Linking Academic Vocabulary Use to Writing Quality in EFL Academic Essays: A Mixed-Methods Study

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-587-4_12How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Academic Vocabulary; Academic Word List; EFL Writing; Problem-Solving Essay; Vocabulary Profiling

Abstract

Academic vocabulary is central to effective academic writing, yet many EFL university students struggle to deploy such vocabulary appropriately in extended, genre-based tasks. This study investigates how final-year Indonesian EFL students use academic vocabulary in problem–solving essays, a genre that has received limited empirical attention in EFL contexts. Twenty essays were analysed using AntWordProfiler, an analytic writing rubric, and Pearson correlation analysis to examine (1) the extent of academic vocabulary use, (2) its relationship with writing quality, and (3) patterns of vocabulary deployment across rhetorical moves. AWL coverage varied substantially (1.30%–19.92%), with most students demonstrating only moderate lexical sophistication. A moderate, significant correlation emerged between AWL frequency and writing scores (r = .458, p = .042), indicating that academic vocabulary contributes meaningfully to writing performance. Qualitative analysis revealed that higher-performing writers used academic vocabulary more strategically and consistently across problem–solution structures, whereas lower-performing students relied heavily on general-service vocabulary and displayed limited functional control of academic lexical items. These findings highlight the need for explicit academic vocabulary instruction, genre-based writing support, and corpus-informed pedagogical practices to strengthen students’ academic literacy development in EFL higher education.

Copyright

© 2026 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Pariyanto Pariyanto
AU  - Sharmini Abdullah
AU  - Novalita Fransisca Tungka
AU  - Shabrina Dwi Arsa
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/06/12
TI  - Linking Academic Vocabulary Use to Writing Quality in EFL Academic Essays: A Mixed-Methods Study
BT  - Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on English Studies in Indonesia (ICONESIA 2025)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 122
EP  - 136
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-587-4_12
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-587-4_12
ID  - Pariyanto2026
ER  -