Educational Measurement: Issues and Practice

December 2020, Vol. 0, No. 0, pp. 1–12

Gender-Based EFL Writing Error Analysis Using Human and

Computer-Aided Approaches

Norah Almusharraf, Prince Sultan University and Hind Alotaibi, King Saud
University

Abstract: Committing errors is expected in the development of language acquisition and learning;
however, there is limited research that contributes to the literature on the effect of gender of
English as a foreign language (EFL) writing. This study explored the gender differences in EFL
students’ writing using two approaches: human evaluation and computer-aided error analysis
(CEA). A corpus of 90,753 words was compiled from written samples collected from 197
participants (98 males and 99 females [freshmen or sophomores]) who were studying on a full-time
basis in a private institution in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). By utilizing descriptive analysis
and factorial two-way ANOVA to detect counting errors, the findings reveal that the distinctions
between male and female writings are nonsignificantly related to specific errors. Generally, the
results exhibit noteworthy differences between the error types of the two male and female groups
(more error frequency in the male-written productions). The findings support educators and
decision-makers on implementing more learner-conscious teaching approaches, enhancing male
and female students’ EFL writing skills. This study further suggests diagnostic information about
challenging EFL writing areas, which can benefit educators and course designers in establishing
effective teaching strategies and feedback approaches that should be implemented to promote EFL
writing skills.

Keywords: computer-aided error analysis (CEA), EFL writing, error analysis, gender, human raters

Introduction 2013), proficiency levels (e.g., Mutar & Nimehchisalem,

Writing is considered a significant skill for academic suc-
cess and professional attainment. Geiser and Studley (2002)
argued that writing an extended text is one of the best predic-
tors of success in the course of coping with university life. Ac-
cording to Bjork and Raisanen (1997), “it is a tool for language
development, for critical thinking and extension, for learning
in all disciplines” (p. 8). Many disciplinary courses rely on dif-
ferent forms of written texts for assessment, such as written
exams, essays, and reports (Krause, 2001). Understanding
the factors affecting writing performance and the individual
differences among writers might help develop more effective
ways of teaching students to write with greater confidence
and competence (Kormos, 2012). Some of these factors in-
clude cognitive and linguistic skills, age, gender, interest level
in writing, self-efficacy, and anxiety (Al-Saadi, 2020). The
influence of gender on writing performance has been the fo-
cus of many studies. Previous research regarding gender dis-
tinctions has explored writing attainment and performance
(e.g., Beard & Burrell, 2010; Waskita, 2008), writing motiva-
tion (e.g., Troia, Harbaugh, Shankland, Wolbers, & Lawrence,
Norah Almusharraf, An assistant professor, Applied Linguis-
tics Department, College of Humanities, Prince Sultan University,
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Hind Alotaibi, An associate professor, Dean
of the College of Humanities, Prince Sultan University, Riyadh,
Saudi Arabia.
2017), writing processes (e.g., Zhang, Bennett, Deane, & van
Rijn, 2019), text quality (e.g., Al-Saadi, 2020), and the length
of writing (e.g., Pratama, Dwiyanti, & Manik, 2020).
Several studies have highlighted the discrepancy in writ-
ing performance between men and women regarding their
divergent styles, contents, and communication structures
(e.g., Suandari, 2012). Waskita (2008) found that female
learners tend to show higher frequencies in written prod-
ucts than male learners. Female learners also usually em-
ploy more writing strategies than male students (Mutar &
Nimehchisalem, 2017). Moreover, Ginting (2018) suggested
that women’s writings show more lexical density than men’s
and score higher in writing performance (Ng, 2010). Female
writers are believed to exhibit better language abilities (e.g.,
communicative gestures, productive vocabulary, and combin-
ing words) than men (Eriksson et al., 2012). Their sentences
tend to be usually longer and more complex than those pro-
duced by men, which can be linked to their creativity and
strong imagination in writing different plots and producing
complex writings (Suganob-Nicolau & Sukamto, 2016).
Given the significance of writing in English as a foreign
language (EFL), learners’ errors should be examined and
categorized to be addressed in teaching practices (Hamdi
Asl & Dabaghi, 2012; Nair & Hui, 2018; Richards & Schmidt,
2010). This is critical because learners’ errors provide in-
structors with recommendations and directions on how a

© 2020 by the National Council on Measurement in Education 1

language is acquired and how learners perform concerning
their developmental errors, including how they internalize
instructions (Ellis, 1994). Language and cognitive predictors
vary among males and females scores (Ng, 2010); hence,
utilizing computer-aided error analysis (CEA) could detect
local surface-level errors. For example, verb–noun agreement
(Bailey & Lee, 2020), facilitating the assessment and evalua-
tion process (Al-Ahdal, 2020), and providing more diagnostic
results of the most common errors made by males and
females, which might aid the writing evaluation and devel-
opmental assessment process (Dikli & Bleyle, 2014).
To the best of our knowledge, no study has attempted to
investigate the effect of gender on EFL writing errors using
two approaches: human evaluation and CEA. This research
sought to contribute to EFL writing literature, primarily on
the effect of gender on EFL writing performance, which has
not been thoroughly investigated (Hamdi Asl & Dabaghi,
2012; Nair & Hui, 2018). The findings are expected to help
educators and decision-makers implement more learner-
conscious teaching approaches, which can help enhance
male and female students’ EFL writing abilities. This study
also hopes to provide diagnostic information and character-
ize the divergent aspects of challenging EFL writing areas,
which can help educators and course designers establish
effective teaching strategies and feedback approaches that
should be implemented to promote EFL writing skills.
Literature Review
Impact of Gender on EFL Writing
The influence of gender on language learning has been the
focus of many studies. Early work has revealed that men
and women use language differently (Dingwall, 1998; Eckert,
1989; Lakoff, 1975; Larsen-Freeman & Long, 1991). Larsen-
Freeman and Long (1991) claimed that females tend to do
better in the first and second language acquisition (SLA).
The discrepancy between men and women in the second
language (L2) learning is related to differences in L2 skills
among male and female learners, which lead to variances in
writing accuracy and quality (Al-Saadi, 2020; Bijami, Kashef,
& Khaksari, 2013; Furtina, Fata, & Fitrisia, 2016; Ginting,
2018; Kamari, Gorjian, & Pazhakh, 2012; Mutar & Nime-
hchisalem, 2017; Nair & Hui, 2018; Ng, 2010; Nosrati & Nafisi,
2015; Pratama et al., 2020; Saeed, Ghani, & Ramzan, 2011).
One of the gender distinctions is related to writing errors in
language learning, which is evidence of incomplete learning,
inaccurate grammatical structure, and unsuccessful meaning
delivery (Richards & Schmidt, 2010). Errors are mainly dis-
tinguished from “mistakes” in that they are associated with
a lack of knowledge and transitional skills rather than “neg-
ligence, fatigue, and the lack of attention” (Vakili & Ebadi,
2019, p. 2).
Some justifications related to the existing gender differ-
ences are associated with their language learning strategies
(LLSs), directly or indirectly (Oxford, 2001). LLSs refer to
the “specific actions, behaviors, steps, or techniques” (Ox-
ford, 2001, p. 44) employed by learners to achieve or complete
a task in language learning. Within the LLSs, it was found
that female students use more social strategies than male stu-
dents (Politzer, 1983). Further, it was determined that female
students employ cognitive, metacognitive, and social strate-
gies more recurrently than male students (Khazaie & Mes-
bah, 2014; Oxford & Nyikos, 1989). There are also significant
2 © 2020 by the National Council on Measurement in Education
differences between the males and the females in their use
of memory, cognitive, and compensation strategies; Dingwall
(1998) claimed that the language function might be more or-
ganized in women than in men.
In EFL writing, the discrepancies between male and female
students are evident in many aspects. For instance, Kamari
et al. (2012) examined the influence of gender on Iranian
students’ EFL writing proficiency in writing descriptive and
opinion one-paragraph essays. The results indicated a signif-
icant difference in the participants’ performance as the male
students performed better in writing opinion essays, whereas
the female students did better in descriptive essays. Relat-
edly, Nosrati and Nafisi (2015) identified the frequent gram-
matical, coherence, and cohesion errors made by the IELTS
examinees in speaking and writing based on gender. They re-
ported that the female students made more coherence and co-
hesion errors but made fewer grammar errors than the male
students in writing and spelling.
Similarly, Furtina et al. (2016) compared the types of
grammatical errors usually found in male and female stu-
dents’ writing tasks. The grammatical error subcategories
investigated involved subject–verb agreements, verb form,
singular/plural form, preposition, conjunction, pronoun, and
article. The findings suggested that the total number of
errors found in the female students’ writing is less than that
of the male students’ writing. From another angle, Mutar and
Nimehchisalem (2017) were interested in comparing male
and female students’ writing strategy usage. They also found
a significant difference in female and male students’ strategy
usage as female students were found to use writing strategies
more than male students. Gender and writing strategies were
also the focus of El Mortaji (2019), who investigated whether
Moroccan male and female undergraduates use similar or
different writing strategies when composing essays in narra-
tive and expository genres. The findings revealed that each
gender group used some writing strategies more frequently
than the other group; nevertheless, the divergence in the
frequency of use was not statistically significant.
Nair and Hui (2018) were interested in identifying and
comparing the types of errors made by male and female
students in EFL descriptive writing. Their study involved 102
students in a Chinese private school in Malaysia. The study
revealed that female students made significantly fewer errors
than male students in their overall writing, spelling, gram-
mar, sentence structures, and lexical items. Nonetheless,
the difference in errors between male and female students
in the area of mechanics and coherence was nonsignificant.
Furthermore, Lahuerta (2020) argued that punctuation
errors as an “improvement-resistant feature” (p. 130) are
problematic for many L2 writers with distinct abilities.
Punctuation errors in specific is an underresearched topic
L2 acquisition and commonly overlooked in EFL classrooms
(Lahuerta, 2020; Thewissen, 2013).
The effect of gender on the linguistics properties of aca-
demic writing abstracts was also investigated. Ginting (2018)
explored the linguistics properties of Indonesian male and
female EFL learners’ academic writing. The researcher found
that females tended to write with more lexical density than
males in their descriptive writing; however, no significant
difference was detected in lexical diversity between the
two genders. Al-Saadi (2020) probed gender differences in
EFL writing by exploring the mediating effect of language
proficiency and writing fluency in text quality. He deter-
mined that the female students in the study outperformed
Educational Measurement: Issues and Practice
males in terms of writing fluency and text quality, which was
associated with their higher level of English proficiency.
Pratama et al. (2020) investigated the effect of gender on
writing length. Despite the limited number of participants,
the findings indicated a significant difference between fe-
male and male participants in the number of written words.
The female participants produced more extended writing
words and complex sentences than male students. The
female students also included a description of their feelings
and the use of five features, namely, intensifying, hedging, tag
questions, empty adjectives, and adverbs in their writing. In
contrast, the results from Verspoor, Schmid, and Xu (2012)
revealed that sentence length, lexical advancement, and
errors are mainly associated with the proficiency levels of
writing abilities and not gender. Both results are in line with
Adams and Simmons (2019), in which their study revealed no
significant improvement for males and females was identified
in their vocabulary, knowledge, or phonological processing
skills.
The studies discussed above validate the idea that gender
impacts EFL writing. Still, all these studies have relied on
human evaluators to detect distinctions between male and
female EFL writers, which can be linked to the inconsistent
results. The concept of CEA and its implementation in EFL
writing error analysis are discussed in the next section.
Computer-Aided Error Analysis (CEA)
The concept of CEA was first introduced by Dagneaux, Den-
ness, and Granger (1998) as a novel approach to analyze
learners’ errors. These researchers conducted CEA on a
150,000-word corpus of English written by intermediate and
advanced French-speaking students. The learners’ errors
were corrected manually, and then the corpus was annotated
for errors using an error editor. Dagneaux et al. argued
that CEA could play a key role in learners’ awareness of
information to enhance the teaching/learning environment.
Dagneaux et al. also asserted that manual error analysis has
its limitations: (1) it is based on heterogeneous learner data,
(2) the categories generated are fuzzy, (3) it cannot cater
for phenomena such as avoidance, (4) it is restricted to what
the learner cannot do, and (5) EA gives a static picture of L2
learning.
Al-Ahdal (2020) described CEA as an “analytical tool that
has acquired the procedures, resources, and overall rigor nec-
essary for the development of corpus linguistics in a rigorous
analysis of foreign dialect mistakes” (p. 420). He also sug-
gested that CEA could generate the full lists of specific er-
ror categories, quantify and organize them in various ways,
and display them in their scope. Over the past decades, CEA
has been employed in many studies within the context of EFL
to help identify the errors of learners and monitor their per-
formances (e.g., Al-Ahdal, 2020; Chen, 2017; Demirel, 2017;
Granger, 1999; He, 2016; Mushtaq et al., 2019).
A large body of literature has revealed the practical func-
tionality of CEA in producing constructive comments (Dem-
bsey, 2017; O’Neill & Russell, 2019), offering explicit over
generic feedback (Ranalli, 2018), assisting the reduction in
the number of errors (i.e., related to vocabulary, grammar,
spelling; Ghufron & Rosyida, 2018), and offering more suit-
able local surface-level errors (e.g., articles, preposition, and
verb–noun agreement) (Bailey & Lee, 2020), and easing
the assessment and evaluation process (Al-Ahdal, 2020), in-
December 2020
cluding self-assessment to motivate learners (Dikli & Bleyle,
2014).
However, few studies have analyzed the gender variable
and its influence on students’ writing errors using CEA. One
of the early studies that used CEA was conducted by Chen
(1996), who discussed how computers could be integrated
into writing classrooms to help teachers detect their students’
errors and progress. Chen also utilized the Quick Business
Letters software to examine the distinctions between males’
and females’ writing. The analysis of each assignment’s errors
determined that male students committed higher error rates
on 71.5% of the error types measured. The errors of female
students were higher on 28.5% of the error types. On the most
common errors, females consistently committed lower error
rates than their male counterparts, which indicated that fe-
males outperformed male writers.
The impact of gender and university level on EFL writing
was investigated by Bridgeman, Trapani, and Attali (2012),
who explored the influence of different variables (gender,
ethnicity, and country of origin groups) on students’ scores on
two large-scale high-stakes testing bodies: GRE and TOEFL.
The authors compared human and machine scores and found
that they were very similar in general.
This overview of related literature revealed a lack of stud-
ies investigating the impact of gender on writing errors us-
ing divergent evaluation approaches. Therefore, the present
study aimed to fill the gap by exploring the gender differ-
ences in the writing of EFL students using human evaluation
and CEA. It also aimed to examine the impact of gender on
EFL writing errors based on human evaluation compared with
CEA. The following research questions were, therefore, inves-
tigated through this study:
RQ 1: What is the impact of gender on EFL writing based
on human evaluation and CEA?
RQ 2: Is there a significant difference between male and
female EFL writing errors based on human evaluation and
CEA?
Methodology
Research Design
This study is part of more extensive research (Almusharraf
& Alotaibi, 2020) that adopted a mixed-methods design that
utilized the quantitative (descriptive analysis and facto-
rial analysis) and qualitative classifications of commonly
detected errors in EFL students’ written samples. A compar-
ative study was conducted to examine the gender differences
in EFL students’ writing using human evaluation and CEA.
Context
The data were gathered from students’ written samples in a
private nonprofit university in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where
English is the standard instruction model. The institution is
nationally accredited by the Saudi Ministry of Higher Edu-
cation. The institution consists of five colleges, namely, Law,
Humanities, Engineering, Business Administration, and Com-
puter & Information Sciences. The setting, along with all
the public and private education systems of KSA, is gender-
separated. The KSA educational system is an open, equal, but
separate public and private schools from elementary to col-
lege level for female and male students (Alrashidi & Phan,
2015).
© 2020 by the National Council on Measurement in Education 3
Participants
Data were collected from 197 participants (98 males and 99
females [freshmen or sophomores]) studying on a full-time
basis. The ages of the participants ranged from 19 to 25. The
participants came from various majors from all five colleges,
and they were enrolled in an English Writing course during
Fall 2019. Before students can be enrolled in their desired
academic majors, they must have passed the university En-
glish entrance exam and the Preparatory Year Program (PYP)
or taken the IELTS or TOEFL exams to be exempted from
the PYP. Participants were notified that their essays would
be evaluated, but their names would be anonymized. Before
the research was conducted, the students signed an informed
consent form, whereupon they agreed to allow their samples
to be examined for future research. No compensation was
granted to any participant who took part in this study.
Examined Course
The English writing course’s objective is to familiarize stu-
dents with the conventions and skills of academic writing,
and it emphasizes using discourse genres, rhetorical prac-
tices, and argument structures that are regularly experienced
in academic and professional settings. Within this course, stu-
dents are expected to write academic essays in several genres
with the attentiveness of their specific styles and structures,
including exploring, summarizing, drafting, editing, and ap-
propriately quoting primary scholarly sources in the Ameri-
can Psychological Association (APA) style.
In this study, six sections of the English writing course were
taught by two male instructors, and four female instructors
taught five sections. Each course instructor had at least 5
years of experience in teaching English writing courses at a
college level, and they held MA or PhD degrees in English lit-
erature or applied linguistics. Before initiating the study, the
instructors were trained and supervised to follow a specific
writing assessment process, and their input was adapted in a
shared platform.
Compiled Corpus
The data collection included a corpus of 197 written essays
(90,753 words in total) composed of the students’ midterm
exams. Before the exams, the students were not informed that
their essays would be examined; however, after the exam, stu-
dents were asked if they are willing to be part of this study.
During their midterm exams, the students were given two
associated elective prompts to write a process analysis essay
(approximately 530 words within 1 hour). During the exam,
the students in all sections were asked to write an essay on
one of the general and adapted topics (e.g., Three Rules of
Writing Good Essays). They were asked to investigate and
clarify a directional or informational process using a source
of information. Further, they were requested to write the es-
say using signal phrases and at least two in-text citations
to paraphrase the cited sources. Finally, they were directed
to use language that demonstrates movement in a process
(e.g., adjective clauses, adverb clauses of time, and transi-
tion phrases). The exam was supervised in a computer lab
with controlled network access to allow the students to only
upload their finalized essays on the learning management
system (Moodle) to be further checked by the Turnitin tool.
Each student was provided with a desktop computer and a
4 © 2020 by the National Council on Measurement in Education
Microsoft Word document template that included the exam
instructions and essay prompts.
Validity and Reliability
The validity of an instrument designates the extent to which
a tool measures what it is intended to measure (Polit &
Hungler, 1993). In this study, the writing exams’ face and
content validity were established by following the trustee’s
validity approach. The writing course team members were
asked to examine the difficulty of the given topics by using
readability tests (e.g., Flesch–Kincaid readability tests)
and by peer consultation on the covered topic within their
instruction. The exam committee approved the department’s
selected topics as appropriate to the standards and levels of
knowledge of the students.
Each essay was also scored by an external rater, an assis-
tant professor in applied linguistics with a PhD in foreign
and second language education and experienced in using
rubrics for essay scoring. Interrater reliability between the
score for each essay given by the instructor and the external
rater was calculated using Cohen’s kappa. The kappa values
ranged from .694 to .943. Given that kappa values between
.61 and .8 are considered substantial, and all values greater
than .8 are considered excellent, the interrater reliability
for the essay scoring between all instructors and the ex-
ternal rater was considered acceptable (Brennan & Hays,
1992). Furthermore, obtaining an Institutional Review Board
(IRB) approval was conditional before conducting this study.
Hence, the IRB reviewed, assessed, and granted this study
clearance to conduct the research (PSU IRB-2020-08-0051).
Data Analysis
Analytical Rubric
The essays of the students were evaluated by each course
instructor using a department-approved analytical rubric.
This rubric was used by writing course instructors for several
years. It has been validated, inspected by experts in applied
linguistics, and accepted by the university as a standard
rubric for English writing essay grading. The criteria weighed
by this rubric involved the introduction, thesis statement,
topic sentence, and body paragraphs, grammar and me-
chanics, conclusion, and cohesion/coherence. Further, the
Quality Assurance Center that monitors and oversees the
educational quality standards at the accredited schools
assessed the course learning objectives and learning out-
comes and assessment plans to monitor and manage the
schools’ academic quality standards as part of the national
and international accreditation program.
Human Raters (Instructors)
For the human scoring part, the researchers described the re-
search aim and analysis method to course instructors. To im-
prove the interrater reliability of human raters, all the course
instructors employed a unified grading system using the same
rubric, engaged in peer-assessment (instructors reviewing
selective papers from other sections) for validation and re-
ceived training assessment monitored by the course coordi-
nator.
Educational Measurement: Issues and Practice
Computer-Aided Error Analysis (CEA)
The students’ essays were also evaluated using Grammarly,
a web-based platform that offers grammar and spelling ex-
aminations. Many researchers (e.g., Perdana & Farida, 2019)
have argued that Grammarly is considered one of the most
common writing evaluation tools today as it looks at more
than 250 standard and advanced grammatical rules in ad-
dition to spelling, punctuation, word choice, and style mis-
takes. Grammarly’s paid version delivers more than 400 types
of checks and vocabulary improvements, citation recommen-
dations, and plagiarism checks. The tool also assists writers
in the accuracy, clarity, engagement, and delivery of their
writings in addition to a general score of writing (Perdana
& Farida, 2019).
Qualitative Classification of Writing Errors
Corder (1971) classified writing errors into four categories:
(a) referential errors (i.e., using a term to refer to some
feature, but it is predictably irrelevant), (b) registrar er-
rors (i.e., committing errors in the use of register), (c) so-
cial errors (i.e., choosing socially unsuitable forms), and (d)
textual errors, (i.e., committing improper structure within
and between sentences in discourse). In this study, the er-
rors detected by EFLs were mainly systematic textual er-
rors that were captured by both human raters and AES,
with only a few referential errors (i.e., subject–verb agree-
ment, run-on sentences), and social errors (i.e., word choice
and slang). The main detected errors were improper for-
matting, wordy sentences, sentences fragments, use of slang,
passive voice misuse, subject–verb agreement, noun number,
verb form errors, word/phrase/pronoun/ modifier/comparison
errors (confused/repetitive), punctuation, preposition, ar-
ticle/determiner, hard-to-read text/proofread/garbled, con-
nect sentences/coordinating conjunctions, comma splices,
and run-on sentences.
These classifications of errors were made by listing the
most common errors found by the instructors and then
combining them with CEA (e.g., Grammarly) classifications.
The frequency of detected errors determines the name of
the error classification, for instance, the mispronoun, mod-
ifiers, and comparisons. Some errors could not be defined
under one classification: spelling, article/determiner, and
preposition. Wordy sentence classification occurs in CEA by
99%, and only 1% appears under human raters. By contrast,
the classification of comma splices and run-on sentences has
solely occurred in human raters.
Statistical Analysis
The descriptive analysis and factorial ANOVA test (Sthle &
Wold, 1989) of the students’ writing errors were conducted
using SPSS, version 26. A factorial ANOVA compares means
across two or more independent variables. Unlike the one-
way ANOVA, the factorial ANOVA has two or more independent
variables that split the sample into four or more groups. The
simplest case of a factorial ANOVA uses two binary variables
as independent variables, thereby creating four groups within
the sample. This type of statistical measure seems appropri-
ate for our research purpose because we have two groups for
male and female students and two error analysis approaches.
December 2020
Results
The error classifications are identified differently by instruc-
tors and CEA. In this study, the researcher observed and
analyzed these errors and separated them into 21 cate-
gories (see Table 1). These categories include critical er-
rors as subject–verb agreement, advanced errors such as
word choice, and academic writing errors, such as the use
of slang/informal/exaggerating language. Table 1 presents de-
tailed information on the errors detected by humans and CEA.
In addition, the data analysis revealed that the average es-
say length for the female students was 475.7 words compared
with 445.4 words in the essays of the male students. Table 2
depicts the differences in the average text length for both
genders.
By utilizing the descriptive and factorial analysis of error
counting, the findings show that CEA detected more errors
than the human raters in the following error categories:
spelling, article/determiner, preposition, punctuation,
word/phrase/pronoun/modifier/comparison errors (con-
fused/repetitive), verb form errors/parallel form for verb
and noun, noun number, S/V agreement, passive voice mis-
use, use of slang/informal/exaggerating language, sentence
fragments, word choice, wordy sentence, and improper
formatting. Conversely, human raters were able to identify
more errors related to the following categories: capitaliza-
tion, possessive, contractions in academic writing, comma
splices, run-on sentences, connect sentences/coordinating
conjunctions, and hard-to-read text/proofread/garbled.
Findings also showed that females’ most frequent er-
rors are capitalization, contractions in academic writing,
noun numbers, comma splices, run-on sentences, sentence
fragments, and wordy sentences. By contrast, the most
frequent errors for males are spelling, article/determiner,
preposition, punctuation, possessive, word/phrase/pronoun/
modifier/comparison errors (confused/repetitive), verb form
errors/parallel form for verb and noun, S/V agreement,
passive voice misuse, connect sentences/coordinating con-
junctions, word choice, use of slang/informal/exaggerating
language, hard-to-read text/proofread/garbled, and improper
formatting.
Table 3 presents the descriptive analysis (mean and stan-
dard deviation) of the number of errors based on the two eval-
uation approaches. The total number of errors detected by the
instructors was found to be 3,563 errors (M = 15.4199, SD =
23.92999), while the total number of errors detected by CEA
was 8,542 (M = 36.9784, SD = 52.75221).
Investigating this difference using the factorial analysis
of two-way ANOVA shown in Table 4, this study found that
there was a significant difference between CEA (number
of errors detected using Grammarly) and human evaluated
essay scores (number of errors detected by the instructors)
(p < .001), where the mean number of errors detected
by Grammarly (M = 36.9784) was higher than that seen
by the instructors (M = 15.4199). Conversely, there was a
nonsignificant difference between the total number of errors
detected for the male and female students (p = .499).
The result above led the researcher to investigate each er-
ror type. The factorial analysis of two-way ANOVA was con-
ducted on each error type, and the results are presented in
Table 5.
For each error type, the factorial analysis of two-way
ANOVA was used to detect any significant difference between
males and females, as shown in Table 6.
© 2020 by the National Council on Measurement in Education 5
Table 1. Descriptive Analysis of the Errors Detected by Humans and CEA
Error Type Errors Detected by Humans Errors Detected by CEA r p
# M SD # M SD
Article/determiner 855 4.34 4.76 974 4.94 3.74 .362 .000
Capitalization 126 .64 1.25 114 .58 1.51 .544 .000
Comma splices 49 .25 .71 0 .00 .00 . .
Connect sentences/coordinating conjunctions 80 .41 1.24 0 .00 .00 . .
Contractions in academic writing 14 .07 .31 0 .02 .28 −.016 .820
Sentence fragments 71 .36 .74 133 .68 1.08 .332 .000
Hard-to-read text/proofread/garbled 287 1.46 2.04 102 .52 .98 −.053 .459
Improper formatting 128 .65 1.18 969 4.92 18.02 .116 .105
Noun number 15 .08 .34 75 .38 .80 .025 .730
Passive voice misuse 14 .07 .34 191 1.00 1.26 .171 .016
Possessive 42 .21 .50 1 .01 .07 .113 .116
Preposition 184 .93 1.23 366 1.86 2.25 .436 .000
Punctuation 423 2.14 2.08 1411 7.16 3.76 .370 .000
Run-on sentences 81 .41 .78 0 .00 .00 . .
Spelling 117 .59 1.15 146 .76 1.36 .597 .000
Subject–verb agreement 281 1.43 2.09 402 2.04 2.37 .743 .000
Use of slang/informal slang/exaggerating 19 .10 .33 143 .73 1.01 −.089 .215
language
Verb form errors/parallel form for verb and 272 1.38 1.77 404 2.02 2.48 .708 .000
noun
Word choice 124 .62 1.21 2009 10.20 5.47 −.234 .001
Word/phrase/pronoun/modifier/ 380 1.93 2.60 751 3.81 3.01 .242 .001
comparison errors
Wordy sentence 1 .01 .07 351 1.78 1.71 .051 .477

Table 2. Average Text Length for Male and ticle/determiner, improper formatting, preposition, spelling,
Female Essays verb form, word/phrase/pronoun/modifier/comparison errors
Total Word Total Word Total of Average Average (confused/repetitive), and word choice errors. In all these er-
Count for Count for All Text Length Text Length ror categories, the male students committed a significantly
Females Males for Males for Females higher number of errors than the female students as the p-
value in each of these error types was <.05. Conversely, the
47,097 43,656 90,753 445.4 475.7 female students had considerably more capitalization, and
comma splice errors than their male counterparts as the p-
value in each of these error types was <.05. A discussion of
Table 3. Descriptive Analysis of Error these findings is presented next.
Counting Based on Humans and CEA
Gender Group M SD Discussion
Male Human 15.4841 26.86224 The current research explored the gender differences in
CEA 34.5556 46.08940 EFL students’ writing using human evaluation and CEA.
Total 25.0198 38.83979 A corpus of 90,753 words was analyzed using descriptive
Female Human 15.3429 19.97827 analysis and factorial two-way ANOVA to compare the stu-
CEA 39.8857 59.87861 dents’ writing errors according to gender. The data analysis
Total 27.6143 46.19595
revealed interesting findings as it seemed that the female
students tended to write more extended essays than the male
students as their average text length was 475.7 words, while
the male average text length was 445.4 words. These findings
The factorial analysis in Table 6 shows that the dif- were in line with Pratama et al. (2020), who found that the
ference between male and female writing errors was female participants produced longer writing samples than
nonsignificant in terms of the following error types: con- the male students. Önem (2016) argued that females tend to
nect sentences/coordinating conjunctions, contractions write longer texts than males as they provide more details,
in academic writing, Sentence fragments, hard-to-read whereas males are more likely to be straight to the point
text/proofread/garbled, noun number, passive voice mis- (Önem, 2016). The emerging finding of our results contra-
use, possessives, punctuation, run-on sentences, use of dicts the results from Verspoor et al. (2012), showing that the
slang/informal/exaggerating language, and wordy sentence measures of sentence length, lexical complexity, and errors
errors. The p-value in each error type was >.05, indicating are based on the proficiency levels of writing experience.
no significant difference between the number of errors It was interesting to observe that both genders’ most
committed by male and female students. detected errors were “punctuation” and “word choice” er-
There was an evident difference between the male and fe- rors. Lahuerta (2020) described punctuation errors as
male students in the following error types: S/V agreement, ar- an “improvement-resistant feature” (p. 130), which seems

6 © 2020 by the National Council on Measurement in Education Educational Measurement: Issues and Practice
Table 4. Factorial Analysis of Total Errors
Source Type III Sum of Squares df Mean Square F p Partial eta Squared
Gender 771.022 1 771.022 .459 .499 .001
Group 54472.260 1 54472.260 32.395 .000 .066
Gender × Group 857.273 1 857.273 .510 .476 .001

Table 5. Descriptive Analysis of Gender-Based Error Analysis Using Human and CEA Approaches
Error Type Gender Evaluation Approach M SD
Article/determiner Male Human 118.3333 14.74675
CEA 85.8333 15.14486
Female Human 29.0000 37.51000
CEA 91.8000 45.11319
Capitalization Male Human 8.0000 5.83095
CEA 5.1667 3.37145
Female Human 15.6000 11.32696
CEA 16.6000 15.32319
Comma splices Male Human .0000 .00000
CEA .0000 .00000
Female Human 9.8000 6.45755
CEA .0000 .00000
Connect sentences/coordinating conjunctions Male Human 8.6667 3.50238
CEA .0000 .00000
Female Human 5.6000 7.63544
CEA .0000 .00000
Contractions in academic writing Male Human .0000 .00000
CEA .0000 .00000
Female Human 2.8000 4.08656
CEA .0000 .00000
Sentence fragments Male Human 5.3333 1.50555
CEA 12.1667 4.44597
Female Human 7.8000 4.96991
CEA 12.0000 6.96419
Hard-to-read text/proofread/garbled Male Human 39.8000 37.29209
CEA 5.0000 3.31662
Female Human 14.6667 2.50333
CEA 12.8333 5.45588
Improper formatting Male Human 25.0000 15.44345
CEA 129.8000 71.81713
Female Human .5000 .83666
CEA 53.3333 52.67131
Noun number Male Human .0000 .00000
CEA 7.0000 3.63318
Female Human 3.0000 2.54951
CEA 6.6000 2.50998
Passive voice misuse Male Human 2.3333 2.42212
CEA 17.0000 7.32120
Female Human .0000 .00000
CEA 17.8000 3.96232
Possessive Male Human 4.5000 1.64317
CEA .0000 .00000
Female Human 3.0000 5.04975
CEA .2000 .44721
Preposition Male Human 21.3333 4.80278
CEA 37.3333 14.32015
Female Human 11.2000 7.36206
CEA 28.4000 6.69328

(Continued)

problematic for many L2 writers with different proficiencies.
He also argued that it is an underresearched topic L2 acquisi-
tion. Similarly, Thewissen (2013) claimed that punctuation is
often overlooked in EFL classrooms. Word choice errors can
be linked to the lack of vocabulary knowledge in male and fe-
male students. It is further recommended that such common
detected errors receive careful attention within the peda-
gogical implementation that EFL learners receive (Lahuerta,
2020).
As the focus of this study is the difference in writing
errors between male and female students, we looked at
the total number of errors based on the gender of the

December 2020 © 2020 by the National Council on Measurement in Education 7

Table 5. Continued
Error Type Gender Evaluation Approach M SD
Punctuation Male Human 41.8333 15.02553
CEA 129.6667 21.74090
Female Human 34.4000 14.89295
CEA 126.6000 28.09448
Run-on sentences Male Human 5.5000 2.42899
CEA .0000 .00000
Female Human 9.6000 4.92950
CEA .0000 .00000
S/V agreement Male Human 36.8333 12.27056
CEA 43.6667 11.62182
Female Human 12.0000 6.51920
CEA 28.0000 11.46734
Spelling Male Human 16.4000 7.98749
CEA 16.0000 8.60233
Female Human 5.8333 4.44597
CEA 11.0000 4.97996
Use of slang/Informal/exaggerating language Male Human 2.6000 3.20936
CEA 9.8000 10.25671
Female Human 1.0000 1.54919
CEA 15.6667 6.21825
Verb form errors/parallel form for verb and noun Male Human 27.8333 8.95358
CEA 45.6667 14.32015
Female Human 21.0000 6.67083
CEA 26.0000 6.00000
Word/phrase/pronoun/modifier/comparison errors Male Human 49.0000 36.64696
(confused/repetitive) CEA 84.0000 19.22238
Female Human 22.5000 10.42593
CEA 55.1667 9.08662
Word choice Male Human 49.0000 36.64696
CEA 84.0000 19.22238
Female Human 22.5000 10.42593
CEA 55.1667 9.08662
Wordy sentence Male Human .0000 .00000
CEA 26.3333 8.52447
Female Human .0000 .00000
CEA 38.6000 10.92245

writers. The results from the human evaluation and CEA
asserted that the difference between the total number of
writing errors detected for the male and female students
was not statistically significant (p = .499), indicating no
statistically significant difference in the number of errors
committed by the two gender groups. These findings are
in line with prior research (e.g., Nair & Hui, 2018), and
it might be justified by the unified assessment plans and
instructional strategies as seen in the observed context.
Explicitly, examining the difference between genders across
the various error types indicated that the difference between
the male and female writing errors was nonsignificant in
terms of connecting sentences/coordinating conjunctions,
contractions in academic writing, sentence fragments, hard-
to-read text/proofread/garbled, noun number, passive voice
misuse, possessives, punctuation, run-on sentences, use of
slang/informal/exaggerating language, and wordy sentence
errors. The p-value in each error type comparison was >.05,
indicating that the male and female students had similar
numbers of errors in these error categories. These findings
are broadly in line with Lahuerta (2020), who found that
the female participants do not significantly outperform their
male peers’ written accuracy.
By contrast, the data analysis indicated that the male stu-
dents tended to have more errors in S/V agreement, arti-
cle/determiner, improper formatting, preposition, spelling,
verb form, word/phrase/pronoun/modifier/comparison (con-
fused/repetitive), and word choice. The analysis revealed that
the male students had significantly higher numbers of er-
rors in all these error types than the female students as
the p-value in each of these error types was <.05. However,
the analysis revealed that the female students had signif-
icantly more capitalization and comma splices errors than
their male counterparts as the p-value in each of these error
types was <.05. Previous studies show that gender has an im-
pact and discrepancy between men and women in L2 learning,
and mainly females commit fewer errors than their counter-
parts (Al-Saadi, 2020; Bijami et al., 2013; Kamari et al., 2012;
Furtina et al., 2016; Ginting, 2018; Mutar & Nimehchisalem,
2017; Nair & Hui, 2018; Ng, 2010; Nosrati & Nafisi, 2015;
Pratama et al., 2020; Saeed et al., 2011). In this study, no sig-
nificant difference overall, and only found some differences
both for males committing more errors and females commit-
ting more error in specific categories. Furthermore, a simi-
lar pattern of results was obtained in studies related to CEA
within the context of EFL and with the emphasis on identify-
ing the errors of learners and monitoring their performance.
For instance, our results agree with Chen’s (1996) findings in
that the male students committed higher error rates (71.5%)
of the error types (i.e., S/V agreement, article/determiner, im-
proper formatting, preposition, spelling) than the female stu-
dents.

8 © 2020 by the National Council on Measurement in Education Educational Measurement: Issues and Practice
Table 6. Factorial Analysis of Two-Way ANOVA for Each Error Type
Errors Type Source Type III Sum of Mean F Sig. Partial
Squares Square Eta-Squared
Article/determiner Gender 9477.274 9477.274 10.660 .004* .372
Group 1251.941 1251.941 1.408 .251 .073
Gender × Group 12384.668 12384.668 13.930 .002 .436
Capitalization Gender 494.002 494.002 5.295 .034* .227
Group 4.583 4.583 .049 .827 .003
Gender × Group 20.038 20.038 .215 .649 .012
Comma splices Gender 130.964 130.964 14.133 .001* .440
Group 130.964 130.964 14.133 .001 .440
Gender × Group 130.964 130.964 14.133 .001 .440
Connect sentences/coordinating Gender 12.824 12.824 .784 .388** .042
conjunctions Group 277.552 277.552 16.962 .001 .485
Gender × Group 12.824 12.824 .784 .388 .042
Contractions in academic writing Gender 10.691 10.691 2.881 .107** .138
Group 10.691 10.691 2.881 .107 .138
Gender × Group 10.691 10.691 2.881 .107 .138
Sentence fragments Gender 7.214 7.214 .322 .577** .018
Group 166.002 166.002 7.415 .014 .292
Gender × Group 9.456 9.456 .422 .524 .023
Hard-to-read text/proofread/garbled Gender 408.123 408.123 1.269 .275** .066
Group 1830.002 1830.002 5.692 .028 .240
Gender × Group 1482.002 1482.002 4.610 .046 .204
Improper formatting Gender 13901.274 13901.274 7.057 .016* .282
Group 33884.002 33884.002 17.200 .001 .489
Gender × Group 3682.547 3682.547 1.869 .188 .094
Noun number Gender 9.218 9.218 1.416 .250** .073
Group 153.218 153.218 23.532 .000 .567
Gender × Group 15.764 15.764 2.421 .137 .119
Passive voice misuse Gender 3.206 3.206 .160 .694** .009
Group 1437.388 1437.388 71.843 .000 .800
Gender × Group 13.388 13.388 .669 .424 .036
Possessive Gender 2.305 2.305 .357 .558** .019
Group 72.668 72.668 11.247 .004 .385
Gender × Group 3.941 3.941 .610 .445 .033
Preposition Gender 495.733 495.733 5.807 .027* .244
Group 1503.055 1503.055 17.606 .001 .494
Gender × Group 1.964 1.964 .023 .881 .001
Punctuation Gender 150.341 150.341 .359 .556** .020
Group 44198.183 44198.183 105.561 .000 .854
Gender × Group 26.002 26.002 .062 .806 .003
Run-on sentences Gender 22.923 22.923 3.257 .088** .153
Group 310.923 310.923 44.172 .000 .710
Gender × Group 22.923 22.923 3.257 .088 .153
S/V agreement Gender 2236.705 2236.705 18.954 .000* .513
Group 710.947 710.947 6.025 .025 .251
Gender × Group 114.583 114.583 .971 .337 .051
Spelling Gender 330.438 330.438 7.684 .013* .299
Group 30.983 30.983 .721 .407 .038
Gender × Group 42.256 42.256 .983 .335 .052
Use of slang/Informal/exaggerating language Gender 24.824 24.824 .670 .424** .036
Group 652.024 652.024 17.587 .001 .494
Gender × Group 76.024 76.024 2.051 .169 .102
Verb form errors/parallel form for verb and Gender 957.614 957.614 9.860 .006* .354
noun Group 710.947 710.947 7.320 .014 .289
Gender × Group 224.583 224.583 2.312 .146 .114
Word/phrase/pronoun/modifier/comparison Gender 4175.152 4175.152 9.627 .006* .348
errors (confused/repetitive) Group 6243.788 6243.788 14.397 .001 .444
Gender × Group 7.424 7.424 .017 .897 .001
Word choice Gender 4175.152 4175.152 9.627 .006* .348
Group 6243.788 6243.788 14.397 .001 .444
Gender × Group 7.424 7.424 .017 .897 .001
Wordy sentence Gender 205.188 205.188 4.394 .050** .196
Group 5749.552 5749.552 123.126 .000 .872
Gender × Group 205.188 205.188 4.394 .050 .196
*Indicates that there is a significant difference between males and females; p < .05.
**Indicates that there is an insignificant difference between males and females; p > .05.

December 2020 © 2020 by the National Council on Measurement in Education 9

 These results can help instructors and decision-makers
implement more learner-conscious teaching/learning ap-
proaches to promote male and female students’ EFL writing
abilities concentrating on the challenging areas in EFL
writing. The results also highlighted the potential of CEA
as robust artificial intelligence systems. Integrating such
tools in EFL writing classrooms can increase learners’ inde-
pendence skills in many dimensions, including instant error
feedback and recommendation, learner autonomy aware-
ness, and aid in developing much better writing mechanics
(Wang, Shang, & Briody, 2013). However, there are some
concerns related to CEA, including its limited aid to specific
groups (e.g., low-verbal ability, beginners, and intermediate
learners) (Kepner, 1991) and its offer of unclear and re-
peated feedback in the area of mechanical accuracy. Thus,
guidance, immediate feedback, and instructors’ direction are
crucial to facilitate learners’ awareness of linguistic error
feedback with explanations (Wang et al., 2013).
Conclusions
The current study examined the errors associated with
gender variances in EFL students’ writing using human
evaluation and CEA. Utilizing the descriptive analysis and
factorial two-way ANOVA to analyze the corpus of 90,753
words and compare the students’ writing errors accord-
ing to gender revealed that the female students tended
to write more extended essays than the male students.
Furthermore, both genders’ most detected errors were
“punctuation” and “word choice” errors. The results from
human evaluation and CEA affirmed that the difference
between the total number of writing errors detected for
the male and female students was not statistically signifi-
cant. By contrast, the data analysis revealed that the male
students tended to have more errors in S/V agreement, ar-
ticle/determiner, improper formatting, preposition, spelling,
verb form, word/phrase/pronoun/modifier/comparison (con-
fused/repetitive), and word choice. Also, female students had
significantly more capitalization and comma splices errors
than their male peers. These results can help inform instruc-
tors and policy-makers on employing more learner-centered
learning approaches that can promote the EFL writing
proficiencies of male and female students emphasizing the
weaknesses areas in EFL writing. In other words, teaching
male students should focus on developing their grammatical,
vocabulary, and sentence structure skills, while female stu-
dents should be encouraged to improve their punctuation.
CEA can be a powerful tool to assist teachers in that area,
especially with today’s large classrooms and teachers’ limited
time. Students can use such systems as a personalized learn-
ing tool to reflect on their writing errors and improve their
performance. This conclusion is highlighted by Vakili and
Ebadi (2019), who believe that CEA can support EFL learn-
ers to overcome their academic writing developmental errors
by noticing, assessing, and practicing through these systems.
Beyond the findings of this research, it is essential to
highlight some limitations. On the macroscopic level, the
continuous assessments of a larger population, classroom
observations, and artifact collections are further required
to confirm this finding’s generalizability within the EFL
contexts. In any future experimental and exploratory re-
search, expanding the sample size with the inclusion of other
divergent contexts and extending the future experiments’
duration to allow the capture of prolonged writing episodes
10 © 2020 by the National Council on Measurement in Education
are suggested. Furthermore, curriculum designers can pre-
pare systematic programs and provide remedial materials
and activities for learners considering the most challenging
areas. Future research should also consider the impact of
other factors, such as cultural and linguistic differences.
This study’s results further call for more explorations in
the field of error analysis regarding the two genders. It might
be challenging to implement teaching/learning approaches to
address gender differences in errors in tangible instructional
settings. Therefore, further research is needed to explore the
reasons behind such differences by implementing experimen-
tal/ psycholinguistic research approaches. More importantly,
language-learning strategies that emphasize gender differ-
ences in social, cognitive, and metacognitive skills (Oxford
& Nyikos, 1989) should be further examined and validated to
meet specific learners’ needs. The gender-based investigation
can be conducted to examine various writing types (narra-
tive, descriptive, and expository) that might potentially have
gender differences.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank Prince Sultan University
(PSU) for funding this research project under grant number
IRB-CH-2020-6-1 and in affiliation with the Applied Linguis-
tics Research Lab. The researchers are also grateful to the
Research Centre for the Humanities at the Deanship of Sci-
entific Research at King Saud University (KSU) to support
and fund this research project and the Deanship of Scientific
Research and RSSU at King Saud University for their techni-
cal support.
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