Gender Differences in Narrative Essay Writing Ability among Indonesian EFL Undergraduate Students
Keywords:
Comparative Study, Narrative Essay, Writing Ability, Gender Differences, EFL StudentsAbstract
The research of this study was to determine whether the narrative essay writing abilities of male and female fourth-semester students in the English Language Education Study Program differed noticeably. The study adopted a descriptive comparative quantitative design. A total of 18 students from Class K1 at Raja Ali Haji Maritime University took part, comprising 9 males and 9 females chosen via purposive sampling. To collect the necessary data, participants completed a writing test requiring them to produce a 450-word narrative essay on a shared topic under uniform conditions. Two raters then assessed the essays independently, applying an analytic scoring rubric adopted from Jacobs et al. (1981) that covers five writing dimensions content, organization, vocabulary, language use, and mechanics. Each student's final score represented the average of the two raters' evaluations. The researchers analyzed the data using several statistical procedures: descriptive statistics, the independent samples t-test, Cohen's d to gauge effect size, Levene's test for homogeneity of variance, and Shapiro-Wilk test for normality. Results indicated that female participants scored higher on average (84.11) than their male counterparts (72.89). With a two-sided p-value of 0.033 below the 0.05 threshold the t-test confirmed a statistically significant gender-based difference in narrative essay writing performance. The effect size, measured at 1.10 using Cohen's d, further indicated a substantial (large) practical distinction between the two groups. When combined, these findings indicate that female students in this sample were better at writing narrative essays than male students.
Downloads
References
Abdel-Haq, E., & Ali, H. (2017). Utilizing the Corpus Approach in Developing EFL Writing Skills. Journal of Research in Curriculum Instruction and Educational Technology, 3(2), 11–44. https://doi.org/10.21608/jrciet.2017.24458
Aini, L. K. (2024). Analyzing Grammatical Cohesion in Narrative Text Found in Indonesian EFL Textbook. 7(1), 44–50.
Anggraini, J. (2021). Meta-Analisis Pengaruh Model Pembelajaran Kooperatif Tipe Group Investigation Terhadap Hasil Peserta Didik Usia MI/SD.
Asnas, S. A. M. (2022). The Academic Writing Challenges Faces by Indonesian Undergraduate EFL Learners at University of Islam Malang. Jurnal Penelitian, Pendidikan, Dan Pembelajaran, 17(11), 14. https://jim.unisma.ac.id/index.php/jp3/article/view/16644
Dinna Auliya, Afrianto, M. (2016). a Study on the Ability of the Third Year Students of English Study Program Fkip University of Riau in. 1–7.
Essel, H. B., Vlachopoulos, D., Tachie-Menson, A., Johnson, E. E., & Baah, P. K. (2022). The Impact of a Virtual Teaching Assistant (Chatbot) on Students’ Learning in Ghanaian Higher Education. International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education, 19(1), 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1186/s41239-022-00362-6
Febriani, T. N. (2022). “Writing is challenging”: factors contributing to undergraduate students’ difficulties in writing English essays. Erudita: Journal of English Language Teaching, 2(1), 83–93. https://doi.org/10.28918/erudita.v2i1.5441
Fergus, S., Botha, M., & Ostovar, M. (2023). Evaluating Academic Answers Generated Using ChatGPT. Journal of Chemical Education, 100(4), 1672–1675. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jchemed.3c00087
Firda, V., Fanny, R., Amalia, U., & Prasetyoaji, A. (2022). Investigating EFL Students’ Tense Errors in Writing Narrative Text. 4(2), 53–63.
Fitri, F. D. (2022). Analisis Pendapat Siswa Terhadap Pembelajaran Contextual Teaching and Learning (CTL) Berbantuan Geogebra pada Materi Garis dan Sudut. Jurnal Pembelajaran Matematika Inovatif, 5(3), 731–740. https://doi.org/http://dx.doi.org/10.22460/infinity.v6i1.234
Grenville, K. (2001). Writing from Start to Finish: A Six-Step Guide. Writing, 224. http://books.google.com/books?id=vOYgpTlBAbsC&pgis=1
Lee, J. Y. (2023). Can an Artificial Intelligence Chatbot be the Author of a Scholarly Article? In Science Editing (Vol. 10, Issue 1). https://doi.org/10.6087/kcse.292
Masrul, & Erliana, S. (2024). An Investigation of Gender Differences and Self-Efficacy in Writing Performance Among College ELF Learners. 9(1), 103–117.
Mondal, H., Marndi, G., Behera, J. K., & Mondal, S. (2023). ChatGPT for Teachers: Practical Examples for Utilizing Artificial Intelligence for Educational Purposes. Indian Journal of Vascular and Endovascular Surgery, 10(3). https://doi.org/10.4103/ijves.ijves_37_23
Nahak, Y. N., Sahan, A., & Seran, Y. (2024). An Error Analysis of EFL Students’ Use of Simple Past Tense in Writing Narrative Text. 06(02), 240–250.
Oanh, M.A., N. T. H. (2024). The Impact of Feedback on First-Year University Students’ Writing Development: A Study at A University in Hanoi, Vietnam. International Journal of Social Science and Human Research, 7(08), 6689–6697. https://doi.org/10.47191/ijsshr/v7-i08-107
Oshima, A., & Hogue, A. (2007). Introduction to Academic Writing. In Agenda.
Phommavongsa, K., Xaysetha, S., & Phomchaleun, S. (2021). the Common Grammatical Errors in Writing Narrative Essay of Students At the Youth Resource Center, Savannakhet. Jurnal Penelitian Humaniora, 22(1), 1–13. https://doi.org/10.23917/humaniora.v22i1.11501
Purnama, I. G. A. V. (2018). Study on the Ability of Students in Writing Narrative Essay. 10(1), 2–3.
Rathod, K. D. (2023). A Review of ChatGPT in Promoting Teaching and Learning. International Journal of Scientific Research in Engineering and Management, 07(07), 1–8. https://doi.org/10.55041/ijsrem24976
Rizkiawan, M. A., Razali, A. B., & Owen, M. (2025). Stylistic differences in male and female undergraduate narratives : A content analysis in an EFL context. 1(1), 44–51.
Salma, F. A., & Sumartini, T. S. (2022). Kemampuan Representasi Matematis Siswa antara yang Mendapatkan Pembelajaran Contextual Teaching and Learning dan Discovery Learning. Plusminus: Jurnal Pendidikan Matematika, 2(2), 265–274. https://doi.org/10.31980/plusminus.v2i2.1868
Setyowati, L., Sukmawan, S., & El-Sulukiyyah, A. A. (2020). Exploring the Use of ESL Composition Profile for College Writing in the Indonesian Context. 4(2), 171–182.
Suganob-Nicolau, M. F., & Sukamto, K. E. (2016). Gender differences in writing complex sentences: A case study of Indonesian EFL students. 11(1).
Xames, M. D., & Shefa, J. (2023). ChatGPT for research and publication: Opportunities and challenges. Journal of Applied Learning and Teaching, 6(1), 390–395. https://doi.org/10.37074/jalt.2023.6.1.20
Xiao, C., Xu, S. X., Zhang, K., Wang, Y., & Xia, L. (2023). Evaluating Reading Comprehension Exercises Generated by LLMs: A Showcase of ChatGPT in Education Applications. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics. https://doi.org/10.18653/v1/2023.bea-1.52
Yadav, P. V., Kollimath, U. S., Giramkar, S. A., Pisal, D. T., Badave, S. S., & Dhole, V. (2023). Impact of ChatGPT and Other AI Advancements on the Teaching-Learning Process: Initial Trend. 2023 3rd International Conference on Emerging Smart Technologies and Applications, ESmarTA 2023. https://doi.org/10.1109/eSmarTA59349.2023.10293464
