THE CORRELATION BETWEEN EFL LEARNERS' ACADEMIC WORD LIST (AWL) MASTERY AND LEXICAL DIVERSITY IN WRITING PERFORMANCE

Dini, Wulandari (2026) THE CORRELATION BETWEEN EFL LEARNERS' ACADEMIC WORD LIST (AWL) MASTERY AND LEXICAL DIVERSITY IN WRITING PERFORMANCE. Diploma thesis, UIN RADEN INTAN LAMPUNG.

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Abstract

ABSTRACT This study is motivated by the problem of limited academic vocabulary mastery and low lexical diversity in EFL students’ academic writing. Many learners possess a relatively large vocabulary size but struggle to use it variably in academic texts. This raises the question of how Academic Word List (AWL) mastery correlates with lexical diversity in students’ writing. Theoretically, AWL mastery is expected to enhance lexical variation, yet previous findings have shown inconsistent results. Therefore, this study aims to provide empirical evidence on the correlation between AWL mastery and lexical diversity among EFL students at UIN Raden Intan Lampung. The study employed a quantitative correlational design. The population consisted of sixth-semester students of the English Education Study Program who had completed the Essay Writing course. The sample was selected using cluster random sampling. Research instruments included the Academic Vocabulary Levels Test (AVLT) to measure AWL mastery and an Essay Writing Test to assess lexical diversity using the Measure of Textual Lexical Diversity (MTLD) index. Data analysis involved assumption testing (normality and outlier detection) and correlation testing using Spearman's Rank Correlation with SPSS software. The findings revealed a significant correlation between AWL mastery and lexical diversity in students’ academic writing. This indicates that higher mastery of academic vocabulary contributes to greater lexical variation in texts. The study concludes that AWL mastery plays an important role in the quality of academic writing through lexical diversity. Practically, the results suggest that lecturers should integrate AWL-based vocabulary training into writing instruction, while students are encouraged to expand their academic vocabulary repertoire. Furthermore, future researchers may extend this study by examining additional variables such as vocabulary depth, writing fluency, or syntactic complexity.

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