Academic Writing of Saudi Graduate Students: Issues and Improvements

Abstract

This study investigates research writing difficulties encountered by Saudi graduate students at a Saudi university and seeks to offer interventional guidelines accordingly. A fuller understanding of these difficulties will contribute to the development of instruction aimed at improving students’ research writing skills. The main question this study addresses is this: What are the major academic writing problems facing Saudi graduate students? The investigation used an explanatory sequential mixed methods approach involving 87 participants at the University of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The data were collected through a 20-item Likert scale questionnaire completed online by 85 Saudi graduate students (37 males, 48 females; 69 majoring in English, 16 majoring in other subjects) and semi-structured interviews conducted with two faculty members. The quantitative data were analyzed statistically using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS), and the qualitative data were analyzed thematically. Results revealed that most students experienced difficulties related to language, argumentation, and research-article genre when composing research reports in English. Both the participating students and teachers thought the most serious academic writing challenges for Saudi graduate students were presenting complex information in clear sentences and building strong arguments. In contrast, the least problematic task was finding and documenting sources. Regarding evaluating sources, writing Literature reviews, and using technical vocabulary, most students were unsure of their abilities. Besides, English majors and other majors had similar perceptions of difficulties in three out of four significant aspects of research writing. As far as documenting sources is concerned, the perception varied significantly between the English-major and other-major students. The findings of the present study can assist stakeholders in identifying instructional needs in research writing in the Saudi Arabian context, and our guidelines will make research writing less difficult for Saudi students.