Analysis of Higher Education Students’ Errors in English Writing Tasks (original) (raw)

The aim of this study is to analyse the errors of higher education students in English writing tasks. In the study, the paragraphs in the exam papers of 57 preparatory class students, studying at a state university in Turkey in 2017-2018 academic year, were analysed. The study was conducted using qualitative research method. Case study was used in the research. Document analysis was used to collect data. The collected data were analysed in line with Surface Strategy Taxonomy and errors were identified and classified. As a result of the error analysis process, it was observed that the students made a total of 381 errors on 57 exam papers; 192 of them were misformation errors, 113 were omission errors, 65 were addition errors and only 11 were misordering errors. Misformation was the most frequent error among the students with a percentage of 50.39. In addition, the percentage of omission errors was 29.66%, that of addition errors was 17.06% and misordering errors was 2.89%. The profes...