Illusion of competence: social media and English writing proficiency among engineering students

Abstract

An illusion of competence—defined as a mismatch between learners’ perceived ability and their actual academic writing performance—has emerged among English as a foreign language (EFL) engineering students in the context of widespread social media use. To address this issue, this study employed a longitudinal quantitative ex-post facto design (N=200) to meticulously contrast students’ perceptions of their social media learning experiences against their actual writing proficiency over a 24-week semester. Objective assessments and perception questionnaires revealed a significant metacognitive gap. Despite students holding highly positive perceptions of social media for learning, their objective writing improvement was practically negligible. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) results demonstrated that this digital confidence is highly discipline-dependent—peaking among Informatics and Architecture students. Multiple regression analyses confirmed that naturalistic social media habits failed to predict academic writing proficiency. These findings carry critical implications: high digital confidence must not be conflated with academic competence. Consequently, curriculum developers must implement targeted pedagogical solutions, specifically designing “Bridge Assignments” and “comprehensible output” strategies, to actively transform students’ casual digital fluency into structured academic literacy, while future research should incorporate objective screen-time logs.