<![CDATA[Error analysis constitutes a critical area in second and foreign language acquisition. This study aimed to categorize errors in the use of past tense within the research method chapters of English education students’ theses, employing the surface strategy taxonomy to identify error types and their underlying causes. Conducted through a descriptive qualitative approach, the research focused on a sample of five theses from STKIP PGRI Sidoarjo in 2018, selected randomly to ensure representativeness. The findings revealed that errors were predominantly of the misformation type (63.3%), followed by addition (19.3%), omission (16.5%), and misordering (0.9%). Regarding error causes, overgeneralization emerged as the most prevalent factor (96.2%), indicating a tendency to apply grammatical rules overly broadly. Neglecting rule constraints and incomplete rule application were less common, each accounting for 0% and 2.5%, respectively, while errors stemming from misconceptions represented 1.3%. These outcomes underscore the importance of error analysis in gauging students’ language proficiency, particularly in academic writing contexts like thesis chapters. To mitigate these errors, educators could emphasize targeted instruction on rule application and offer explicit feedback tailored to addressing overgeneralization tendencies among learners. Such insights not only enrich our understanding of language learning processes but also inform pedagogical strategies aimed at enhancing student competence in scholarly communication.]]>
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