







































English Language Teaching Educational Journal   E-ISSN 2621-6485 

Vol. 4, No. 1, 2021, pp. 61-73  61 

        10.12928/eltej.v4i1.2371                        http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index                 eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id 

Investigating writing difficulties in essay writing: Tertiary 

students’ perspectives 

Suhaimah Bulqiyah a,1,*, Moh. Arif Mahbub b,2, Dyah Ayu Nugraheni c,3  

a, b, c  Universitas Islam Jember, , Jl. Kyai Mojo No.101, Kaliwates Kidul, Kaliwates, Kec. Kaliwates, Kabupaten Jember, Jawa Timur 68133, Indonesia  
1 bulqiyyy@gmail.com*; 2 rifelbarzmahbub@gmail.com; 3 dyh.ayoe@gmail.com 

* corresponding author 

 

A R T I C L E  I N F O 

 

ABST RACT   

 

 

Article history 

Received 24 June 2020 

Revised 03 August 2020 

Accepted 26 April 2021 

 This study is primarily designed for investigating the tertiary students’ 
perspectives on the writing difficulties of essays. This study was 
conducted in explanatory research in which quantitative and qualitative 
data were obtained from the web-based questionnaire and semi-structured 
interview, then analyzed separately. Twenty-one undergraduate students 
have enrolled in the survey and six of them were invited to the interview 
section. This research reveals that tertiary students' problems in essay 
writing course are categorized into: affective problems which raise from 
students’ and lecturers’ attitude while teaching and learning Essay 
Writing Course, cognitive problems that are considered as the difficulties 
in the areas of writing viewpoint, transferring language, and the process 
of writing, and linguistic problems in the area of lexico-grammar, 
vocabulary, and the structure of the essay. Based on the findings, those 
aspects of academic writing should be given serious attention by both 
EFL students and teachers to overcome the problems. The findings of this 
study have implications for EFL writing course designer as basic data of 
material improvement and for researchers particularly in the realms of 
language and education. 

 

 

This is an open access article under the CC–BY-SA license. 

    

 

 
Keywords 

writing difficulties 

essay 

EFL 

tertiary students   

 

 

 

How to Cite: Bulqiyah, S. Mahbub, M.A. & Nugraheni, D.A. (2021). Investigating writing difficulties in essay 
writing: Tertiary students’ perspectives. English Language Teaching Educational Journal, 4(1), 61-73. 
10.12928/eltej.v4i1.2371 

1. Introduction  

As one of the productive skills (Jabali, 2018; Toba et al., 2019), writing is crucially essential for 
EFL (English as a Foreign Language) learners, particularly for the students at the tertiary level. In an 
academic setting, enhancing writing skills for the students is the primary objective in education (Al 
Khazraji, 2019). For students to develop their writing competence, they are expected to produce a 
well-structured piece of writing (Ceylan, 2019). Moreover, mastering how to organize, regulate 
writing behavior, review the composition, and provide readers awareness (Bakry & Alsamadani, 
2015) have also become the crucial aspect for creating a well-produced piece of writing.  

Despite the importance of writing courses for college students, it has still become the onerous skill 
for them. This phenomenon has occurred in many different contexts around the world with several 
aspects of writing difficulties committed by students in tjarhe following areas: (1) structural, (2) 
grammatical, (3) mechanical, and (4) vocabulary (Ariyanti & Fitriana, 2017; Ginting, 2019; Sabarun, 
2019; Toba et al., 2019). In other studies, writing difficulties are also affected by learning process and 

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62 English Language Teaching Educational Journal   E-ISSN 2621-6485 

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 Bulqiyah, S., et.al (Investigating writing difficulties in essay writing) 

strategy while writing (Bakry & Alsamadani, 2015).  Consequently, they could not produce their ideas 
in well-written paragraphs or essays.  

Okpe & Onjewu (2017) pinpointed that acquiring essay writing skills may be the one of great 
beneficial things to do as it can improve day-to-day communication, obtain good grades, and be a 
better professional. Consequently, the essay writing course becomes a notable subject for students at 
the tertiary level. In the Indonesian context, higher education (HE) curriculum is highly required the 
university students, particularly in the English Education Department, to produce a well-written essay. 
As stated in the course objectives of the Critical Essay Writing Course (KBI112) in one of a private 
university in Jember, Indonesia, they must attend a class for 150 minutes in a week (three credits) to 
gain theoretical and practical knowledge of English essay writing. However, the data from the lecturer 
claimed that the majority of the students have encountered serious problems in writing a good English 
essay (Personal information, October 24th, 2019).  

Contemporary researches on essay writing difficulties have been mushrooming in many different 
settings. However, a study about investigating essay writing difficulties encountered by tertiary 
students in Indonesia, particularly in the English Education Department, is still very limited. 
Therefore, a critical study of tertiary students' essay writing difficulties must be undertaken. The 
contribution of the study will be a basis for designing or applying the appropriate teaching strategy in 
Essay Writing Course for tertiary students. Thus, the primary purpose of this study is to analyse essay 
writing difficulties committed by EFL tertiary students with the research question: What are the 
tertiary students' difficulties faced in writing essays?  

1.1. The Concept of Writing  

Writing is a productive skill which comprehends cognitive processes (Jebreil et al., 2015) such as 
expressing intentions, composing ideas, problem-solving, and critical thinking (Fareed et al., 2016; 
Ginting, 2019). Writing is also a process of gathering and working the ideas presented in polished and 
comprehensible product to readers (Linse, 2005, p.98). Besides, Cumming (1998, p.61) has precisely 
defined writing is not only referred to as a text in the written script but also as the acts of thinking, 
composing, and encoding language into such text. Thus, in composing writing, one is highly required 
to involve an entirely different set of competencies (Brown, 2000, p.335) as it implicates extra efforts 
in understanding, thinking, planning, and revising. 

Similarly, students’ emotions, such as the interest in writing, anxiety, lack of self-efficacy and 
confusion, play a pivotal role for the development of individual learning (Driscoll & Powell, 2016). 
What is more, the teacher’s instruction can also shaped the students’ emotions and attitudes while 
writing. As such, those aspects are categorized as the affective problems which have to be another 
focus in this study. 

In an academic context, writing has become the most important skill that students must be mastered 
(Fareed et al., 2016; Tseng, 2019). Not surprisingly, it has become a central topic of language teaching 
and research on this field (Hyland, 2008); for instance, in Egypt (A. H. Ahmed, 2010), in Tunisia 
(Knouzi in Abouabdelkader & Ahmed, 2016), in Morocco (Abouabdelkader & Bouziane in 
Abouabdelkader & Ahmed, 2016), and Oman (Al Zadjali in Abouabdelkader & Ahmed, 2016).  

Another scholar clarified writing entails a particular sequence of processes (Hyland, 2008). For 
Sperling & Fredman (2001) as cited from Abderraouf (2016, p.xiii) writing is a set of sub-processes 
involving planning, translating, and reviewing. However, the often process occurred more than those 
stages. Bailey (2015) demonstrated the writing process into several parts: (1) selecting suitable 
sources, (2) reading texts, (3) note-making, (4) planning and outlining, (5) combining variety sources, 
(6) organising paragraphs, and (7) rewriting and prof-reading. Thus, one can generate a well-organized 
manuscript following those aforementioned processes.  

1.2. Writing Difficulties 

As aforementioned, writing also becomes the most difficult skill, particularly in English Education, 
which through complex processes that engages several competencies. Also, students at the tertiary 
level experienced various obstacles in their processes of writing. The obstacles derive from many 
aspects as the foregone researches such as vocabulary and diction (Meslissorgou & Frantzi, 2015; 
Nugraheni & Basya, 2018; Toba et al., 2019; Zhan, 2015), grammatical features (Ariyanti & Fitriana, 
2017; Hajeid, 2018; Hasan & Marzuki, 2017; Meslissorgou & Frantzi, 2015; Nugraheni & Basya, 
2018; Toba et al., 2019; Zhan, 2015), exploring and generating ideas (Asadifard & Koosha, 2013; 



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Ceylan, 2019; Hosseini et al., 2013; Nugraheni & Basya, 2018), organization (Hajeid, 2018; 
Nugraheni & Basya, 2018; Toba et al., 2019), and teaching process (Ceylan, 2019; Hajeid, 2018; 
Jebreil et al., 2015). Accordingly, the aforementioned studies have shown that the major difficulties 
found in students’ writing are mostly in the areas of vocabulary and grammar. In other words, those 
works of literature reported that students' writing problem is concerning their linguistics competence.  

However, the students' writing strategies have also been considered as the other factor affecting 
significantly on their writing process and production. Furthermore, Winarto (2015) has also revealed 
that EFL students' writing strategies influence to their writing performance. Various types of writing 
strategies have been applied by practitioners in various realms: (1) direct strategies including memory, 
cognitive, and compensation strategies, and (2) indirect strategies including metacognitive, affective, 
and social strategies (O’Malley & Chamot, 1990; Oxford, 2003; Winarto, 2015). Those strategies can 
be implemented successfully depending on each language learning context where they are integrated. 

1.3. Essay Writing 

As one of academic writing (Bailey, 2015; Meyers, 2014), the essay has still become the most 
popular type of assignment (Van Geyte, 2013). More specifically, an essay is a piece of writing 
consisting of one particular topic breaking down into several paragraphs (one for each major point) 
started by the introductory paragraph and ended by concluding paragraph (Oshima & Hogue, 2006). 
The primary elements of the essay are (1) introduction paragraph presenting attracting statements to 
the readers' attention, (2) body paragraphs providing development of sub-topic of the topic in each 
paragraph, and (3) conclusion paragraph restating the main points and additional quotations.   

2. Method 

This study conducted in mixed-mode utilizing explanatory sequential research (Creswell, 2014; 
Fraenkel et al., 2012) analyzing both the qualitative and quantitative data in a separate process. The 
researchers' employed twenty-one students, 6 males (29%) and 15 females (71%) in the range; 19 
years old (47.6%, n=10), 20 years old (33.3%, n=7), 21 years old (14.3%, n=3), and 22 years old 
(4.8%, n=1), who enrolled in Critical Essay Writing course in an undergraduate program of English 
Education Department, at one of a private university in Jember, Indonesia. 

This design initially examines quantitative data through a distributed web-based questionnaire 
presented in the form of numerical data displayed on graphics and charts. This questionnaire was 
mainly adopted and modified from Ceylan (2019) in which was created in the form of a five-points 
Likert Scale (1= strongly agree (SA), 2= agree (A), 3= neutral (N), 4= disagree (D), 5= strongly 
disagree (SD)) consisted of two sections; demographic data and students' beliefs in essay writing 
difficulties. Before adiministering the questionnaire, the researchers calculate the validity and 
reliability test using IBM SPSS Statistics 20. The reliability indices with Cronbach Alpha’s coefficient 
was 0.923 which the items are very highly reliable (Cohen et al., 2007). Further, this questionnaire 
consists of 2 items of demographic data and 16 questionnaire items examining their writing difficulties 
in the essay categorized in 8 items indicate to affective problems, 5 items indicate to cognitive 
problems, and 3 indicate to linguistic problems. Afterwards, the researchers listed the names of 
participants to the Microsoft Excel sheet, then they were randomly selected the participants through 
Ms. Excel using RAND function for joining semi-structured interview. The six participants were 
involved so as to get the sufficient data. The interview guidelines (consisted of 5 items) were 
composed by consulting to the experts in the focused fields to gain an in-depth understanding of 
students' difficulties, for instance in their strategies, and process. The interview took approximately 7-
10 minutes long for each student in their native language, Bahasa Indonesia. The data resulted from 
the interview were then recorded, transcribed, coded, analyzed, and presented in the form of an in-
depth description (Mahbub, 2018; Widodo, 2014).  

3. Findings and Discussion 

These results are sorted into two parts for dwelling the outcome from an anonymous web-based 
questionnaire and semi-structured interview.   

 



64 English Language Teaching Educational Journal   E-ISSN 2621-6485 

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 Bulqiyah, S., et.al (Investigating writing difficulties in essay writing) 

3.1. The Findings from Web-Based Questionnaire 

The participants' responses resulted from the questionnaire  would be displayed in the form of the 
frequencies, percentages, mean, and standard deviation. The researchers illustrate the participants' 
difficulties in Essay Writing from the data-gathering questionnaire by the following domains: 

1) Affective Problems 

Table 1.  Result from Affective Problem in Essay Writing 

Note: Std. Dev: Standard Deviation 

Table 1 explored the result of the analysis of item 1 until 8. These items were designed to collect 
the data about affective areas in essay writing difficulties. The data percentage from item 1 indicates 
mostly students have no problem with the interest in Essay Writing Course (47.6% neutral). Whilst, 
38.1% of participants (n=8) agreed with the statement means they do not interest in the Essay Writing 
Course, and 14.3% of participants (n=3) disagreed with the statement. Item 2 reveals the most 
participants do not set goals when they start to write (42.9% neutral). Meanwhile, 28.6% of the 
responses agreed with the statement. Similarly, 28.5% of participants picked out a disagreement about 
the statement. For item 3, 4, and 5 show the percentages prove that the majority of participants faced 
writing challenges encountered with three aspects; self-confident becomes the most response (11 in 
total), anxiety while writing following in the second place (9 in total), and motivation (8 in total). In 
contrast, the participants' responses disagreed with the statement only in small percentages.  

Furthermore, the participants mostly confirmed (28.6% agree, 23.8% strongly agree) that they did 
not practice writing in academic performance as item 6 stated.  Besides, 28.6% participants (n=6) 
opposed the statement. Item 7 and 8 indicate the participants' responses in the teacher's behaviors for 
giving instructions and feedbacks in students' essay writing. The vast majority of students disagreed 
with the statements; where 57.1% (n=12) for writing instruction and 52.4% (n=11) for teachers' 
feedback. However, the participants agreed with the statements are only in a small portion. In general 
speaking, the major participants encountered several affective problems in self-confident, anxiety, and 
less-practicing in writing essay.  

2) Cognitive Problems 

Table 2 figures out the cognitive aspects that contribute to tertiary students writing problems. Item 
9 shows the vast majority of the students (47.6% agree, 14.3% strongly agree) found difficult writing 
tasks in their course instead of only 14.3% of participants (n=3) disagreed. For item 10, most students 
(52.4%, n=11) confirmed the writing problem in the aspect of transferring from their L1 to a foreign 
language. Despite the data, there are 38.1% of students (n=8) do not have the same idea with the 

Item SD (%) D(%) N(%) A(%) SA(%) Mean Std.Dev 

1 
9.5 (n=2) 

4.8 

(n=1) 

47.6 

(n=10) 

28.6 

(n=6) 

9.5 

(n=2) 
3.29 0.96 

2 9.5 

(n=2) 

19 

(n=4) 

42.9 

(n=9) 

23.8 

(n=5) 

4.8 

(n=1) 
3.05 1.02 

3 4.8 

(n=1) 

19 

(n=4) 

23.8 

(n=5) 

33.3 

(n=7) 

19 

(n=4) 
2.57 1.17 

4 4.8 

(n=1) 

23.8 

(n=5) 

33.3 

(n=7) 

28.6 

(n=6) 

9.5 

(n=2) 
2.86 1.06 

5 
0 

19 

(n=4) 

38.1 

(n=8) 

28.6 

(n=6) 

14.3 

(n=3) 
2.62 0.97 

6 4.8 

(n=1) 

23.8 

(n=5) 

19 

(n=4) 

28.6 

(n=6) 

23.8 

(n=5) 
2.57 1.25 

7 23.8 

(n=5) 

33.3 

(n=7) 

28.6 

(n=6) 

14.3 

(n=3) 
0 3.67 1.02 

8 23.8 

(n=5) 

28.6 

(n=6) 
38.1 (n=8) 

9.5 

(n=2) 
0 3.67 0.97 



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 Bulqiyah, S., et.al (Investigating writing difficulties in essay writing) 

statement. In item 11, 42.9% of participants (n=9) do not revise and rewrite their essays in many times. 
In contrast, 39.1% of participants (n=8) preferred to revise and rewrite their essay task many times.  

Table 2.  Result from Cognitive Problem in Essay Writing 

Item SD (%) D(%) N(%) A(%) SA(%) Mean Std.Dev 

9 
4.8 (n=1) 

9.5 

(n=2) 

23.8 

(n=5) 

47.6 

(n=10) 

14.3 

(n=3) 
2.43 1.03 

10 
4.8 (n=1) 

33.3 

(n=7) 

9.5 

(n=2) 

38.1 

(n=8) 

14.3 

(n=3) 
2.76 1.22 

11 14.3 

(n=3) 

23.8 

(n=5) 

19 

(n=4) 

28.6 

(n=6) 

14.3 

(n=3) 
2.95 1.32 

12 
0 

23.8 

(n=5) 

33.3 

(n=7) 

23.8 

(n=5) 

19 

(n=4) 
2.62 1.07 

13 
4.8 (n=1) 

19 

(n=4) 

23.8 

(n=5) 

47.6 

(n=10) 
4.8 (n=1) 2.71 1.01 

Note: Std. Dev: Standard Deviation 

From item 12, the percentages indicate mostly participants (23.8% agree, 19% strongly agree) 
agreed their writing problem derived from organizing thoughts or generating ideas. Conversely, only 
a few participants (23.8%, n=5) did not experience the same condition. Item 13 measures the 
participants’ responses regarded writing processes as their challenge when writing. Nearly entire 
students (47.6% agree, 4.8% strongly agree) do not know about the writing processes such as pre-
writing, drafting, editing, etc. Besides, only 23.8% (n=5) participants disagree with their unknown 
about the writing processes. Briefly in cognitive problems experienced by students while writing essay 
are mostly in transferring to target language and lack of writing processes. 

3) Linguistic Problems 

Table 3.  Result from Linguistic Problem in Essay Writing 

Item SD (%) D(%) N(%) A(%) SA(%) Mean Std.Dev 

14 
0 

9.5 

(n=2) 

23.8 

(n=5) 

42.9 

(n=9) 

23.8 

(n=5) 
2.19 0.93 

15 
0 

9.5 

(n=2) 

38.1 

(n=8) 

33.3 

(n=7) 

19 

(n=4) 
2.38 0.92 

16 
0 

33.3 

(n=7) 

19 

(n=4) 

28.6 

(n=6) 

9.5 

(n=2) 
3.05 1.2 

Note: Std. Dev: Standard Deviation 

Table 3 above addresses linguistic problems experienced by tertiary students as the following 
sequences. Linguistic competencies (such as grammar, morphology, syntax, and semantics) become 
the most difficult problem that the majority of participants (42.9% agree, 23.8% strongly agree) faced 
as item 14 points out. Otherwise, only small percentages of response (9.5%, n=2) reveal disagreement 
about the problem in linguistic areas. Shortly speaking, numerous participants experienced writing 
difficulties regarding linguistic knowledge. Furthermore, item 15 indicates that vocabulary knowledge 
also has a portion of students' essay writing difficulties (33.3% agree, 19% strongly agree). While only 
9.5% of participants (n=2) have a different view in vocabulary challenge.  For item 16, the vast 
majority of the students tended to hold positive responses for structuring essays to become their 
writing problem. 38.1% responses (n=8) indicate participants' attitude in structuring appropriate essay 
has become one of their problems. Nearly similar, 33.3% of participants (n=7) show the opposite 
response with the statement. To conclude, almost participants got the lexico-grammar difficulties in 
writing essay. 

3.2. The Findings from Semi-Structured Interview 

To collect the broader data for students’ essay difficulties, the researchers carried out the semi-
structured interview that perhaps as a way to investigate the participants' perspectives avoiding several 
potential problems in the questionnaire. This personal interview conducted to six participants selected 



66 English Language Teaching Educational Journal   E-ISSN 2621-6485 

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 Bulqiyah, S., et.al (Investigating writing difficulties in essay writing) 

through simple random sampling. The results of the interview are presented in five major themes as 
well as the number of questions.  

 

1) Theme 1: Students’ difficulties in writing essay 

The majority of participants declared their essay writing problems are in the context of generating 
ideas, coherence, and vocabularies. On the other hand, only half of them dealt with grammar 
challenge.  

“I find difficulties in generating ideas, coherence, and I am difficult to standing on 

the topic of my essay.” (S1, Female) 

“Mostly, I face difficulties to create a coherent paragraph.” (S2, Male) 

“I have problems in grammar, academic vocabularies, and coherence in each 

sentence when I write an essay.” (S3, Female) 

“In many times, I have difficulties in generating ideas, coherence, grammar, and 

vocabularies. But, the dictionary helps me if I don't know about the vocabulary.” 

(S4, Female) 

“Sometimes, I experienced vocabulary and grammar problems. Moreover, I suffer 

difficulty in developing my ideas for my written essay.” (S5, Male) 

“Generating ideas, grammar, and vocabulary mastery are my problems in writing 

essays.” (S6, Female) 

2) Theme 2: Essay Writing Processes 

Generally speaking, participants reported that they mostly aware of the crucial roles of writing in 
appropriate processes. But, they frequently ignored some processes and directly focused on write the 
essay. 

“Yes, I do the process of writing an essay. I always outline my essay, because it can 

help me to conduct my writing on one topic.” (S1, Female) 

“Rarely, I write based on the process of writing. For helping me write a good-

structured essay, I write an outline.” (S2, Male) 

“I not often write in the appropriate process. I outline in all the times I write my 

essay.” (S3, Female) 

“I write my essay based on the process which my lecture taught to me. Yes, I do. I 

outline my essay because it can make my paragraphs well-structured and 

organized.” (S4, Female) 

“I rarely write my essay from the outline. I think it is a complex matter. I just write 

based on my topic and develop it based on my knowledge.” (S5, Male) 

“Yes also. I write my essay based on the process I understood. I outline my essay to 

unite my ideas on a topic.” (S6, Female) 

3) Theme 3: Essay Writing Strategy 

The present theme revealed the students’ answers about the strategies their lecturer used in Essay 
Writing Course. From the process of learning, the lecturer mostly applied meta-cognitive and social 
strategy in teaching Essay Writing. 

“My lecturer usually teaches the introduction of a paragraph, next broader to 

structures of a paragraph, and more practices.” (S1, Female) 



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“I don’t know what strategy my lecturer used in this course. But, I think she always 

explains the materials, gives practices to students, and the last gives feedback.” (S2, 

Male) 

“My lecturer starts with giving a topic, making an outline of the essay, analyzing the 

structure of the essay, and those are again and again.” (S3, Female) 

For the first time, we learn about the topic sentence, then how to develop the topic 

sentence. After that, we learn to outline to compose a good essay. And last, my 

lecture gives feedback for our essay projects.” (S4, Female) 

I think nothing special in teaching this course. My lecturer gives exercises to make 

an essay on different topics, and gives feedback in the end.” (S5, Male) 

“As usual, my lecturer tells about the essay writing and what the goals in learning 

this course. Next, she gives how to produce an essay from arranging paragraphs. 

Also, she gives a topic for our essay, and the finally gives feedbacks.” (S6, Female) 

4) Theme 4: Feedback in Writing Essay 

This theme discussed the lecturer's feedback in the essay writing course. Almost all participants 
received clear and satisfying feedback from the lecturer. Frequently, the lecturer gives oral feedbacks 
and sometimes in written form.  

“Yes, it's true. My lecturer gives oral feedbacks in my essay, and I satisfied with 

that.” (S1, Female) 

“Sometimes I get the feedback, but sometimes no. I think the lecturer gives the 

feedback only for several students.” (S2, Male) 

“I always get either oral or written feedback in my essay, just because I often actively 

ask about my essay task.” (S3, Female) 

“Sometimes I get oral feedbacks and it sufficient for revising my essay writing.” (S4, 

Female) 

“My lecturer tells corrective feedback in my essay. She apprises me about the errors 

in my essay.” (S5, Male) 

“My lecturer provides clear feedback in mine. It makes me producing a good essay 

project.” (S6, Female) 

5) Theme 5: Importance of Essay Writing 

This last theme postulated the importance of essay writing for their on-going or future planning. 
The entire participants confirmed essay writing is important for both current and next study based on 
their various reasons.   

“I think this study is very important because I am a student teacher that writing 

becomes a crucial skill in teaching.” (S1, Female) 

“This course is important. In the last period of our study, we have to write an article 

or thesis which essay writing is so needed. Moreover, this course can develop the 

IQ” (S2, Male) 

“In my opinion, this is an essential course. From this course, one can do the 

productive activity by drawing ideas into written products.” (S3, Female) 



68 English Language Teaching Educational Journal   E-ISSN 2621-6485 

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 Bulqiyah, S., et.al (Investigating writing difficulties in essay writing) 

“This is very important because it can develop critical thinking skills. If we have a 

plan for the next study, we have to practice writing a good essay for applying it.” 

(S4, Female) 

“I think this is important for English students. While for non-English students, 

speaking skill is more important for future study.” (S5, Male) 

“For me, these materials are very important, because I think it’s easier to express 

ideas in written form rather than oral form.” (S6, Female) 

From the result of interview excerpts, the paricipants’ responses indicate their difficulties while 
writing essay are: (1)affective problems related to the teacher’s behaviors while teaching and students’ 
interest in writing essay, (2)cognitive problems refer to lack of generating ideas and students’ writing 
processes, and (3)linguistic problem point to grammar, coherence, also vocabulary mastery. 

3.3. Discussion 

From the two steps of analysing data, the findings of this research were shown  in the following 
section. The first part regarded to affective problems in essay writing. The findings from a close-ended 
questionnaire reveal that difficulties can derive form students' interest, self-confidence, anxiety, and 
motivation in writing. From the result of item 1, students mostly picked out the neutral responses for 
the interest in Essay Writing Course. This finding is somewhat different from previous studies (e.g. 
Abas & Aziz, 2016; Ceylan, 2019), in which one of the writing problems is students have low interest 
in writing activities. This may due to the other factors that made the students interest in Essay Writing 
Course. The percentages of item 2 also have the most responses on a neutral point. It reveals the 
contradict view from Ceylan (2019) who showed that most of the participants did not set goals when 
starting to write. Whereas, setting goals can help the students to keep in focus on their writing task.  

Furthermore, item 3 indicates 52.3% of participants' problems encountered with self-confidence 
while writing. As Jabali (2018); Latif (2012) reported that students have low self-confidence in writing 
due to language problems in several areas, for instance in vocabulary mastery or another language 
competence. For item 4, 38.1% of participants (n=8) agreed that they do not have the motivation to 
write. Whilst, 33.3% responses (n=7) pointed the neutral response. This data show almost similar 
results conducted by Jebreil et al. (2015); Okpe & Onjewu (2017); Toba et al. (2019); and Yang (2016) 
which students lack motivation has become one of the barriers while writing. Also, item 5 indicates 
students’ anxiety while writing showing 42.9% of students' agreement. In the same point, Aloairdhi 
(2019); Jabali (2018); Jebreil et al. (2015); Latif (2012) that anxiety in writing can affect their product 
of academic writing. 

Item 6 about students' attitudes in academic writing practices indicates most participants (52.4%, 
n=11) confirmed that they do not practice writing English for academic purposes. The student's 
excerpt also revealed the same answer that the fewer students practice writing the more difficulties 
student faced in writing. Similarly, Abas & Aziz (2016); Hasan & Marzuki (2017) stated that students 
experienced several difficulties in writing due to their less of practicing writing in English. Item 7 
provides the students' perceptions about teacher instruction in writing courses which has only 14.3% 
(n=3) participants agreed the statement and 57.1% (n=12) disagreed. Furthermore, from the interview 
excerpts the teacher applied the appropriate strategy while teaching Essay Writing Course which made 
the mostly students enjoying the course. This finding opposes with the researches revealed by Ceylan 
(2019); Naghdipour (2016)  that teacher’s writing instructions become the problem in the process of 
learning writing. However, Tseng (2019) indicate that clear and explicit instruction in writing will 
give students a better understanding of the process of writing. Likewise, item 8 indicates the teacher's 
attitude in giving feedback to students' English writing. 52.4% (n=11) participants disagreed with the 
statement, which means they received feedback for their writing project. Students’ excerpts also 
revealed the same evidence which all of them received feedbacks either in oral or written form. 
Moreover, several students got the clear and satisfying feedback in their writing projects. In similar 
shreds of evidence, numerous studies also report that teacher's feedback for a written task is given in 
orally or in written form Chen et al. (2016); Lee et al. (2015). On the contrary, these results have the 
same point with the researches carried out by Asadifard & Koosha (2013); Ceylan (2019) that lack of 
receiving feedbacks from teacher become the writing challenge by students.  



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One particular area in students' difficulties in writing an essay is from the cognitive problem. As 
illustrated in Javadi-Safa (2018) which students claimed that writing has become an effortful task for 
language learners, the result from item 9 reports that 61.9% of participants believed about that claim. 
Writing tasks, as the essential study for EFL learners, must be mastered despite the whole problems 
for them. Additionally, transferring to the target language in students' writing problems has 52.4% of 
students' positive responses to the item 10. In responding to item 10, Altınmakas & Bayyurt (2019); 
Hasan & Marzuki (2017) have the same point with the result which transferring L1 to the target 
language (English) becomes the students' barrier while writing. Item 11 determines students' attitudes 
in revising and rewriting their essay writing which indicates 42.9% of students (n=11) do not revise 
and rewrite it many times. Besides, there are 38.1% (n=8) disagreed with the statement. These 
responses are in line with the studies by Sadek (2018) in which he reported that students faced 
difficulty when revising their draft. On the contrary, Chen et al. (2016) claimed that students revise 
their writing projects according to the teacher's feedback.  

Despite writing is a text expression from one's idea, developing and organizing ideas while writing 
has still become an onerous activity for students. The data from item 12, 42.8% of students confirmed 
their problem in organizing thoughts while writing. To make it further, 4 of 6 participants' excerpts 
also revealed that they faced difficulty in generating ideas. Numerous researches (Asadifard & 
Koosha, 2013; Ceylan, 2019; Miftah, 2015; Nugraheni & Basya, 2018) also mentioned students' 
difficulty in writing regarded in organizing ideas. Next to item 13 which dealing with the writing 
processes, the researchers' questionnaire results from 52.4% of students confirmed they do not enough 
know the writing processes. Furher discussion, some of the interviewees also postulated that they did 
not always do the writing task according to the process of writing, because of the complicated ways 
in writing. Supporting to the results, Sadik in Abas & Aziz (2016) and Ceylan (2019) echoed the same 
statement that students experienced difficulty with the writing process in general, and skip the process 
in particular. 

Regarding the linguistic aspects of tertiary students' problems in essay writing, the survey results 
in manifest students' problems are mostly encountered with linguistics knowledge, for instance, 
grammar, syntax, semantics, and so on. This area (item 14) gets 66.7% of students confirmed for the 
problems in their essay writing. The 4 of 6 interviewees also revealed the similar points that they had 
grammar difficulties while writing an English essay. These results corroborate with the statement in 
numerous previous studies carried out by Ariyanti & Fitriana (2017); Hajeid (2018); Hasan & Marzuki 
(2017); Meslissorgou & Frantzi (2015); Nugraheni & Basya (2018); Toba et al. (2019) which they 
claimed that grammar is the one of students’ major problem in English writing. Moreover, item 15 
clarified students' problem in vocabulary mastery has a 52.3% agreement responds. To further 
examine in students’ perceptions, the interview result presented the majority of the interviewees stated 
their writing barrier in less of vocabulary mastery, particularly in academic word. These findings align 
with studies from Ceylan (2019); Meslissorgou & Frantzi (2015); Nugraheni & Basya (2018); Toba 
et al. (2019); Zhan (2015) that the students’ problem in vocabulary has been considered in misused or 
misinterpreted, wrong spelling, shortage, etc.  

Besides, item 16 showed students have less ability to structuring essays. The data resulted in 38.1% 
of participants (n=8) confirmed this statement. In this respect, 4 of 6 students expressed their views in 
the interview that they faced difficulty in structuring sentences to paragraphs and paragraphs to essay 
with well-coherent idas of the essay content. Nonetheless, they sometimes outline an essay to assist 
them in focusing on one topic. Not surprisingly, they claimed that outlining is an effective way to 
make it better. This impression corresponds to Ariyanti & Fitriana's (2017) research which indicates 
students' complicated problems in writing because of coherence and correct structure of English 
essays. Also, Ahmed (2010) reveals that composing a coherence writing product is such an 
extraordinary challenge for students. 

4. Conclusion 

Affective problems arise from students' and lecturers' attitudes while teaching and learning Essay 
Writing Course. The data resulted that the majority of the students claimed that they were not 
intrinsically motivated to engage in writing class due to their interest and lack of confidence of 
writing.Consequently, they lacked in practicing writing skills in an academic context and in writing a 
good product of an essay. Thus, students have to practice more effective in writing as much as possible 
to bring out a well-composed essay. Henceforth, cognitive problems are considered as the difficulties 



70 English Language Teaching Educational Journal   E-ISSN 2621-6485 

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 Bulqiyah, S., et.al (Investigating writing difficulties in essay writing) 

in the areas of writing viewpoint, transferring language, and process of writing. The findings indicate 
the students agreed that transferring to the target language and the writing process has influenced 
students' writing difficulties in composing essays. Meanwhile, generating ideas before writing and 
revising the manuscript also confirmed to become students' challenges. Those may be affected by 
teaching strategies their lecturer applied while teaching the course. Due to the findings, applying the 
proper writing strategies may help students write essays in a better way.  

Furthermore, the important aspect of writing is the linguistic area which has great responses in 
students' difficulties in essay writing. It involves lexico-grammatical competences. Not surprisingly, 
linguistics knowledge in general and grammar in particular, have become the students' difficulties in 
writing essays. For another thing, the problem in vocabulary mastery is a crucial aspect of students' 
essay writing. Likewise, students confirmed the difficulty while writing an essay is structuring essays 
from paragraphs and paragraphs from sentences. For that reason, linguistic knowledge as the primary 
aspect of academic writing should have serious attention for EFL students and teachers. This research 
was limited to tertiary students in Jember, Indonesia who enrolled in Essay Writing Course in English 
Education Program. Moreover, the participants employed in this survey are approximately two-thirds 
of the total of the students in the 2018 academic year. To make further discussion, further-related 
researches are extremely needed from different perspectives or contexts and those may reveal other 
interesting findings. Therefore, critical constructive suggestions are needed to advance a better 
understanding of the writing problems. Several findings in this study hopefully become a better 
implication for further researches or creating a new method in teaching essay writing in the EFL 
context.  

 

Declaration 
Author contribution : The first author was in charge of conceptualization (lead), data 

collection (lead), data transcription (lead). The second author was in 

charge of conceptualization (lead), designing research methodology 

(lead), reviewing (lead). The third author was in charge of methodology 

(supporting), data analysis (lead), editing (lead). 

Funding statement : The research is funded under no research project. 

Conflict of interest : The authors declare no conflict of interest. 

Additional information : No additional information is available for this paper. 
 

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