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
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;
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’
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