Content area
Abstract
This study explores the relationship between densities of lexical cohesion and lexical errors on the one hand and the perceived coherence ratings and academic scores of student academic writing on the other. Findings indicated that densities of lexical cohesion generally and derivational ties specifically showed highly significant relations with the coherence ratings despite the correlation coefficients themselves being fairly low. An interesting finding was the highly significant relationship between the density of cohesive ties relating the closing paragraph to the question prompt, and the coherence ratings. There was a moderate correlation between lexical error density and perceived coherence. Coherence ratings proved to have a strongly significant, high correlation with academic achievement levels of the texts. The study, therefore, attempts to provide some insights into the meaning of coherence and factors that give rise to it in student academic writing.
