Students` perception on using mind mapping in prewriting step to poster students` writing skills.

STUDENTS’ WRITING SKILLS

A THESIS

Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements to Obtain the Sarjana Pendidikan Degree

in English Language Education

By

Rizki Ayu Purwojati 061214070

ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION STUDY PROGRAM DEPARTMENT OF LANGUAGE AND ARTS EDUCATION FACULTY OF TEACHERS TRAINING AND EDUCATION

SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY YOGYAKARTA

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STUDENTS’ PERCEPTION ON USING MIND MAPPING

IN PREWRITING STEP TO FOSTER

STUDENTS’ WRITING SKILLS

A THESIS

Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements to Obtain the Sarjana Pendidikan Degree

in English Language Education

By

Rizki Ayu Purwojati 061214070

ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION STUDY PROGRAM DEPARTMENT OF LANGUAGE AND ARTS EDUCATION FACULTY OF TEACHERS TRAINING AND EDUCATION

SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY YOGYAKARTA

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ABSTRACT

Purwojati, Rizki Ayu. 2010. Students’ Peception on Using Mind Mapping to Foster Students’ Writing Skill. Yogyakarta: English Language Education Study Program, Universitas Sanata Dharma.

In this research, the researcher would study about the students’ perception on using mind mapping in prewriting step to foster students’ writing skills and the students’ suggestions on using mind mapping in their class or their own writing. Mind mapping was one of the writing strategies which could help the users to determine some sub-topics systematically.

The reason why the researcher intended to study about the use of mind mapping as prewriting strategy was the researcher’s experience when working with mind mapping in a prewriting composition.

There were two research problems in this research. The first was to know what the students’ perception on using mind mapping in prewriting step to foster students’ writing skill was and the second was to know what the students’ suggestions of the implementation of mind mapping either in Writing class or in their own writing were. The method of this research was descriptive research involving questionnaire and interview. The questionnaire was distributed to the three different classes of Research Paper Writing 2009/2010 academic year. The total of the questionnaire respondents were 57. From this total respondents were taken 4 respondents randomly to be interviewed.

The results of this research gained from questionnaire and interview was that respondents were familiar with mind mapping as prewriting strategy and facilitated using mind mapping in prewriting. However, it did not mean respondents were often to use mind mapping in prewriting because of several factors, for examples limited time and habits. However, they thought the strategy was effective in prewriting step. Therefore, the researcher concluded that students had positive perception on using mind mapping in prewriting step to foster students’ writing skills because mind mapping led the users to write systematically with clear and detailed topics. Besides, to encourage students’ interests to use mind mapping was to produce mind mapping more interesting by drawing images and coloring.

 

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ABSTRAK

Purwojati, Rizki Ayu. 2010. Students’ Peceptions on Using Mind Mapping to Foster Students’ Writing Skills. Yogyakarta: Program Studi Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris, Universitas Sanata Dharma.

Dalam penelitian ini, penulis akan meneliti tentang persepsi mahasiswa terhadap penggunaan mind mapping dalam tahap prewriting untuk mendorong kemampuan menulis mahasiswa dan saran mahasiswa dalam penggunaan mind mapping dalam kelas atau untuk mereka sendiri. Mind mapping adalah salah satu strategi menulis yang dapat membantu penggunanya untuk dapat menentukan sub-topik secara sistematis.

Alasan mengapa peneliti meneliti mengenai penggunaan mind mapping sebagai strategi sebelum menulis adalah dari pengalaman penulis saat menggunakan mind mapping dalam menyusun suatu karangan sebelum menulis.

Dalam penelitian ini terdapat dua permasalahan. Yang pertama yaitu untuk mengetahui persepsi mahasiswa dalam menggunakan mind mapping pada tahap

prewriting untuk meningkatkan ketrampilan menulis mahasiswa dan saran mahasiswa dalam penerapan mind mapping di kelas Writing maupun saat menulis sendiri.

Metode yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini adalah penelitian descriptive yang meliputi kuesioner dan wawancara. Kuesioner dibagikan di tiga kelas berbeda

Research Paper Writing tahun ajaran 2009/2010. Total responden kuesioner berjumlah 57. Dari total responden kuesioner diambil 4 responden secara acak untuk diwawancara.

Hasil penelitian yang diperoleh dari kuesioner dan wawancara adalah bahwa para responden telah mengenal mind mapping sebagai strategi prewriting dan terbantu menggunakan mind mapping dalam tahap prewriting. Namun, ini bukan berarti para responden sering menggunakan mind mapping karena berbagai faktor, misalnya keterbatasan waktu dan kebiasaan. Tetapi, mereka berpendapat bahwa strategi ini efektif untuk digunakan dalam tahap prewriting.

Penulis dapat menyimpulkan bahwa mahasiswa mempunyai persepsi positif terhadap penggunaan mind mapping ditahap prewriting untuk mendorong kemampuan menulis siswa karena mind mapping mengarahkan penggunanya untuk menulis secara sistematik dengan topik yang jelas dan terperinci. Selain itu, untuk menumbuhkan minat mahasiswa untuk menggunakan mind mapping adalah membuat mind mapping

lebih menarik dengan gambar dan warna.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First of all, I would like to express my greatest praise to Allah SWT. for the amazing grace and endless blessing during the completion of my thesis. I believe that without His remarkable help I could not have finished this thesis.

I would like to express my highest gratitude to my major sponsor C. Tutyandari, S. Pd., M. Pd. for her suggestions, kindness, and patience in helping me finishing this thesis. My appreciation also goes to all the lecturers, and the secretariat staff, Maria Martarine Pramudani and Chatarina Artilantari, and all the librarians in Sanata Dharma University.

My deepest gratitude also goes to my parents, my beloved father, Soemarsono, and my dearest mother, Rumini. I would like to thank them for their endless prayers, sacrifices, supports and love they give me. I also would say thanks to my brothers, Toto and Ma’ _{nug, and my sister in-law,} Mbak _{Dyah and} Mbak _Erni,

for their undying love, care and supports.

I thank my friends, Mbak _{Opha, Loritha, Fr. Jun,} Mbak _{Arian and} Mbak Dian, for their advices, inspirations, and criticism in finishing this thesis. I also thank my best friends, Vika, Bu ben, Tata, Mbety, and Satrio, during my study and for their attention, supports and fun experiences. I thank my all ‘Dreamworkers’, Guntur, Berlin, Adi, Ika, and Fr. Zaq, for their supports and cooperation in

 

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finishing my thesis. I would say thanks to my dearest friend for his love, supports, prayers, care, patience, all beautiful experiences and life we had shares.

I also thank to all CEC staff for their support and help in my last struggle in finishing this thesis. I thank my friends in my ‘greenhouse’ boardinghouse, Della, Rida, Wiwied, and Anna, for the fun experiences and films, and for their kindness to accompany me in every nights during finishing this thesis. I also thank my undying friends in my hometown, Fitri, Hayu and Novi, for their supports, all experiences and all things we had shared about life.

Last but not least, my thanks also go to all PBI’06 students, who I cannot mention one by one, for the nice friendship we had together.

Rizki Ayu Purwojati

   

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

TITLE PAGE ... i

APPROVAL PAGES ... ii

STATEMENT OF WORK’S ORIGINALITY ... iv

PAGE OF PUBLICITY ... v

ABSTRACT ... vi

ABSTRAK ... vii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ... viii

TABLE OF CONTENTS ... x

LIST OF TABLES ... xv

CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION ... 1

A. Research Background ... 1

B. Problem Formulation ... . 3

C. Problem Limitation ... 4

D. Research Objectives ... 4

E. Research Benefits ... 5

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2. Writing Students or Readers ... 5

3. Future Researchers ... 6

F. Definition of Terms ... 6

1. Writing Skill ... 6

2. Prewriting Step ... 7

3. Mind mapping ... 7

CHAPTER II. REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE ... 8

A. Theoretical Description ... 8

1. Perception ... 8

a.Definition of Perception ... 8

b.Factors Influencing Perception ... 9

1) Selection of Stimuli ... 10

2) Organization of Stimuli ... 10

3) The Situation ... 10

4) Person’s Self-Concept ... 11

2. Writing ... 11

a. Prewriting Step ... 12

b. Writing Step ... 12

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3. Learning Strategies ... 13

a. Metacognitive Learning Strategy ... 14

1)Planning ... 15

a.Advance Organizer ... 15

b.Directed Attention ... 15

c.Selective Attention ... 15

d.Self-management ... 15

e.Advance Preparation ... 15

2)Monitoring ... 15

3)Evaluation ... 16

b. Cognitive Learning Strategy ... 16

1)Repetition ... 16

2)Resourcing ... 16

3)Directed Physical Response ... 17

4)Translation ... 17

c. Social Affective Learning Strategy ... 17

1)Cooperation ... 17

2)Question for Clarification ... 17

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B. Theoretical Framework ... 18

CHAPTER III. METHODOLOGY ... 21

A. Research Method ... 21

B. Research Respondents ... 21

C. Research Instruments ... 22

1. Questionnaire ... 23

2. Interview ... 24

D. Data Gathering Technique ... 24

E. Data Analysis Technique ... 25

F. Research Procedures ... 27

CHAPTER IV. RESEARCH RESULTS AND DISCUSSION ... 29

A. Research Results ... 29

1. The Results of the Questionnaire ... 29

a. Students’ Perceptions in Prewriting Step ... 31

b. Students’ Perceptions on Mind Mapping as Prewriting Strategy ... 33

c. Students’ Perceptions on Mind Mapping to Foster Students’ Writing Skills ... 33

d. Students’ Suggestions on the Implication of Using Mind Mapping ... 34

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2. The Results of the Interview ... 35

B. Discussion ... 38

1. Students’ Perception on Mind Mapping as Prewriting Strategy to Foster Students’ Writing Skills ... 38

2. Students’ Suggestions on the Use of Mind Mapping to Foster Students’ Writing Skills either in Writing class or their own Writing ... 42

CHAPTER V. CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS ... 45

A. Conclusions ... 45

B. Suggestions ... 46

REFERENCES ... 46

APPENDICES ... 48

Appendix A: Letter of Research Permission ... 50

Appendix B: Questionnaire Blueprint and Questionnaire ... 52

Appendix C : Sample of Questionnaire Results ... 56

Appendix D: Questionnaire Results on Opened-form Questions ... 63

Appendix E: Interview Blueprint ... 70

Appendix F: Interview Results ... 72

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LIST OF TABLES

Page Table 3.1. : Questionnaire Blueprint ... 23 Table 3.2. : Interview Guide ... 24 Table 3.3. : Data Analysis Technique ... 26 Table 4.4. : The Percentage of Each Statement of Closed-form Questions in the

Questionnaire ... 30  

1 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

This chapter is going to provide the readers the basic information of the research related to the subject matter. It provides why researcher intends to do the research on the use of mind mapping in prewriting step to foster students’ writing skill and the general aims of the research. The chapter consists of six sections. They are research background, problem formulation, problem limitation, research objectives, research benefits and definition of terms.

A. Research Background

The main reason why the researcher intends to study about the use of mind mapping in the field of writing was the researcher’s experience when working with mind mapping in a prewriting composition. Actually, the very first experience was when the researcher worked with mind mapping in comprehending the reading passage, especially if it was a very long reading passage. It seems easier to comprehend the reading passage using mind mapping than using the other strategies, named brainstorming, listing and drawing. Then the mind mapping can also be applied in writing field. As been taught by the teacher of writing subject that mind mapping can also be used to explore the main topic in writing a composition, the researcher tried to use mind mapping in the prewriting step then the researcher began

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to enjoy working with mind mapping. Afterwards, the researcher accustomed to using mind mapping without any instruction before writing.

Based on the researcher’s opinion, writing is one of the skills that should be mastered by people who learn a language, either as the first language or the second language. The four skills in the language proficiency are listening, speaking, reading and writing skills. Those skills have a relationship. The statement is supported by Tiedt (1989: 1), “All language skills are inherently interdependent”.

Since writing is not only used to academic needs but also in daily life, writing is very essential in learning a language. As Ellis (2003: 1) states that writing is not just a classroom exercise but it can be used to the real world. The statement implicitly means that the classroom is a place where students learn and practice the skill used not only in the college itself, for academic purpose, but also in the real world.

Writing is not a simple thing. Based on the researcher’s experience that finding a topic to be discussed in a composition is easy but to organize the topic into inter-related subtopics and to compose them into an essay is difficult. Baskoff said that a student writing a composition faces three problems: what to say, how to organize, and how to say (1969: 3). The three problems challenge both students and teacher to succeed the writing subject. However, the teacher may avoid the problems by giving the theories of writing process before students start writing a composition, including a strategy to begin a writing composition (Dewirini, 2009). Mind mapping can be the strategy in prewriting step to facilitate students composing essay writing. As THINK article said about mind mapping that “Mind maps work well as their visual design

enables students to see the relationship between ideas, and encourages them to group certain ideas together as they proceed”.

Furthermore, the research will conduct on the students’ perceptions on the use of mind mapping in prewriting step to foster students’ writing skills. The research is going to go deeper on the students’ perceptions on the use of mind mapping in writing, whether mind mapping can work in prewriting step effectively or not based on students’ perceptions. The students’ perceptions toward the use of mind mapping in the prewriting step are able to influence their behavioral responses on the use of mind mapping. The statement is supported by Altman, Valenzi and Hodgetts (1985: 84) who said that the way the students perceive on something, whether in a positive way or in a negative way, influence their behavioral responses.

B. Problem Formulation

There are two problems which are going to be discussed on this paper. They are: 1. What is the students’ perception on using mind mapping in prewriting step to

foster students’ writing skills?

2. What is the students’ recommendation of the implementation of mind mapping either in Writing class or in their own writing?

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C. Problem Limitation

Seeing that writing is one of the English learning subjects that is taught from elementary school until senior high school, even university, the writer is motivated to know deeper about improving writing skill using one of the methods in prewriting step, called mind mapping. This research focuses on the students’ perception on the use of mind mapping to foster students’ writing skill of writing subject in sixth semester in Sanata Dharma University.

Some methods in prewriting step assist students arranging composition, e.g. brainstorming, mind mapping, and also outlining. However, this research only studies about the use of mind mapping in its role of assisting students building up their ideas. Then, the study focuses on students’ perceptions on the use of mind mapping as a method to foster students’ writing skills in prewriting step and also students’ suggestions toward the use of mind mapping in their writing class.

D. Research Objectives

Since mind mapping leads the writing activity easier, thus it can motivate students to write an essay. Based on the background of the research, the objectives of the research are to know the students’ perceptions on using mind mapping as a method to foster students’ writing skills in prewriting step and to give suggestions toward the using of mind mapping in writing class.

E. Research Benefits

This research is expected to give some contribution to English language teaching, especially for:

1.Teachers who teach Writing subject

This research explores information about students’ perceptions on the use of mind mapping as a method to foster students’ writing skills in prewriting step. The students’ perceptions on the use of mind mapping can be varied. It can be either negative perceptions or positive perceptions. The negative perceptions can help the teachers to make an evaluation on the use of mind mapping in writing class as a method to foster students’ writing skills in prewriting step. Then, teachers can minimize the factors causing those negative perceptions. Whereas from students’ positive perceptions can be used as a foundation for teacher to create writing learning by mind mapping better and more enjoyable.

2.Writing Students or Readers

Since this research also defines learning strategies, thus, it enables the students to know more about the importance of the right selection of learning strategies. It means the right selection of learning strategies by the students will affect the result of learning task. Therefore, the students have to know the learning strategy that work effectively with him/her.

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3.Future researchers

This research surely still needs further research to provide better understanding about the use of mind mapping as a method to foster students’ writing skills in prewriting step. The research is expected to give inspirations to other researchers to do further discussion related to the topic of using mind mapping in writing subject.

F. Definition of Terms 1. Writing Skill

Writing is producing something in written form so that people can read and perform it or use it. (Hornby, 2003: 502). It means that in teaching writing the teacher reinforces the students to produce something in written form so that people can read it. Based on Gateways to Academic Writing by Alan Meyers and Harry S. Truman (2005), writing skill is a skill in speaking to others both on paper and on computer screen. In more specific words, writing is such a working process to explore and to organize ideas then put them on the paper, organized as written.

2. Prewriting Step

In writing process, there are three steps to do; they are pre-writing step, writing process and rewriting step (Gerson, 2003: 12). However, the researcher is going to concern more in pre-writing step. The reason is that mind mapping is a part of pre-writing step.

The objective of pre-writing is to gain what is going to be discussed on the paper or in the essay writing. It is an important step of the writing process to begin collecting a writer’s thought. Then, he can start organizing the thought. The statement supported by Simon and Schuster as they said in their book, entitled

Handbook for Writers, is that pre-writing helps a writer to organize the thoughts and knowledge about a topic.

3. Mind Mapping

Mind mapping is one of the pre-writing strategies that enables students to arrange a topic and to correlate the subtopics. Steele (2005) stated in her article on

Using Mind Maps to Develop Writing, that a mind map, or spidergram, is a strategy for making notes on a topic, prior to writing. The method is also called webbing or clustering. Mind-mapping is effective to apply in writing class today aims to build up a topic into some interrelated subtopics. The statement is supported by Halen (2009) in his article, entitled Showing the Linkages from an Issue, Concept or Problem with Other Concepts or Issues, that mind mapping is a learning technique tool of visually arranging ideas and their interconnections.

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REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

This chapter presents all the references and quotations that are used to support the research. There will be two parts of the research. They are theoretical description and theoretical framework.

A. Theoretical Description 1. Perception

a. Definition of Perception

Perception is the main term in the research to be discussed firstly to answer the first problem of the research. In this section, the researcher will discuss not only about the definition of perception but also the related theories to the perception.

According to Oxford Advanced Learners’ Dictionary (Hornby, 1995: 859), perception is defined as a way of seeing, understanding, and interpreting something.

In this research, the perception refers to what we feel and think that comes up to the students’ feelings and thoughts about the use of mind mapping as a method to foster students’ writing skills in prewriting step.

Szilagyi and Wallace (1980: 70) said, “Perception is defined to process by which individuals attend to incoming stimuli, organize, and then interpret such

stimuli into a message that in turn indicates an appropriate action and behavior”. This statement means that perception equals to the interpretation of the environmental stimuli, both behavior and phenomenon.

While according to Hardi and Heyes (1988: 85) “The basic form of perception is people’s born talent, meanwhile perceptional ability is the result of learning which is determined by the environment.” In other words, the researcher can conclude that perception is the way a man views a phenomenon based on their own experiences toward the phenomenon.

Stipek (1993: 141) stated that perceptions of ability play an important role in achievement motivation. In conclusion, those individuals’ motivations in achieving objective of learning are affected by the learners’ perceptions toward the subject matter, whether he has a good or bad perception. As what Sarah and Hawes argued in English Teaching Forum October 4 (1994:22-24), teachers have to shape learners’ positive perceptions to exploit their motivation to improve the ability to speak English fluently.

b. Factors Influencing Perception

Individuals’ perceptions toward the subject matter are influenced by some factors. Altman, Valenzi and Hodggets (1985: 86) stated that there are four important factors influence a person’s perception. They are selection of stimuli, organization of stimuli, the situation and the person’s self-concept.

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1) Selection of Stimuli

Selection is a process which focuses only on a small number of stimuli. Gerson (2003: 86) argued why people perceive things differently-each person selects specific cues and filters, or screens, out the others. The statement means the selection of stimuli is the reason why people have different perceptions because each person accepts different stimuli and selects the stimuli of things to them.

2) Organization of Stimuli

This factor means that person’s information which has come to the person is filtered, and then it must be arranged to become meaningful information. Afterwards, the person accepts the information well.The mind brings order out the disorganized information by selecting certain things and putting them in a meaningful way.

3) The Situation

Both situations and experiences affect people’s perceptions. A good perception of the situation brings someone to adapt his behavior to the situation. If the people have good experiences in doing a kind of prewriting strategy, they will perceive the strategy positively.

4) Person’s Self-concept

Self-concept has the equal meaning to the way a person feels about and sees them. Self-concept is important to determine someone’s mental picture of what their perception about things and what he does. For example: people who have competence in drawing will be more comfortable working with mind mapping by drawing and coloring compared by the opposite people.

2. Writing

Hughey (1983: 33) stated that writing is as a means to learn about the writers and the world about them, as well as an important means to express them. Zimmerman and Rodrigues (1994: 4) defined writing as a way of thinking, learning and sharing ideas with others. Based on the writer’s opinion, writing is one of the ways, besides speaking, to reveal feeling and thought from a person to others.

Writing is not a simple process to do. To have a good writing or composition a person has to have some steps. This statement supported by Nunan (2003: 88) who said that when students are writing they imagine, organize, draft, edit, read and reread. As what Gerson saw that in writing process, there are three steps to do; those are pre-writing step, writing step and rewriting step (2003: 12).

Refer to the statement by Baskoff, the writing skill which is discussed in this research will focus on how to say and what to say. the first term, how to say, will focus on which or what kind of strategy that they will use in prewriting step which

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will facilitate them most. The second term, what to say, refers to the selection of ideas and how they are able to explore deeper into interconnection ideas then.

a. Prewriting Step

As cited in http://uwp.aas.duke.edu/wstudio, prewriting is a blanket term for a wide range of techniques to start thinking about our paper before we begin the formal process of writing a draft.

Prewriting is the very first step of the writing processes. There are many ways to have in prewriting step, namely mind mapping, brainstorming and freewriting. Prewriting step has a purpose to help writers to know what to explore deeper in their composition. In brief words, prewriting helps writers to gain the main topic in their composition.

b. Writing Step

The next step is writing process where the real writing starts. It is usually called drafting. It is the step where the students can write either about their ideas that have been drawn in their mind mapping or some additional points related to the composition. In drafting step, students do not need to worry about the grammatical and the punctuation errors because the students still have the next step to revise the draft.

c. Rewriting Step

The last step in writing process is rewriting step. It is the step where the students can revise the whole draft. The students are also able to check the grammar, the punctuation, and also the content whether each sentence is understood and has relation to other sentences or not.

3. Learning Strategies

Learning strategy is a kind of techniques used by the learners to learn certain subject easily. The learning strategies of individuals are chosen by the learners themselves to help them to learn. As Chamot (quoted by Weden and Rubin, 1987: 71-72) defined “learning strategies as techniques, approaches, and deliberate actions that students take in order to facilitate their learning and recall of both linguistic and content area information.” Another similar thought was stated by Weisten and Mayer (1986: 315) who said that learning strategies can be defined as behaviors and thoughts that a learner engages in during learning and that are intended to influence the learner’s learning process. Oxford added that learning strategies is as an action taken by the learner to make learning easier, faster, more fun, more self-directed, more effective and more transferable to new situation (1990: 8). Therefore, each learner may employ different learning strategies. They can create some conscious efforts to learn certain subject easily and efficiently. Rubin (1987: 9) adds “learner strategies include any sets of operations, steps, plans, routines, used by the learner to facilitate the obtaining, storage, retrieval and use of information.”

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Chamot (quoted by Weden and Rubin, 1987: 71-72) defined that learning strategies in the second language literature can be classified within three general categories, that are, as metacognitive, cognitive and social affective in nature. The following subheadings will clarify the categories of learning strategies according to Chamot.

a. Metacognitive Learning Strategy

The study is also related to metacognitive learning strategy by which the students can choose what kind of learning strategy that can facilitate them to learn easily. Then, learning strategies can also be applied in writing process by which the students choose mind mapping in prewriting step as a means to help in composition. Anderson, as cited in Moving toward Metacognition Journal

(Santana, 2003) defines metacognition as the ability to think about your thinking-to make your thinking visible. The statement related when the students choose mind mapping as a means to help them in writing a composition. The further explanation about mind mapping is going to be discussed in this next sub-section.

Metacognitive learning strategies are classified into three aspects, namely, planning, monitoring, and evaluation. As what Oxford (2000: 15) viewed that metacognitive strategies involved about planning the learning, monitoring the learning and evaluating the learning. The three steps of metacognitive strategy had some categories. As Chamot (quoted by Weden and Rubin, 1987: 77) stated that metacognitive learning strategy can be classified into some categories referring to metacognition.

1) Planning

a. Advance Organizer

Learner makes a general but comprehensive preview of the concepts in a learning activity.

b. Directed Attention

Learner decides to generate a learning task and to ignore irrelevant distractions.

c. Selective Attention

Learner decides to attend to specifics aspects of situational details that will refer to the situational details.

d. Self-management

Learner understands the conditions that help the learner and arranges for the existence of those conditions.

e. Advance Preparation

Learner plans and reviews the components necessary to carry out an upcoming language task.

2) Monitoring

Learner corrects for the accuracy of grammar and vocabulary or for the appropriateness related to the setting of its language task.

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3) Evaluation

Learner checks the outcomes or results of its language task against an internal measure of completeness and accuracy.

b. Cognitive Learning Strategy

Brown and Palinscar (quoted by Weden and Rubin, 1987: 72) viewed that cognitive learning strategy was more directly related to a specific task and learning objective. This kind of learning strategy involved management or transformation of the materials to be learnt. It meant the learner interacted directly or self-learning with what to be learnt. As Chamot (quoted by Weden and Rubin, 1987: 77) categories that cognitive learning strategies involve repetition, resourcing, directed physical response and translation.

1) Repetition

Repetition is imitating a kind of language learning, including explicit practice and silent rehearsal.

2) Resourcing

Resourcing is defining or expanding a definition of a word or concept through use of target language materials.

3) Directed Physical Response

Directed physical response is relating new information to physical actions. 4) Translation

Translation is using the first language as a base for understanding or producing the second language.

c. Social Affective Learning Strategy

As quoted by Weden and Rubin (1987: 72), McDonald et al. (1979) found that students are in social affective learning trained to use cooperative learning. Therefore, the strategy would be effective on learning tasks in a first language. Chamot studies that social-affective includes two categories. They are cooperation and question for clarification.

1) Cooperation

Cooperation is working with one or more peers to obtain feedback and group information, even a learning strategy or learning activity.

2) Question for Clarification

Question for clarification means that learner asks a teacher or native speaker for repetition, paraphrase, explanation or examples.

4. Mind Mapping

Many kinds of prewriting strategies enable learners in composition. Those strategies are mind mapping, brainstorming, freewriting, cubing, and outlining. This

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statement was supported by Gerson who defined that many prewriting techniques help writers tackle different types of technical correspondence. He also provided some of these prewriting techniques including mind mapping, brainstorming, branching, flowcharting, outlining, storyboarding, and cubing (2003: 14).

In brief, mind mapping is one of the writing strategies used in prewriting step. According to Steel (2005), in her article on Using Mind Maps to Develop Writing,

that a mind map, or spidergram, is a strategy for making notes on a topic, prior to writing. Halen (2009) added the statement in his article on Showing the Linkages from an Issue, Concept or Problem with Other Concepts or Issues, mind mapping is a popular brainstorming tool and learning technique of visually arranging ideas and their interconnections. In the writer’s conclusion, mind mapping is one of the prewriting strategies enabling students to learn, especially in composition, to find a specific topic in learners’ compositions.

B. Theoretical Framework

The research discusses on two main problems. The first is the students’ perceptions on the use of mind mapping in prewriting step to foster students’ writing skills and the second is the students’ suggestions on the use of mind mapping in its implementation in Writing class.

The research has a relation to the previous study by Torild Homstad and Helga Thorson who studied about writing theory and practice in second language classroom on their technical report series. They said that, “Writing has long been considered a

“support skill” for learning grammar in foreign language instruction” (Homstad & Thorson, 1994: 4). Their research looked beyond traditional writing practices in second language acquisition for new instructional possibilities.

This statement shows that writing is important to second language acquisition thus either teachers or learners should have the effective way to start writing. One of the effective ways is mind mapping. It leads the learners to build up their ideas and arranges them into composition easily.

“Teachers will provide a writing task and help them to generate vocabulary and ideas by applying a number of strategies in class namely brainstorming, clustering, and discussion, without concern for correctness or appropriateness in the first stage of writing.” (adapted from Scott “The model of writing process”, 1996). The statement is equal to the explanation of prewriting step that is the very first step of writing process. It means that there are still other processes or steps in writing. However, the researcher focuses on mind mapping as one of the prewriting strategies in prewriting step.

As what Halen (2009) said on Showing the Linkages from an Issue, Concept or Problem with Other Concepts or Issues, explained in previous sub-section, the researcher sees that mind mapping is one of the easier and more interesting strategies to use because it may has some images and colors. Mind mapping also encourages the students to think about the ideas that should be written, and then makes the ideas visualized by drawing the images and coloring the line to relate each idea. Hence, mind mapping also relates to metacognitive learning strategy, as what Oxford’s view,

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written in previous sub-section, can be concluded that mind mapping which pushes students to have metacognitive learning strategy stimulate students being autonomous in learning. The students are able to arrange their own ideas into composition by previously visualizing the ideas. Mind mapping refers to the metacognitive learning strategy because it has three steps of working. They are, first, planning which refers to the students when they plan of what they are going to write and how they want to explore deeper towards the general ideas of the composition then, the second, monitoring is when they are writing, they are able to monitor they writing by themselves by looking at mind mapping as the guidance, the third, evaluation can be the way to recheck their writing whether all the ideas in the mind mapping have been discussed on the composition or not.

Whereas the meaning of students’ perceptions in this research refers to the definition stated by Hardi and Heyes (1988: 85), “The basic form of perception is people’s born talent, meanwhile perceptional ability is the result of learning which is determined by the environment”. The statement means that the perception is a way of which a man views a phenomenon based on their own experiences toward the phenomenon. The data of students’ perceptions then are going to be gained based on the students’ experiences using mind mapping in pre-writing step.

Those theories that relate to writing skill will support this research to solve the research problems. Some theories have a close correlation to each other and also to this research.

21 CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY

This chapter discusses the methodology used to conduct the research. There will be six main parts, namely, research method, research respondents, research instruments, data gathering technique, data analysis technique, and research procedures.

A. Research Method

Since the research discussed the students’ perception on using mind mapping as a method to foster students’ writing skill. Therefore, the method which was needed is descriptive research. According to Ary, et. al (2002: 381) “Descriptive research studies are designed to obtain information concerning the current status of phenomena”. To support this research, the researcher conducted survey research. The survey research would involve two major instruments in collecting data. They were distributing questionnaires and interviewing some respondents randomly.

B. Research Respondents

The respondents of both instruments, questionnaire and interview, would be the students of English Language Study Program of Sanata Dharma University who take the Research Paper Writing class B, E, and F in 2009/2010 academic year. The number of the respondents in each class was between seventeen and twenty

22

respondents. The researcher chose those kinds of students because they should be well-grounded in composition writing. Hence, the questionnaire data would be applicable. The total was four interviewees who took randomly from the respondents of the questionnaire to know further on the use of mind mapping to foster students’ writing skills. The number of the interviewees was adequate to complete the data from the questionnaire data.

C. Research Instruments

The way to gain the data is by asking questions. The questionnaire and the interview are the instruments to gain the information relating to facts, feelings, and so on (Ary, et. al, 1979: 173). In this research, the researcher chose both of the means to obtain the data in relation to their views on using mind mapping in prewriting step to foster students’ writing skills. The respondents would fill out the questionnaire afterward the researcher chose four respondents of the questionnaire to be interviewed randomly.

The first instrument, questionnaire, would answer the first problem of the research, stated what students’ perceptions on using mind mapping in prewriting step to foster students’ writing skills are. Since the questionnaire consisted of two types of questions, namely closed form question and opened form question, the researcher conducted interview, as the second instrument, to gain further data related to opened form question and closed form question. The interview would achieve the answer of

second problem of the research, stated the suggestions of the implementation of mind mapping in Writing class, and gain the further information of closed form question. 1. Questionnaire

Ary, et. al (1979: 178) argues “Questionnaires are of two types: structured or closed form, and unstructured or opened form.” The structured or closed form questions provided the questions and the alternative answers to the respondents. The unstructured form questions did not provide suggested answers. Terms of the questionnaire forms supported the research. Hence, this research mainly used questionnaire that would contain two types of questions, namely closed form question and opened form question. There were seven numbers of closed form questions and three numbers of opened form questions. The closed form questions were to collect the survey results on the use of mind-mapping as a prewriting strategy to foster students’ writing skills. Meanwhile, the opened form questions were to collect information of students’ suggestions in the implementation of mind mapping and their opinions on the use of mind mapping as prewriting strategy.

Table 3.1. Questionnaire Blueprint

No. Features Item Numbers

1. Perception on prewriting step A

B. 1 B. 2 C. 1

2. Perception on mind mapping as prewriting strategy B. 3

B. 4 B. 5 B. 6

3. The use of mind mapping toward fostering students’

writing skills

C. 2

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2. Interview

Another instrument for this research was interview. As what Ary, et al (1979: 174) stated that interview was a well-established method of data collection. It was a flexible instrument where the interviewer could elaborate the questions and inquire more explanation in case the respondents are not clear in answering the questions. Interviews would be done in different time for each interviewee in order to obtain further information on the questionnaire data of certain respondents and to keep the confidentiality of the respondents’ answers and biographical data.

Table 3.2. Interview Guide

No. Questions 1. What was your reason to put the strategy (based on the

questionnaire) as the first number?

2. When did you first time know and use mind mapping? 3. Have you ever used mind mapping as a strategy in

prewriting?

4. Can you describe your working with mind mapping in prewriting?

5. What are your suggestions on the use of mind mapping in prewriting or in writing?

D. Data Gathering Technique

This research would use not only the library study but also mainly questionnaire and interview data. The library study was used to look for the theories that supported this research. Another technique was distributing questionnaires in three different classes of Research Paper Writing B, E and F in 2009/2010 academic year to gather the applicable data.

The data was gathered by distributing the questionnaires in Research Paper Writing class B was conducted on May 10th, 2010. There were twenty respondents in the class. The questionnaire distribution in Research Paper Writing class E and F were conducted on May 14th, 2010. There were twenty respondents and seventeen respondents in each class.

Afterwards, The total was four interviewees who were taken randomly from the respondents of the questionnaire to know further on the use of mind mapping to foster students’ writing skills and to gain the more specific data about their suggestion on the implication on the use of mind mapping in fostering students’ writing skills, to achieve the answer of second problem of the research, and to gain the further information of closed form question

E. Data Analysis Technique

The first technique in data analysis was analyzing the questionnaire data gathered from three different classes of Research Paper Writing B, E and F. The analysis consisted of two steps. The first step was analyzing the closed form questions. The data would be described and summarized into the form of percentage. This kind of percentage was used to know the students’ perceptions on prewriting step and on mind mapping in prewriting step. The scale indicating the students’ perceptions on the use of mind mapping to foster students’ writing skills in closed form questions would strongly agree, agree, disagree and strongly disagree. The results of the questionnaires would be put on the table that contained the statements of the

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questionnaire and the degree of agreement of the chosen answer into percentage. Afterwards, from the results of this degree of agreement percentage, the researcher could have a conclusion on respondents’ perception on the use of mind mapping to foster students’ writing skills. It would answer the first question of this research.

Table 3.3. Data Analysis Technique

No. Statement Strongly

Agree (%) Agree (%) Disagree (%)

Strongly Disagree (%)

1.

2.

Etc.

The second step of analyzing the questionnaire was summarizing the opened form questions. The opened form questions comprised of their opinion of mind mapping in prewriting step, on the use of mind mapping to foster students’ writing skill, and the suggestions on the implications of mind mapping in writing class which would answer the second research problem. The researcher would summarize respondents’ answers of each question, then, draw conclusions of each question.

The third technique was analyzing the result of interviews. The interview results were about the further information on the questionnaire data on why the respondents gave certain answers. Afterwards, the researcher would recheck off the data gathered from questionnaire and interview to have the applicable conclusion.

F. Research Procedure

The procedures of the research were going to have some steps. The first step was to review of the library data of all information that related to mind mapping and the terms beyond the mind mapping used to foster students’ writing skills. The sources would be books, documents and internet sources. Second step after having enough data was, as the basic knowledge of the use of mind mapping to foster writing skill, to decide who would be the respondents.

The next step was to arrange questionnaire questions to distribute to the respondents. Afterwards, the researcher met the lecture to have the appointment on when the questionnaire could be distribute to the respondents of writing classes. Then, the researcher distributed the questionnaire to the respondents in Research Paper Writing class B, E and F. After, respondents filled the questionnaires; questionnaire data would be processed and then analyzed while searching for other literature sources. The data from the questionnaire would have two types. The data from closed form question would be processed into percentage, whereas the data from opened form question would be analyzed and summarized based on each feature. Afterwards, the researcher would have the hypothesis on the students’ perceptions on the use of mind mapping in prewriting step to foster students’ writing skills before the researcher did the interview to gain further data from the respondents.

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Then the research would continue to the interview. Interview of six respondents of the questionnaire randomly would be done in the different time for each interview. Then, the results were analyzed to complete the previous questionnaire data.

29 CHAPTER IV

RESEACRH RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The chapter revealed the data acquired from the result of questionnaire and interview. The data illustrated on students’ perceptions on using mind mapping in prewriting step to foster students’ writing skills. In this chapter, there would be two subheadings. The first subheading was research results involving the results of the questionnaire and the results of the interview. The second subheading was the discussion of the students’ perceptions on using mind mapping in prewriting step to foster students’ writing skills, to answer the first research problem, and the discussion of the students’ suggestions on the implication of using mind mapping either in writing class or in their own writing, to answer the second research problem.

A. RESEARCH RESULTS

The research results would be presented in two subheadings based on the instruments used in this research. Each subheading consisted of some features of the questionnaire.

1. The Results of the Questionnaire

In this research, the researcher first counted the results of the questionnaire by presenting the percentage of closed-form question in the questionnaire. It was

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showed in the Table 4. 4. Afterwards, each statement in the questionnaire was put into each feature which would be clarified in next sub-subheadings.

Table 4. 4. The percentage of each statement of closed-form questions in the questionnaire     No. Statement Strongly Agree (%)

Agree (%) Disagree (%)

Strongly Disagree

(%) 1. The right selection toward

the prewriting strategy develops my motivation in writing.

32 58 10 0

2. The selection toward the prewriting strategy affects my result of writing.

16 67 17 0

3. The respondents are

familiar with mind mapping as a strategy before writing.

12 60 23 4

4. The respondents often use mind mapping as a strategy before writing.

5 35 50 10

5. The respondents feel easy working with mind

mapping. 9 52 39 0

6. The respondents are able to build my ideas easily using mind mapping before writing.

a. Students’ Perceptions in Prewriting Step

There were three kinds of questions in the questionnaire. The first related to the students’ selection of prewriting strategy. There were five prewriting strategies provided in the questionnaire. They were mind mapping, free writing, listing, brainstorming, and drawing. Figure 4.1 showed the percentage of students’ selection of prewriting strategy.

Figure 4.1. showed that 14% of the respondents chose mind mapping, 21% of the respondents chose free writing, 23% of the respondents chose listing, 30% of the respondents chose brainstorming, 2% of the respondents chose drawing and 3% of the respondents wrote other strategy, outline, as their prewriting strategies. However, 7% of the respondents never used a strategy in prewriting step.

Figure 4. 1. The prewriting strategy preferred by the respondents

There was an opened-form question that asked the further question why respondents chose certain strategy as the main strategy in prewriting step. Most

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35%

Prewriting Strategies Mind Mapping

Free writing Listing Drawing Brainstroming Outline Never use

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of the respondents chose brainstorming for the reasons that brainstorming was an easy strategy to explore ideas and they were accustomed to the use the strategy. Respondents who chose listing as the main strategy in prewriting thought that by listing they did not need a long time to help them explore the ideas in writing. Respondents who chose free writing thought that free writing was the flexible strategy to use. They could explore their ideas and write everything in their mind liberally. Respondents who chose mind mapping as the main strategy in prewriting stated that mind mapping could help them to select related ideas and explore more detailed ideas in their writing. A few respondents chose drawing because the strategy was clearer than other strategies. Respondents who chose outlining thought that the strategy was easier than the others to develop their ideas. Another reason was that they were accustomed to the use outlining because their lecturers always asked them to make outline before writing; afterwards, they had to submit their outlines to the lecturers.

There were 32% of the respondents who strongly agreed, 58% of the respondents who agreed, 10% of the respondents who disagreed and none of the respondents chose strongly disagree towards the right selection toward the prewriting strategy developed their motivation in writing. This statement had a relation to the next statement that the selection toward prewriting strategy affected their writing results.

There were 16% of the respondents who strongly agreed, 67% of the respondents who agreed, 17% of the respondents who disagreed and none of the respondents who strongly disagreed responded on the selection towards prewriting strategy affected their writing results.

b. Students’ Perceptions on Mind Mapping as Prewriting Strategy

There were four statements in the questionnaire which related to the feature of students’ perceptions on mind mapping as prewriting strategy. The respondents’ answer of each statement was presented in some figures then.

There were 12% of the respondents who strongly agreed, 61% of the respondents who agreed, 23% of the respondents who disagreed and 4% of the respondents who strongly disagreed towards the statement that they were familiar with mind mapping as a strategy before writing.

There were 5% of the respondents who strongly agreed, 35% of the respondents who agreed, 50% of the respondents who disagreed and 10% of the respondents who strongly disagreed towards their frequency on using mind mapping as a prewriting strategy.

c. Students’ Perceptions on Mind Mapping to Foster Students’ Writing Skills

There were 9% of the respondents who strongly agreed, 52% of the respondents who agreed, 39% of the respondents who disagreed, and no one

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who strongly disagreed towards the statement that mind mapping was an easy strategy to use.

There were 9% of the respondents who strongly agreed, 54% of the respondents who agreed, 37% of the respondents who disagreed, and no one who strongly disagreed towards the statement that they could build their ideas easily in prewriting using mind mapping.

Based on the opened-form question in the questionnaire, most of the respondents agreed that mind mapping was a helpful prewriting strategy which was able to foster students’ writing skills. They thought that mind mapping helped them to classify the ideas and develop into some detailed ideas easily. However, some of the respondents disagreed that mind mapping was a helpful strategy in prewriting for the reasons that the strategy needed a lot of time thus mind mapping was not effective to use. They were also not accustomed to the use mind mapping strategy in prewriting. Hence, they thought that mind mapping was not helpful for some students.

d. Students’ Suggestions on the Implication of Using Mind Mapping Some of the respondents suggested that to use mind mapping is the effective way for the reason that mind mapping could help to organize their ideas in an order. Some of the respondents recommended that mind mapping had to be taught in the early semester and the users of mind mapping could make mind mapping became an interesting strategy by drawing picture on it.

The users of mind mapping were better to have more practice to accustom to use mind mapping for the reasons that the users knew the use of mind mapping effectively.

2. The Results of the Interview

In this part, the researcher would provide the interview results of students’ perception on mind mapping as prewriting strategy to foster students’ writing skills.

Respondent A said that mind mapping as a prewriting strategy had two types. They were the manual1 and the mind mapping software2. According to him, the mind mapping software was more complicated than the manual one. It was complicated because he had spent a lot of time to make it. Since the user had not really mastered the instructions to work with the mind mapping software. Therefore, he frequently used the manual mind mapping besides it was simpler than the software; it also led the user to be more creative in drawing and coloring. However, both kinds of mind mapping had the same function. It was to foster the user in exploring ideas easily.

He added when he used mind mapping, he could divide between the most supported ideas and not supported ideas easily because mind mapping was very systematic. In his opinion, the users could put some colors and pictures to make

1

It was also called traditional mind mapping that using paper and colored pens. (Buzan, 2003, p. 227). 2

It was also called computer mind mapping software that the user put the data via computer screen with a digital pen. (Buzan, 2003, p. 227).

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mind mapping more interesting. The interviewee used mind mapping not only in writing subject but also in reading subject and in his teaching preparation. He suggested the teacher should teach the step of this strategy and the students were better to inure using this strategy because the strategy was very helpful and effective especially if it was used in prewriting. This suggestion based on his experience that a class used mind mapping if only the teacher asked them to make mind mapping.

However, respondent B never used mind mapping as prewriting strategy except the teacher asked her to use the strategy to be submitted. She thought that using mind mapping is tiring because she was not used to be systematic. She preferred to use free writing, because the strategy challenged her to write more and more in her mind.

Even though she never used mind mapping except the teacher asked her to use, based on the theory that she got from the lecture, she thought that mind mapping was a good strategy to be used because the strategy was very systematic and mind mapping could help the users to map their ideas specifically. She also had a notion that mind mapping did not let the users to miss the specific ideas. She suggested having a high motivation to use mind mapping in prewriting step, the user could make a book of his mind mapping. In other words, the user gathered all mind mapping that he had made and bound them all to be a book.

Respondent C had used mind mapping as prewriting strategy but she rarely used it. She thought that mind mapping was not helpful to use because it let her to be confused to explore ideas and to pick out the important ideas.

However, she thought that mind mapping was the effective way to use to foster students’ writing skill though she rarely used the strategy. According to her, mind mapping was a systematic strategy based on her experience in prewriting step. The users had to know what ideas had to be put on it. She believed that mind mapping helped the users to have new points of idea.

Respondent D used three strategies in prewriting step. He used brainstorming as the first strategy, listing as the second strategy and mind mapping as the third strategy. He put mind mapping in the last step because in his opinion the use of mind mapping was to evaluate his ideas in his prewriting step. He usually used mind mapping strategy in prewriting step to evaluate the position of his ideas. Based on his experiences and his knowledge got by reading a kind of writing book discuss on the use of mind mapping in prewriting step, he said that mind mapping was a systematic strategy. According to him, mind mapping as a prewriting strategy could lead the users to explore the detailed ideas based on the big topic or general topic. He suggested mind mapping could also be applied in all product skills, not only in writing but also in speaking. Since, mind mapping could facilitated the users explore their ideas with certain burden.

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B. DISCUSSION

1. Students’ perceptions on mind mapping as prewriting strategy to foster students’ writing skills

The researcher could draw conclusion, based on the data gained, that most of the respondents had positive perception on the use of mind mapping as the strategy in prewriting step. That meant respondents were familiar with mind mapping as prewriting strategy and facilitated using mind mapping in prewriting. However, it did not mean respondents were often to use mind mapping in prewriting.

In the researcher’s opinion, mind mapping was one of the very systematic strategies which helped the users to lead in appearing ideas. In fact that the working system of mind mapping were writing a general big topic in the middle of the paper, making some branches from it which were as subtopics or more specific ideas, then from the branches of the specific ideas, the users could always have the more and more specific ideas. Therefore, by mind mapping, in researcher’s opinion, the users would not miss detailed ideas. Since mind mapping was a systematic prewriting strategy with its branches and helped the users in building up ideas, thus, mind mapping could be a prewriting strategy to foster students’ writing skills.

Based on the questionnaire data, most of the respondents agreed towards the statement that they were familiar with mind mapping as a strategy in prewriting step. However, a part of respondents disagreed that they often used mind mapping

as a strategy in prewriting step. The researcher concluded although they were familiar with mind mapping as a strategy in prewriting step, it did not mean that they often used mind mapping in every prewriting step but at least they had ever used mind mapping in prewriting step. The case was because the selection of prewriting strategy depended on the person which strategy they enjoyed to work on and liked most. However, based on the questionnaire data, more than a half of the respondents agreed that mind mapping was an easy strategy to use in prewriting step. They thought that mind mapping was an easy strategy to use in prewriting step for the reason that they could build their ideas easily.

Afterwards, the selection of the prewriting strategy chose by the students affected by the four factors stated by Altman, Valensi and Hodggets (1985: 86). The researcher related the students’ perception on using mind mapping in prewriting step to foster students’ writing skills with the four factors influencing students’ perception and the learning strategy called metacognitive learning strategy.

According to Altman, Valensi and Hodggets (1985: 86) in Chapter II that the first factor influencing the respondent’s perception was the selection of the stimuli. The data gathering which was related to the first factor influencing the perceptions that why students had the different perceptions.

This first factor also affected the variance of the respondents’ selection towards the prewriting strategy related to the statement by Altman, Valensi and Hodggets (1985: 86) in Chapter II that the first factor influencing the respondent’s

40

perception was the selection of the stimuli. Each respondent had their own selection toward prewriting strategy depending whether they felt easy working with a kind of strategy or not. Figure 4. 1. showed the percentage of the respondents’ selection towards prewriting strategies. Afterwards, the researcher analyzed why the respondents had different selection in their prewriting because they had their own opinion on the use or working system of each prewriting strategy. Even though they had the same concepts of using the strategy based on learning in class by the teacher but they accepted the concept differently, between difficult or easy and helpful or not to work with certain strategy.

The second factor influencing respondent’s perception was the organization of the stimuli stated by Altman, Valensi and Hodggets (1985: 86). Related to this research, organization of the stimuli let the respondents to choose mind mapping, as prewriting strategy, which they gained from lecturing or their own knowledge, then, tried to use mind mapping well. However, for those who could not work well with mind mapping, they would try other strategies until they felt that they could apply certain strategy well.

The third factor influencing the respondent’s perception was the situation stated by Altman, Valensi and Hodggets (1985: 86). The situations referred to the respondents’ experiences, lecturing, and environment when they had to use a kind of prewriting strategies. Related to this research, the students who had a limited time to construct composition would not agree to use mind mapping as prewriting strategy because they thought that mind mapping needed much time. However,

the opposite situation would enable the students to use mind mapping more easily to explore their ideas.

The fourth respondent’s perception factor was person’s self-concept stated by Altman, Valensi and Hodggets (1985: 86). Related to this research, the meaning of the factor was that respondents were able to appraise their own competences. Respondents who were able to draw and color would tend to choose mind mapping for the reasons that mind mapping would be more attractive with pictures and colors. However, some respondents who had the opposite thought would not tend to choose mind mapping.

As stated in Chapter II by Chamot, the researcher was able to conclude that mind mapping was a learning strategy. Mind mapping, as a learning strategy, helped the users to work easily and effectively in building up the ideas, even in very detailed ideas.

Based on the researcher’s opinion, mind mapping referred to metacognitive learning strategy. According to the definition by Chamot, as stated in Chapter II, mind mapping could lead the users to have a well planning in constructing a composition. Since mind mapping had the branches containing the ideas and detailed ideas, thus, the branches were able to sustain in constructing a good composition. By making a mind mapping, the users would have their own planning on what topic to be written. They were able to monitor their own composition by reviewing their mind mapping. Mind mapping was also used to evaluate the composition. Not all the users of the strategy used all three steps;

42

planning, monitoring and evaluating. Many of them used the strategy as a planning step, by making mind mapping. Some of them used the strategy as an evaluating step. In other words, the user could use mind mapping as metacognitive strategy in prewriting. However, they did not use it in order, as planning, monitoring and evaluating.

2. Students’ suggestions on the use of mind mapping to foster students’ writing skills either in writing class or their own writing

Based on the data gathered, although most of the respondents were familiar enough with mind mapping as the prewriting strategy, but they rarely used the strategy. However, they thought the strategy was effective. The effective side was when the users gained the points of a right understanding on the use of mind mapping. It meant the users knew well how or the step to use mind mapping and surely they had the knowledge on the topic to be written. Since the work of mind mapping was the users had to find a general idea, therefore, from the idea would help the users to have more detailed ideas by creating more branches.

When distributing questionnaires, some respondents were confused and they asked actually what was the different between mind mapping and brainstorming or the other strategies, e.g. listing and outline. After interviewing, the researcher could perceive if the users of mind mapping did not know the working system of mind mapping itself, they could not work well with it. Therefore, the users should have the right knowledge of using mind mapping as prewriting step before they

worked with it. The way to have this knowledge were by asking to the lecturer, reading some related books and practicing to use mind mapping more and more.

Since mind mapping was as a strategy in prewriting that was not a must to use it, thus, not all the writing lecturer taught the strategy. For some respondents who never knew or had not been taught yet about mind mapping suggested that it would be better if the strategy was taught in the earlier semester, since they were in six semester. Since mind mapping had some steps to use it well, thus, the lecturer should tell in detailed how to use mind mapping. It avoided the misleading on how to use mind mapping well.

Other suggestions on the use of mind mapping emerged when the users were not used to employ it because they did not know well how to use it, the users could have more practice to employ it. This behavior enabled the users to have a good skill in working with mind mapping.

To have an attractive mind mapping in prewriting, students might have pictures and colors on it. That would encourage students to use mind mapping frequently.

In conclusion, there was a concept to implement mind mapping in prewriting step to foster students’ writing skills in an appropriate way. First, students had to have background knowledge of the appropriate concept of the use of mind mapping in order that the students were able to use mind mapping effectively. Next, the students should choose a topic as the main topic to write a composition from their own knowledge in their mind. Afterwards, from the main topic, the

44

students made some branches containing subtopics and sub-subtopics related to the main topic. The students had to have knowledge on the topic of what to write in order to elaborate the main topic into many subtopics and sub-subtopics easily. Then, they could put some colors and images in the branches. After the mind mapping was done, students continued to wrote the composition and the mind mapping was as the guidance. It meant the students could write the composition coherently and cohesively by following the branches in the mind mapping.

45 CHAPTER V

CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS

A. Conclusions

The researcher concluded that respondents had positive perception on the use of mind mapping as prewriting strategy. Although some of the respondents never used the strategy, at least they know mind mapping as prewriting strategy either from their lectures or their own learning. Mind mapping really helped the users exploring their ideas in prewriting because the users had to find a general idea then went further into deeper ideas by creating more branches containing the subtopics or ideas in the mind mapping. Therefore, the users would not miss the ideas, even the detailed ideas. Afterwards, they could compose their writing by looking at the mind mapping, as guidance. This kind of behavior was called the metacognitive learning strategy, because the users were led to have their own planning, their own monitoring and their own evaluating in their learning. Although metacognitive learning strategy had those three steps, however, the user of mind mapping went through the steps. A few respondents used mind mapping as evaluating aid. However, most of the respondents went through all the steps of metacognitive learning strategy by using mind mapping. Thus, by going through the entire steps well, mind mapping could foster the user writing skill.

46

B. Suggestions

From the data gathered, the researcher could suggest that mind mapping had to be learnt from the earliest semester, when the students were in the first semester, so that the students might have more understanding about mind mapping when they were in following semester. The users also needed to have more practices on using mind mapping in prewriting because it would be the way to get used to use mind mapping in prewriting step.

To have more interesting when producing mind mapping in prewriting, the users could have some pictures or images and colors on it.

The researcher suggested a concept to implement mind mapping in prewriting step to foster students’ writing skills. First, students had to have background knowledge of the appropriate concept of the use of mind. Next, the students should choose a topic as the main topic of a composition. Afterwards, from the main topic, the students made some branches containing subtopics and sub-subtopics related to the main topic by creating some branches and putting some colors and images in the branches. After the mind mapping was done, students were able to write the composition easily by looking at the mind mapping as guidance.

47 REFERENCES

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Szilagyi, Andrew D., Jr. and March J. W., Jr. 1980. Organizational Behavior and Performance. Tucson: Good Year Publishing Company, Inc.

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APPENDIX A

Letter of Research

 

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APPENDIX B

Questionnaire Blueprint

and Questionnaire

 

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Questionnaire Blueprint

No. Features Item

Numbers Statements

1. Perception on prewriting

step A

Order the prewriting strategies by numbering the strategies below which you often use in the box!

B. 1

The right selection toward the prewriting strategy develops my motivation in writing.

B. 2 The selection toward the prewriting strategy affects my result of writing.

C. 1 Why did you choose the strategy as the first number? (in the question A) 2. Perception on mind

mapping as prewriting strategy

B. 3 I am familiar with mind mapping as a strategy before writing.

B. 4 I often use mind mapping as a strategy before writing.

B. 5 I feel easy working with mind mapping.

B. 6 I am able to build my ideas easily using mind mapping before writing. 3. The use of mind

mapping toward fostering students’ writing skills

C. 2

What is your opinion on the use of mind mapping in prewriting step? Is it helpful or not?

4. The suggestions on the implications of mind

mapping C. 3

What are your suggestions on the implication of using mind mapping either in writing class or in your own writing?

with mind mapping as prewriting strategy.

2. Had you ever used mind mapping as a strategy in prewriting?

I had ever used mind mapping in prewriting in Short Essay II. That was because the lecturer asked me to work with mind mapping.

3. What was your reason to put the

strategy (based on the questionnaire) as the first number?

I chose freewriting as my main prewriting strategy because it

challenged me to write more and more. It was a simple strategy and I thought that mind mapping was very systematic strategy. Since I was not used to be systemic so I did not like to use it. 4. Could you describe more mind mapping

in prewriting?

Mind mapping was very systematic strategy. by mind mapping, the users could map their ideas easily into some detailed ones.

5. What were your suggestions on the use of mind mapping in prewriting or in writing?

To emerge the users’ interests using mind mapping, she/he could arrange a book of their own mind mapping.

3. Respondent C

No. Questions Answers

1. When did you first time know and use mind mapping?

First time I used and know mind mapping in Extensive Reading I.

2. Had you ever used mind mapping as a strategy in prewriting?

I had ever used mind mapping in prewriting step in Short Essay I.

3. What was your reason to put the

strategy (based on the questionnaire) as the first number?

I chose listing as my main strategy in prewriting because it was easy to use. I felt easy to explore ideas and find new topics.

4. Could you describe more mind mapping in prewriting?

Mind mapping was effective strategy. Actually, it helped the users to find new topic, but it’s not for me.

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Although I thought that I was effective strategy but I was confused to use it. It was structured strategy..

5. What were your suggestions on the use of mind mapping in prewriting or in writing?

Since mind mapping was very

systematic strategy, the users should be able to plan and elaborate into detailed ideas.

4. Respondent D

No. Questions Answers

1. When did you first time know and use mind mapping?

I found mind mapping as prewriting strategy when I read a book of writing. 2. Had you ever used mind mapping as a

strategy in prewriting?

I had ever used mind mapping in prewriting as the third step because I usually did three strategy in prewriting. The first is brainstorming then listing afterwards mind mapping.

3. What was your reason to put the

strategy (based on the questionnaire) as the first number?

I chose brainstorming as my main prewriting strategy because I thought that the first thing to do was to collect more ideas in my brain then listed all the ideas afterwards I elaborate the ideas with mind mapping.

4. Could you describe more mind mapping in prewriting?

Mind mapping was systematic strategy. therefore. I used it in the third step in prewriting. I used mind mapping to evaluate my ideas so that I would know where the position of my ideas.

5. What were your suggestions on the use of mind mapping in prewriting or in writing?

Used mind mapping in prewriting step to know your position of your ideas!

APPENDIX G

The Example of Student’s

Mind Mapping

ABSTRACT

Purwojati, Rizki Ayu. 2010. Students’ Peception on Using Mind Mapping to Foster Students’ Writing Skill. Yogyakarta: English Language Education Study Program, Universitas Sanata Dharma.

In this research, the researcher would study about the students’ perception on using mind mapping in prewriting step to foster students’ writing skills and the students’ suggestions on using mind mapping in their class or their own writing. Mind mapping was one of the writing strategies which could help the users to determine some sub-topics systematically.

The reason why the researcher intended to study about the use of mind mapping as prewriting strategy was the researcher’s experience when working with mind mapping in a prewriting composition.

There were two research problems in this research. The first was to know what the students’ perception on using mind mapping in prewriting step to foster students’ writing skill was and the second was to know what the students’ suggestions of the implementation of mind mapping either in Writing class or in their own writing were. The method of this research was descriptive research involving questionnaire and interview. The questionnaire was distributed to the three different classes of Research Paper Writing 2009/2010 academic year. The total of the questionnaire respondents were 57. From this total respondents were taken 4 respondents randomly to be interviewed.

The results of this research gained from questionnaire and interview was that respondents were familiar with mind mapping as prewriting strategy and facilitated using mind mapping in prewriting. However, it did not mean respondents were often to use mind mapping in prewriting because of several factors, for examples limited time and habits. However, they thought the strategy was effective in prewriting step. Therefore, the researcher concluded that students had positive perception on using mind mapping in prewriting step to foster students’ writing skills because mind mapping led the users to write systematically with clear and detailed topics. Besides, to encourage students’ interests to use mind mapping was to produce mind mapping more interesting by drawing images and coloring.

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Purwojati, Rizki Ayu. 2010. Students’ Peceptions on Using Mind Mapping to Foster Students’ Writing Skills. Yogyakarta: Program Studi Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris, Universitas Sanata Dharma.

Dalam penelitian ini, penulis akan meneliti tentang persepsi mahasiswa terhadap penggunaan mind mapping dalam tahap prewriting untuk mendorong kemampuan menulis mahasiswa dan saran mahasiswa dalam penggunaan mind mapping dalam kelas atau untuk mereka sendiri. Mind mapping adalah salah satu strategi menulis yang dapat membantu penggunanya untuk dapat menentukan sub-topik secara sistematis.

Alasan mengapa peneliti meneliti mengenai penggunaan mind mapping sebagai strategi sebelum menulis adalah dari pengalaman penulis saat menggunakan mind mapping dalam menyusun suatu karangan sebelum menulis.

Dalam penelitian ini terdapat dua permasalahan. Yang pertama yaitu untuk mengetahui persepsi mahasiswa dalam menggunakan mind mapping pada tahap

prewriting untuk meningkatkan ketrampilan menulis mahasiswa dan saran mahasiswa dalam penerapan mind mapping di kelas Writing maupun saat menulis sendiri.

Metode yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini adalah penelitian descriptive yang meliputi kuesioner dan wawancara. Kuesioner dibagikan di tiga kelas berbeda

Research Paper Writing tahun ajaran 2009/2010. Total responden kuesioner berjumlah 57. Dari total responden kuesioner diambil 4 responden secara acak untuk diwawancara.

Hasil penelitian yang diperoleh dari kuesioner dan wawancara adalah bahwa para responden telah mengenal mind mapping sebagai strategi prewriting dan terbantu menggunakan mind mapping dalam tahap prewriting. Namun, ini bukan berarti para responden sering menggunakan mind mapping karena berbagai faktor, misalnya keterbatasan waktu dan kebiasaan. Tetapi, mereka berpendapat bahwa strategi ini efektif untuk digunakan dalam tahap prewriting.

Penulis dapat menyimpulkan bahwa mahasiswa mempunyai persepsi positif terhadap penggunaan mind mapping ditahap prewriting untuk mendorong kemampuan menulis siswa karena mind mapping mengarahkan penggunanya untuk menulis secara sistematik dengan topik yang jelas dan terperinci. Selain itu, untuk menumbuhkan minat mahasiswa untuk menggunakan mind mapping adalah membuat mind mapping

lebih menarik dengan gambar dan warna.