Exploring Genre, Research Method, and Reliability Coefficients of the ESP Journal Articles Published Between 2010 and 2020

The current study purports to carry out a systematic review of 279 articles published during the last ten-year period in the ESP Journal. It intends to (1) investigate how genre theory is viewed and used, (2) examine the most frequently used research methods, and (3) explore the general trends in the findings based on a bibliometric analysis of reliability coefficients. To this end, all the articles were initially codified based on the genres they established, type of reliability they reported, namely internal consistency (RA), interrater reliability (RB), and intra-rater reliability (RC), and the methods implemented, including Qualitative (MA), Quantitative (MB), and Mixed-Methods (MC). The findings obtained using SPSS software indicated that among the skills and subskills, writing received the highest attention (60.2%), and among various disciplines, business had the highest frequency (13.6%). Besides, Corpus Analysis was used by most of the researchers (43.4%). Furthermore, only 86 articles (30.8%) reported the reliability coefficients, and interrater reliability had the highest, and intra-rater reliability had the lowest frequencies. Among the three methods of research, Mixed Methods had the maximum frequency (52%) and Quantitative Methods had the lowest (11.5%). Besides, 36.6% of the articles used the Qualitative Method for their studies.