PhD Degree Awarded to Mr. Nasr Mohsen Ali Saleh in Applied Linguistics

Mr. Nasr Mohsen Ali Saleh‎ ‎was awarded a PhD degree in Applied Linguistics for his dissertation titled: Cohesion Difficulties and Metacognitive Writing Strategies of M.A. Students in the Departments of English at Yemeni Universities, which was submitted to the Department of English, Faculty of Languages – Sana’a University. The dissertation defense was held on Thursday, December 25, 2025.

The PhD Viva-Voce Committee, which was formed based on a resolution issued by the Graduate Studies and Scientific Research Council, consisted of the following:

#	Committee Members	Designation	Position
1	Assoc. Prof. Abdulwadood Ahmed Annuzaili	Internal Examiner	Chair
2	Assoc. Prof. Abbas Abdulmalik Mohammed Hussein Mutahar	Co-Supervisor	Member
3	Assoc. Prof. Khaled Ali Yousef Mohammed Al-Suba’ee	External Examiner	Member

The study aimed to:

Investigate the cohesion difficulties encountered by MA students in their academic writing at Yemeni universities.
Examine the extent to which MA students employ metacognitive writing strategies.
Identify the gap between students’ perceived cohesion difficulties and those actually manifested in their written texts.
Explore practical strategies that may help overcome cohesion difficulties and enhance the use of metacognitive writing strategies.

The study yielded a number of key findings summarized as follows:

MA students experienced notable difficulties in achieving textual cohesion, particularly in the use of repetition, conjunctions, substitution, and ellipsis.
While writing test results indicated that repetition and conjunctions posed the greatest challenges in actual writing performance, questionnaire responses showed that substitution and ellipsis were perceived by students as the most difficult cohesion devices. This demonstrated a clear gap between perceived and actual cohesion difficulties.
Regarding metacognitive writing strategies, planning ranked first, monitoring ranked second, and evaluation ranked last.
Analysis of metacognitive writing strategies through the questionnaire highlighted linguistic aspects, revealing that ellipsis and substitution were the most challenging cohesion devices for MA students.
No statistically significant differences were found among students based on gender or academic specialization.

In light of these findings, the researcher recommended:

Providing MA students with structured support through workshops, guidance programs, and specialized courses focusing on the use of cohesion devices in academic writing.
Enhancing metacognitive writing strategies by implementing targeted training activities and encouraging peer feedback sessions.
Promoting the use of technology and digital writing tools that assist students in overcoming cohesion difficulties and improving their metacognitive writing strategies.

The dissertation defense was attended by a number of academics, researchers, and specialists, students, colleagues, and the researcher’s family.