Developing a Genre-Based Instructional Model for Enhancing Scientific Journal Article Writing in Higher Education

Writing scientific journal articles remains a significant challenge for university students, particularly regarding rhetorical structure and academic conventions. This study aims to develop and evaluate an instructional model prototype based on the Genre-Based Approach (GBA) to enhance students’ scientific writing skills. Adopting a Research and Development (R&D) design, this study focuses on the Define and Design phases of the 4D model. Ten final-year students at UIN Imam Bonjol Padang participated in 30 intensive instructional meetings. Data were collected through interviews and pre- and post-intervention article drafts, analyzed using a validated rubric. The findings in the Define phase revealed that 90% of students struggled with rhetorical moves, particularly in formulating research gaps. In the Design phase,the implementation of the GBA cycle indicated a positive impact on students’ writing performance within this study group the implementation of the GBA cycle showed significant effectiveness. The average quality score of student articles increased from 2.12 to 4.18, representing a 97.17% improvement. The most substantial progress was observed in the Results and Discussion sections (122.22% improvement). The study concludes that the systematic scaffolding provided by the GBA prototype effectively transforms students’ descriptive writing into coherent, evidence-based academic discourse. This model serves as a pedagogical framework for enhancing academic publication readiness in higher education.