VIETTESOL INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION 2025

The main objective of this study is to find out whether the process genre approach is better than the product approach to teach introduction section of a research paper to university students in Vietnam. In this research, a non-equivalent control group experimental design with pretest and posttest was used to determine the effects of the research writing program on students’ research writing ability in terms of the content, organization, language use and mechanics use of introduction between the control group and experimental group. In the experiment, 65 participants (the third-year students, majoring in English) were placed into one experimental group (20 students) and one control group (45 students). Two groups were instructed by the same lecturer during one semester of 45 periods (theory, practice and assessment). The experimental group was required to receive the proposed research writing program based on the proposed model; whereas the control group received the existing program through the product approach. The Independent Samples T-Test showed no significant difference in the means of pretest scores on content (p = .432), organization (p = .174), language (p = .186), and mechanics (p =. 343) between the two groups. However, in the introduction section, there was a statistically significant difference in the means of posttest scores on content (p = .000), organization (p = .000), language (p = .000), and mechanics (p = .000) between the two groups. This research is believed to greatly contribute to both academic writing theories and practical applications to research paper writing program developers, lecturers, undergraduate and postgraduate students in EFL contexts. For this reason, we can conclude that the process genre approach positively affects the introduction section of a research paper compared to the product approach
Keywords: EFL undergraduate university students; research paper; process genre approach (PGA); product approach (PA); introduction section