How international doctoral students’ fields of study, proficiency in English and gender interact with their sense of making progress in English academic writing abilities

Abstract

This study investigates how non-native English-speaking (NNES) doctoral students self-assess their English academic writing (EAW) abilities. A total of 255 international NNES students, hailing from 49 different countries and speaking 48 mother tongues, voluntarily participated in our study. They were enrolled in 65 PhD programs at 14 universities across Hungary during the 2021–2022 academic year. To address our research aim, we developed a survey using a 6-point Likert scale, following the guidelines of Dörnyei and Dewaele (2022). The survey focused on self-assessing their abilities to write academic texts in English. The analysis results indicate that students lacked confidence in their EAW abilities at the beginning of their PhD studies but exhibited increased confidence at the current stage. The results also highlight the influence of gender and English language proficiency on EAW self-assessments. Additionally, senior PhD students demonstrated greater confidence in field-specific lexical knowledge compared to their first-year peers. This study highlights the fact that NNES novice writers lacked the necessary EAW skills upon entering their PhD programs, making it challenging for them to start doctoral-level writing immediately. This underscores the need for comprehensive support that encompasses both enhancing English language proficiency and providing academic writing assistance.