INVESTIGATING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN STUDENTS’ WILLINGNESS TO COMMUNICATE AND SELF-EFFICACY LEVELS IN AN EFL CONTEXT

Abstract

The present quantitative study aims to examine how university preparatory school students‟ willingness to communicate in English levels in the classroom and their perceptions of self-efficacy for English are related within Turkish context. It also focused on different participant characteristics such as gender, university department, university type, years of studying English, taking English courses, and experience abroad. It was conducted with 252 students studying at one foundation and one state university. Data were collected and analyzed using the scales Willingness to Communicate in English and Self-Efficacy for English. The results were achieved through descriptive statistics, independent sample t-tests, one-way ANOVA, and Pearson correlation analysis. The findings revealed a positive correlation between participants‟ willingness to communicate in English within the classroom and self efficacy perception of English. Furthermore, participants' willingness to communicate and self-efficacy views for their reading and listening skills were found to be stronger than their writing and speaking skills.