The paper explores accordance or discordance between efficacy beliefs of adult students and their writing performance, using a mixed methods design. The participants are 33 students with learning disabilities (LD) and 35 low-achieving (LA) students, who were attending two Second-Chance Schools (SCSs), a specific type of adult education. Quantitative analysis reveals that both LD and LA students raised their writing and spelling self-efficacy considerably, although they did not seem to enhance their writing and spelling performance during their school attendance. The qualitative analysis reveals that the disproportional increase in efficacy beliefs of adult LD and LA students could be attributed to the writing practices followed in the SCSs. Implications for practice are considered. (Contains 3 tables.)