Pre-service ESL teachers\u27 reflections on their feelings toward action research writing

A productive skill, writing has also been viewed as a demanding process, especially in a second language setting mainly due to the students\u27 difficulty in using a second language in expressing their thoughts. Since writing requirements at the college level are more complex, many college students are more anxious as they are initiated into library research for instance (Mellon, 1986) because the activity is something new to them (Daly & Hailey, 1980). The task is likewise deemed demanding (Rose, 1980), and at the same time, compulsory (Powers, Cook & Meyer, 1979). To make it worse, negative attitudes about writing appear to be self-fulfilling (Daly, 1977). This study is motivated by the need to further understand what students feel about the research process as they do a research proposal and their reflection about their own emotions toward doing research. Participants were 25 Education (major in English) students who were in their junior year in the program at the time of data gathering. Data came from four sets of reflective logs written by the students after each major research task (finding a research focus, planning the methodology, consulting with the professor, revising and presenting the proposal) in their pre-thesis writing class. Analyzing the reflective logs using thematic analysis, the researchers were able to identify emerging themes which were evaluated and subsequently confirmed by two inter coders with 95% agreement. Results show that the students reported both positive and negative emotions focused on themselves as researchers (feeling good about themselves and their skills), on the particular research task (perceived ease or difficulty and usefulness), or of other people (frustration and appreciation of their group mates and of the teacher). Their emotions at various stages of four research writing tasks were reported as well. © 2018 TESOL International Journal