University Instructors’ Attitude Towards Writing Academic Articles in English for Publication: Voices From Indonesia

Abstract

Grasping varying purposes of English in scientific publications has become a critical point for many scholars (Cargill & Burgess, 2017). The present study examines the attitudes of Indonesian university teachers towards writing scholarly works in English for publication. It also explored whether teachers' perceptions varied based on gender and specific areas of expertise (English and non-English). Applying the convenience sampling technique, this research included 50 lecturers from public and private institutions in North Sumatra, Indonesia, separated into EFL and non-EFL instructors. Additionally, the participants were split into male and female subgroups. A survey method was utilized to collect the data, and SPSS version 23.0 was adopted to analyze the data. The findings demonstrated that the instructors had a favorable outlook on publishing scholarly works in English. Although there were no statistically substantial distinctions in responses between female and male lecturers or English and non-English lecturers, gender and their area of expertise in education influenced their views on the necessity of authoring academic papers in English for publication. Given that attitude strongly influences whether or not a person will change their behaviour, the degree to which a person has a positive attitude about writing may have a bearing on how effectively they write. Therefore, academics' constructive stances in composing journal articles must be bolstered. Such ideals can be accomplished through hands-on activities such as actual writing practices and participation in academic writing seminars and workshops.