Using exploratory structural equation modelling to examine the writing beliefs of UK university students with and without dyslexia.

8th March 2021 : 12:45 - 14:00

Please register ahead of the webinar at this link.

University students’ beliefs about writing have been shown to impact writing outcomes. However, writing beliefs have not been explicitly examined in populations of students with dyslexia.

The aim of this survey study was to investigate whether writing beliefs could be measured in the same way across UK university students with and without dyslexia. A newly developed writing beliefs questionnaire (Galbraith and Baaijen, in preparation) was completed by UK university students with and without dyslexia (N=562). Exploratory structural equation modelling (ESEM) was used to test whether the questionnaire had a 5-factor structure, representing different types of writing beliefs. Invariance testing was used to see whether this structure held across the two groups. Follow up comparisons of latent means were conducted to see whether students with and without dyslexia had different strengths of each type of writing belief.

In this session, Sophie will discuss the ESEM framework, and how it was used within the study. She will also discuss the study’s results.