Gender Differences in Writing Achievement .

Abstract

Numerous studies about language differences have focused on the way males and females speak and write. Yet, very limited researches have been devoted to gender differences in academic achievement. Therefore, this research attempts to highlight gender differences in terms of writing achievement. In particular, the main purpose is to spotlight on students‟ difficulties and errors when producing a piece of writing. In order to investigate the matter, a content analysis of twenty literary essays of third year EFL students at IbnKhaldoun University of Tiaret have been examined in order to find the ground of differences. The findings reveal that several distinctive features are not perfectly the same in males‟ and females‟ essays. Particularly, it is found that males do better than females at the level of cohesion and coherence, but structurally poor; whereas, females do better at the level of structure, but their papers lack cohesion.