Investigating the Challenges Encountered by Non-English Students in the Structure and Written Expression Section of Toefl

The Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) has become a compulsory requirement for university graduation in Indonesia, serving as a standardized measure of students’ English language proficiency. This study investigates non-English major students’ performance in the Structure and Written Expression (SWE) section of the TOEFL, identifies the specific item types that pose difficulties, and examines the underlying factors contributing to these challenges. Employing a survey research design, 21 participants were selected through cluster random sampling. Data were gathered through a TOEFL test and a questionnaire. The test results were converted using the official TOEFL conversion table, while questionnaire responses were analyzed manually. The findings revealed that participants demonstrated a lower-intermediate proficiency level, with an average SWE score of 386. Eighteen item types were found to contribute to students’ difficulties, particularly those related to the use of nouns, pronouns, tenses, adjectives, adverbs, comparatives, conditional sentences, subject–verb agreement, adjective clauses, conjunctions, noun phrases, causatives, prepositions, word choice, compound sentences, embedded questions, parallel structures, and direct objects. Factors influencing these difficulties were both internal and external. Internal factors included limited grammatical competence and low confidence in applying grammatical rules, whereas external factors encompassed time constraints, negative perceptions of the SWE section’s difficulty compared to other sections, and greater challenges in answering Written Expression items.