqing, China. The average score is at medium low level (4.94). This indicated that the overall student’s readiness to perform for university related writing assessment of their study is at medium low level. This includes their courage for reading, self-belief on their reading and writing skills, the amount, wide and depth of reading, and their satisfaction about their grade. The average mean score for students’ problem for writing is 3.66 (moderate) and the awareness for reading is 5.55 (high). Correlation analysis suggests that an increase in student self-belief about their capability for writing will slightly decrease their ability to identify their problem for writing; and their awareness about the benefits of reading for writing.