T1 112011051 Full text
“THE EFFECTIVENESS OF MIND MAPPING STRATEGY IN
WRITING DESCSRIPTIVE TEXTS FOR 8 GRADERS”
THESIS
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Degree
Sarjana Pendidikan
Iis Hidayah Romadhloni
112011051
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF LANGUAGE AND LITEATURE
SATYA WACANA CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY
SALATIGA
2015
“THE EFFECTIVENESS OF MIND MAPPING STRATEGY IN
WRITING DESCSRIPTIVE TEXTS FOR 8 GRADERS”
THESIS
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Degree
Sarjana Pendidikan
Iis Hidayah Romadhloni
112011051
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF LANGUAGE AND LITEATURE
SATYA WACANA CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY
SALATIGA
2015
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COPYRIGHT STATEMENT
This thesis contains no such material as has been submitted for examination in any
course or accepted for the fulfillment of any degree or diploma in any university. To the best
of my knowledge and belief, this contains no material previously published or written by any
other person, except where due references is made in the text
Copyright @ 2015 Iis Hidayah Romadhloni and Athriyana Santye Pattiwael, M.Hum
All rights reserved. No part of this thesis may be reproduced by any means without
the prior written permission of at least one of the copyrights owners of the English
Department of Satya Wacana Christian University, Salatiga.
Iis Hidayah Romadhloni : 112011051 (
)
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“THE EFFECTIVENESS OF MIND MAPPING STRATEGY IN
WRITING DESCSRIPTIVE TEXTS FOR 8 GRADERS”
Iis Hidayah Romadhloni
ABSTRACT
The study aims at finding the effectiveness of using mind mapping as a prewriting
strategy in order to help the students in writing descriptive texts, and to uncover the aspects
of effectiveness addressed by the students after the treatment of mind mapping strategy. The
participants were 64 Eighth-graders of State 1 Junior High School (SMPN 1) Banyubiru,
Indonesia. This research used a mixed method of quantitative and qualitative study
particularly quasi experimental with questionnaire and interview techniques. This study used
Independent samples t-test in order to analyze and compare the statistical data. The statistical
result showed significant difference of progress shown by the experimental class as compared
to the control class. It indicated that mind mapping was effective to help the students write
the descriptive text. Furthermore, the result of questionnaires and interviews showed that
most of the students give positive responses toward the use of mind mapping strategy in
writing descriptive text. In particular, mind mapping facilitated the students to organize their
idea, plan students’ writing, deal with the writing elements, write enjoyably, understand the
writing content and improve their writing achievement.
Keywords: mind mapping strategy, writing, descriptive text
INTRODUCTION
Writing is one of the four basic skills that the second language learners have to learn
when learning English. Uunsen (2009) states that the processes of expressing ideas through
the written form while writing, the writer’s mental processes are involved. However, writing
skill is often considered as a difficult skill to learn as Westwood (2009) points out that
writing requires the active coordination of cognitive, linguistic and psychomotor processes.
Though writing is included as a basic skill that EFL learners should master as a benchmark of
their achievement, it is obstructed by the difficulties in learning it. Over my observation to
some junior high school students around me who came from different schools, including my
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students in my teaching practicum site, most of the students said that writing is difficult to
learn as it demands them to express their ideas, organize the ideas and discover some new
vocabulary related to the topic written. As Nurlaila (2013) claims, one part that makes the
students feel that writing is difficult is when they have to convey their ideas to be written on
the paper.
In order to help solve the students’ difficulties in writing, an appropriate learning
strategy is very important. O’Malley & Chamot (1990) define learning strategy as a part of
second language acquisition which includes the particular belief and behavior to figure out,
learn and maintain the original information that is done by someone. Moreover, a study by
O’Malley & Chamot (1990) suggested that the success of L2/FL learners is determined by
their awareness of their own learning strategies. Related to the definition about learning
strategy above, one of the strategies that can be used to solve the students’ problems in
writing is pre-writing strategy. Pre-writing strategy is defined as experimental writing that
helps the students to start writing and find new ideas before writing. (Mahnam & Nejadansari,
2012).
This study is conducted to investigate the role of pre-writing strategies. Among the
existing pre-writing strategies, Buzan (1993) defines mind mapping strategy as a radiant
thinking expression which includes the natural function of the human brainpower that can be
used to help the students to write. The function of this method suggests the new approach to
accept and process information, enhance creativity, memory and concentration. The
organizational structure of mind map basically begins from the center which represents the
general idea following the branches containing the significant ideas which are usually
represented by symbols, lines, images and colors. They are like highly organized diagrams
that work in line with the brain’s natural way of doing things. In other words, mind mapping
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is especially useful in determining the relationship between ideas. It will distinguish what
ideas are appropriate to be included in your writing, let alone when there are lots of ideas
coming and you do not know how to organize them appropriately. Clearly, Murley (2007)
adds, mind mapping can maximize the brain’s ability in associating numbers with visual
qualities and as a result, the memory will be able to store more facts.
In line with that, several studies regarding mind mapping strategy have previously
been conducted. The first is the study by Nurlaila (2013) about the effectiveness of mind
mapping technique to teach descriptive texts. The participants were seventh graders in a
junior high school in Bandung. This study used a mixed method of pre experimental design,
particularly one group pretest-posttest design, questionnaire and interview techniques to
analyze the data. The result of this study was mind mapping technique was effective to
improve students’ score in writing descriptive texts. Moreover, based on the questionnaire
and interview data, the results showed that most students responded positively to this
technique in terms of mind mapping technique motivated them to write descriptive text in an
enjoyable way, increased vocabulary and creativity and help the students to plan their writing.
The second is the study by Supriyanto (2013) about the effect of mind mapping
strategy on the students writing ability. The participant was 22 second-semester students in
English Department of Islamic University of Malang. The study used quasi-experimental
pretest and posttest design. The score was analyzed by using ANCOVA. The finding showed
that the students taught by mind mapping strategy got better scores than those taught by
conventional teaching because it could help the students to deal with the writing elements
such as grammar and the use of vocabulary.
The third is the study by Backwell (2009) about how mind maps have effectively been
employed in the writing classes. The participants were the students of Sugiyama Women’s
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University and Nagoya City University. The finding showed that mind mapping strategy
helped the students to organize the idea, and through images and key words made in mind
mapping, the students could understand more about their writing content.
Although those three studies bring the same topic about the use of mind mapping
strategy to teach writing, the focuses of the studies were different. Nurlaila (2013) focused on
applying mind mapping in the descriptive text, Supriyanto (2013) focused more on the effect
of mind mapping strategy in writing ability, and Backwell (2009) focused on applying mind
mapping to write an essay. The present study is conducted to investigate the effectiveness of
using mind mapping as a pre-writing strategy to write a descriptive text.
The study is conducted to answer these two research questions:
1. Is mind mapping strategy effective to help the students in writing a descriptive
text?
2. In what ways is the mind mapping strategy effective to help the students in writing
a descriptive text?
This study aims to find out whether mind mapping strategy is effective to help the
students write a descriptive text and to describe the aspect(s) of the effectiveness addressed
by the students after they are given the treatment of mind mapping strategy.
This study is important to be conducted as Westwood (2008, p. 56) states that written
language is conceivably the most difficult skill to learn because it needs the coordination of
linguistic, cognitive and psychomotor practices in its development. It is also supported by
Nurlaila (2013) and Richard and Renandya (2002) who say that the difficulty in writing in a
second language usually happens because of their difficulties in conveying ideas. Hence,
prewriting strategy is important for the students. Before writing, preparation and strategies
are important to help EFL students organize the ideas and cope with the difficulties
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(Pishghadam & Ghanizadeh, 2006, pp. 108-109). Another thing which makes this study
important to be conducted is according to Depdiknas (2006)—descriptive text is one of the
various text types that Indonesian students should learn in junior high schools. Therefore, the
concept of mind maping strategy as a pre-writing strategy is so important for the learning
process of junior high school students in Grade 8. Lastly, it is hoped that training mind
mapping to SMPN 1 Banyubiru could help them overcome the difficulties in writing various
texts, especially descriptive text, in order to improve their writing performance.
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LITERATURE REVIEW
DIFFICULTIES IN EFL WRITING
It is a well known fact that writing is one of the difficult skills to learn. It is because
writing requires cognitive and linguistic strategies. Rao (2007) states that the difficulties in
writing that many students often face are how to find an interesting topic and the lack of ideas.
In other words, the students find it difficult to decide the topic to write, and to express their
ideas. While Rao (2007) supports that lacking of ideas becomes the factor that affects the
students’ ability in writing, Farooq, Uzair, & Wahid (2012) point out that there are three
factors contributing to the students’ difficulties in writing such as poor understanding of
structure, interference of L1 use and lack of vocabulary. Meanwhile, Siahaan (2013)
emphasizes that the difficulties faced by EFL students in writing descriptive texts are more on
the grammatical errors and generic structure. Moreover, White (2007) adds that basically the
students lack the skill of organizing the content of writing such as not focus on the
composition’s central image, the subject being described, and wordiness.
To sum up, the EFL students’ difficulties in writing, especially when they have to write
a descriptive text, are related to the understanding of the generic structure, the limited
grammatical knowledge, the skill in organizing the content and the conciseness of the
paragraphs.
PREWRITING STRATEGIES
In order to facilitate EFL students in learning writing, a pre-writing strategy is needed
to overcome the difficulties. According to Lanon (2011), pre-writing strategy is a technique
used to facilitate writing in finding the ideas and supporting the details of the writing. In
addition, Mahnam and Nejadansari (2012) add that it is a kind of practice in helping the
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individual to activate prior background knowledge, discover new ideas and specify areas of
the research. In conclusion, the definition of prewriting strategy based on both theories above
is a process done before the real writing activity that helps the individuals to find new and
supporting ideas for their writing piece.
Lanon (2011) suggests five different kinds of prewriting strategies. They are free
writing, listing, reporter’s question, journaling and clustering or mind mapping. Free writing
or fast writing is a technique to write freely without any concern about accurate grammar,
punctuation and spelling. The second technique is listing which enables the students to list
some specific and disorder ideas or questions without worrying about the relationship of the
paragraphs. The third is reporter’s questions which include 5w & 1h (who? what? why?
where? when? and how?) questions to guide the students to find specific ideas and details
about a particular topic. Next technique is journaling which involves the students to check
and recheck certain events, topics or ideas. And the last is clustering or mind mapping, whose
process includes writing a key word and write down other ideas that sprout from it by
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t
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n
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.
While Lanon (2011) suggests five different kinds of prewriting strategy, Mogahed
(2013) implies pre-writing strategy into two major parts called invention and arrangement
activities. Both parts are processes which should be done chronologically. In the invention
activities, the students will be required to focus more on the process of discovering new ideas.
It has seven different sub-parts such as free writing, listing, questioning or reporter’s
questions, clustering, interviewing or journaling which have been explained above, and
brainstorming and looping. Brainstorming is the technique to help the students generate new
ideas by thinking individually, verbalizing and classifying idea and completing the writing
task. Then, looping is a pre-writing activity that enables the writer to focus on the ideas and
discover a writing topic. Different from the invention activities, in the arrangement activities
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the students are required to consider the organization of the content by using graphic
organizer.
Basically, what Mogahed (2013) and Lanon (2011) suggest in categorizing the parts of
prewriting strategy are almost the same. Both theories imply some parts like free writing,
brainstorming, mind mapping, listing and questioning. However, Lanon (2011) makes the
category simpler and easier to understand. This study relies on Lanon (2011)’s theory as it is
easy to follow and understand.
MIND MAPPING STRATEGY
As mind mapping is one of the strategies that can facilitate writing, some experts tried
to define the meaning of mind mapping strategy differently. One of the well-known experts
of this field is Tony Buzan (1993, 2006) who defines mind map as a figure which functions
as a tool to sort out thoughts and organize words, tasks or other relations that set central key
words and branches that usually contain words, colors, short phrases and pictures. As mind
mapping is one of the sub-part of pre writing strategy, Mc Crimmon (2009) analyzes that
mind map is the prior process that the writer usually does before starting to write a paragraph
which needs a certain time to do. Thus, based on those definitions, the researcher tries to
conclude that mind mapping is a technique used before starting writing which functions to
sort out ideas that usually contain words, colors, phrases or pictures. Moreover, it organizes
the relationship between central ideas and branches.
Many experts had found the benefits that lay upon the mind mapping strategy. Firstly,
according to Tee, Azman, Mohamed, Mohamad, Yunos, Yee, & Othman (2014) mind
mapping is good for the brain because it requires the active coordination of the left and right
brain. In other words, working with mind mapping enables the students to balance their
brain’s work. They also add that it can help the writer to raise creativity and help to memorize
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something better. In line with Tee et al. (2014), Polson (2004) proposes that mind map can
facilitate to develop memory. Secondly, Manham and Najedansari (2012) state that mind
mapping can help the students to sort out the information being written. It is supported by
Davies (2010) who says that the relationship of the diagram in mind mapping will help the
writer understand the relationship of the ideas and analyze each component better.
So, based on the theory of mind mapping above, this study will follow Buzan’s (2006)
theory in implementing the mind mapping process. The process includes setting central key
words and branches that usually contain words, colors, short phrases or pictures to sort out
information, ideas, words or other relations.
THE ASPECTS OF EFFECTIVENESS OF MINDMAPPING STRATEGY IN
STUDENTS’ EFL WRITING
One of the main focuses on this study is to find the effectiveness of the use of mind
mapping strategy. The definition of effectiveness based on Oxford Advance Learner’s
dictionary is the degree to which something is successful in producing the desired result.
Related to the definition mentioned, the term of effectiveness in this study can be described
as the degree of how successful the mind mapping strategy is to facilitate the students’
writing so that they can improve their writing achievement.
Based on the previous studies done by some experts, the researcher classifies the
aspects of effectiveness of mind mapping strategy in students’ EFL writing. Firstly, mind
mapping is effective to help the writer organize the ideas as suggested by Supriyanto (2013)
and Backwell (2009). Secondly, it is effective to plan the students’ writing as stated by
Nurlaila (2013), Ling (2004) & Fictorius (2013). Thirdly, mind mapping is effective to deal
with the writing elements such as grammar, vocabulary, enrich vocabulary and creativity
(Supriyanto & Nurlaila, 2013). Fourthly, it helps the students to write enjoyably (Nurlaila,
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2013) and create enjoyable learning environment (Tee et al., 2014). Fifthly, mind mapping
strategy is effective to help the students to understand their writing contents (Farrand,
Hussain, & Henessy, 2002 and Backwell, 2009). Lastly, mind mapping is effective to
improve writing achievement as mentioned by Riswanto & Prandika (2012) and Ling (2004).
These six aspects then will be used as the basis of classification in the data analysis
especially to answer the research question about the aspects of effectiveness addressed by the
students after they are given the treatment of mind mapping strategy.
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REASERCH METHODOLOGY
TYPE OF RESEARCH
To answer the two research questions, the researcher used a mixed method of
quantitative and qualitative research, particularly quasi experimental group pretest and
posttest, with questionnaire distribution and interviews. The quantitative method, the quasiexperimental group pre-test-posttest, was employed to answer the first research question: is
mind mapping strategy effective to help the students in writing descriptive text. The
qualitative method using a questionnaire and interviews was employed to answer the second
research question: in what ways is mind mapping strategy effective to help the students in
writing descriptive text.
CONTEXT OF THE STUDY
The context of this study was in SMP Negeri 1 Banyubiru. This School was chosen
because the researcher had conducted teaching practicum in this school so that it made the
researcher get the permission from the school more easily. Besides that, the researcher also
had been familiar with the situation of the school and the 8 graders that became the
participants of this study.
PARTICIPANTS
The researcher worked with two different intact classes: 8C and 8D, each consisting
of 32 students. Both classes were treated differently; the first class (8C) was used as the
control group and the other class (8D) as the experimental group which was treated with
mind mapping strategy. The average age was around 12-13 years old. The two classes were
chosen because the students in both classes always had the eagerness to learn, were
enthusiastic to learn English and were considered as active students compared with other
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classes. Besides that, the ability of both classes was comparable when the researcher
measured the mean of their mid-term English test which means of control group is 57,56 and
experimental group is 56,87. Further, the 8 graders were chosen as participants because
descriptive writing became the subject of their second semester and their writing ability
considered low as they were still beginners in learning English. Hence, it was hoped that both
classes were able to cooperate well in giving their contribution during the data collection.
Moreover for the interview session, the participants were chosen by using the grade
intervals to get more thorough data. For each interval, the researcher randomly chose the
same number of representatives to be interviewed. The intervals used were as follows:
Interval
0-25
26-50
51-74
75-100
Sampling
4 students
4 students
4 students
4 students
INSTRUMENTS OF DATA COLLECTION
In this study, three kinds of instruments were used to collect the data: writing test, a 4likert-scale questionnaire and semi structured interview questions.
The writing test was used as the pre-test and post-test. While the pre-test was used to
predict the students’ level in the beginning of the research, the post-test was administered to
measure the students’ progress after the treatment. The writing test was administered to the
control and experimental classes. In the pre test and post test the researcher asked the students
to write two paragraph-long about their seatmates for about 45 minutes and it was done
individually in the classroom. The described objects were the same for both tests. The scoring
rubric was adopted from Brown (1994) because it was simple and easy to follow. Besides, the
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scoring criteria also represent some aspects in scoring the descriptive text. There were four
aspects graded to measure students’ writing ability in descriptive text such as content,
vocabulary, generic structure and language feature. The point of each criterion ranges from
one up to five, the maximum total score is 20.
A questionnaire was given to the experimental class. This instrument was used to find
the aspect(s) of effectiveness after the students were given the treatment of mind mapping
strategy. The questionnaire consists of 10 items of closed ended questions by using likertscale. The students were asked to respond to each statement on four scales. 1 representing
strongly disagree, 2 disagree, 3 agree and 4 strongly disagree. The questionnaire items were
developed from the aspects of the effectiveness of mind mapping strategy theories discussed
in the previous chapter. The questionnaire was written in the Indonesian language to make it
easier for the participants to understand the statements.
The Interview was also given to the experimental class in order to get the richer data
of the aspect(s) of effectiveness. It was developed based on the questionnaire items in order
to get the richer data of the qualitative research. The type of the interview was semi
structured interview which enables the interviewer to develop the interview questions during
the interview session and it consists of seven main questions.
RESEARCH PROCEDURE
In collecting the data, there were some steps that were conducted. Firstly, conducting
a pilot study for 5 students which were not included in control and experimental classes. It
covered pre test, treatment, post test and conducting the questionnaire. The pilot test was
conducted to examine the instruments used in this study whether it was appropriate or not
before those are administered to the control and experimental classes. The result of the pilot
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study showed that those 3 instruments of data collection worked well: thus, the researcher
didn’t make any changes to continue the next steps.
Secondly, administering pre tests to both, control and experimental classes. Thirdly,
conducting treatments for both classes, here the experimental class was treated by using mind
mapping strategy and control class was treated by using conventional method. Fourthly,
administering post test for both classes. Fifthly, administering questionnaire to all students in
experimental class. The last step was conducting interviews with 16 students from
experimental class.
DATA ANALYSIS PROSEDURE
Two main analyses were done to analyze the collected data in order to answer the two
research questions. The first is running an Independent Samples T-test to investigate the
effectiveness of the mind mapping strategy. The second was conducting a qualitative analysis
of the questionnaire and interview data in order to uncover the aspects of effectiveness of the
mind mapping strategy. To investigate the effectiveness of mind mapping strategy, first of all
an Independent Samples T-test of both groups’ means of the pre-test scores was run to
determine whether the two groups’ performances were comparable. If they were, another
Independent Samples t-test was run comparing the means of the two groups’ progress scores
(pre test scores -post test scores) to find out whether mind mapping strategy was effective.
The software used in analyzing the test was SPSS 16. To answer the first research question
the researcher determined the null and alternative hypotheses. The Ho of this study was
“mind mapping is not effective to help the students improve their writing ability and
overcome the difficulties in writing descriptive texts”. While the Ha was “mind mapping is
effective to help the students improve their writing ability and overcome the difficulties in
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writing descriptive texts”. Finally, the data analysis results were presented in the form of
tables and numbers followed by brief explanations.
Secondly, to answer the second research question about the aspect(s) of effectiveness
addressed by the students after being treated with the mind mapping strategy, the researcher
gathered the data by using a questionnaire which was distributed for the students in
experimental class. Here, Microsoft excel 2007 was used to determine the percentage of the
effectiveness aspect(s). The scoring option was 1 for strongly disagree, 2 for disagree, 3 for
agree and 4 for strongly agree. Lastly, for processing the data from interview, the researcher
used Express Scribe 5.69 transcription software. The data were transcribed and classified into
six big themes: mind mapping is effective to help the writer organize the ideas, plan the
students’ writing, deal with such writing elements as grammar, vocabularies and creativity,
write in an enjoyable way, understand their writing contents, and improve their achievement
in writing descriptive texts.
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FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
The discussion of this section is divided into two sessions based on the research
questions on this study. Firstly, it discusses the statistical analysis of the effectiveness of
mind mapping strategy to write descriptive texts which aim at answering the first research
question. Meanwhile, the second is the analyses of the questionnaire and interview data
which aim at describing the aspects of effectiveness to answer the second research question.
STATISTICAL ANALYSIS ON THE EFFECTIVENESS OF MIND MAPPING
STRATEGY TO HELP THE STUDENTS IN WRITING DESCRIPTIVE TEXT
In order to answer the first research question, this first sub-session provides statistical
analysis about the effectiveness of mind mapping strategy. It is accompanied by the
description of the analysis to explain the statistical results. The statistical analyses are divided
into two parts which consist of three sub parts each. The first is Independent samples t-test of
the pre test results, which analyzes the normal distribution, homogeneity of variance and
Independent samples t-test of the pre-test scores. The second is Independent samples t-test of
the progress scores (posttest scores – pretest scores) in both classes which analyzes the
normal distribution, homogeneity of variance and Independent samples t-test of progress
scores. The score of students’ writing was evaluated based on Brown’s (1994) rubric and
statistically analyzed using SPSS 16. The level of significance of the test was set up at 0.05
(α = 0.05). Further, the analyses were done as follows:
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INDEPENDENT SAMPLES T-TEST OF PRE TEST RESULTS
This Independent samples t-test was run to determine whether the
performances of the two groups (control and experimental groups) were comparable
in the beginning of the study.
Normal Distribution Test
The normal distribution test was conducted to know whether the scores
in students’ pre-tests were normally distributed by using Kolmogorov-Smirnov
test. In examining this test, the null and alternative hypotheses were
established. The null hypothesis in this test is the variances of the experimental
and control classes are normally distributed. Whereas the alternative
hypothesis is the variances of the experimental and control classes are not
normally distributed. The result of the analysis is presented in the table below.
Table 1.
The Result of Normality Test in Pre-test Scores
Based on the table above, it shows that the p value of pre-test data in
8C as control class is 0.126 (p = 0.126) and 8D as experimental class is 0.059
(p = 0.059). It can be concluded that the probability of both groups are higher
than 0.05 (control: 0.126>0.05 and experimental group: 0.059>0.05). Based on
the results of the normal distribution test above, the null hypotheses were
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accepted and the alternative hypothesis was rejected. Hence, it can be
concluded that both of the group were normally distributed.
Homogeneity of Variance
The Homogeneity of variance test was conducted after the normal
distribution test was administered. To find out the homogeneity of variance in
the pre-test of the control and experimental classes, Levene test on SPSS 16
was used. In this test, the null and alternative hypotheses were established. The
null hypothesis is the data variances were homogenous whereas the
alternatives hypotheses is that the data of variances were not homogenous. The
following table is the result of yhe analysis.
Table 2.
Homogeneity of Variance in Pre-test Scores
Based on the table, the asymp.sig (p = 0.700) is higher than the
determined level of significance which is set up in 0.05 or (0.700>0.05). It
means the null hypothesis was accepted and the alternative hypothesis was
rejected. In conclusion, the variances of the data were homogenous. Since the
data was normally distributed and the variances are homogenous, the analysis
of the data could be continued to the Independent samples t-test.
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Independent Samples t-test
The last step after knowing the normal distribution and homogeneity is
running the independent samples t-test to find out the equity of students’ pretest score means in both classes. In this test the writer also set up the null and
alternative hypotheses. The null hypothesis is the students’ pre-test score
means are not significantly different and the alternative hypothesis is the
students’ pre-test score means are significantly different in both classes. The
results of independent sample t-test on the pre-test scores are shown in the
table below.
Table 3.
The Mean of Pre-test scores in Control and Experimental Classes
Table 4.
Independent T-test of Pre-test scores in Control and Experimental
Classes
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In this test, the significance level established was 0.05 with the df = 62.
Based on the statistical Table 4 above, the significance value (p = 0.890) is
higher than 0.05 or (p > α). It means the null hypothesis is accepted and the
alternative hypothesis is rejected. Hence, there is no difference between
control and experimental classes’ means.
Based on the normality test, homogeneity test, and the independent
samples t-test that have been administered, both classes had comparable
abilities in writing descriptive texts. Therefore, both classes were comparable
and could be used as the samples of this research.
INDEPENDENT SAMPLES T-TEST OF BOTH CLASSES’ PROGRESS
This Independent samples t-test on students’ progress scores (posttest scores –
pretest scores) was run to investigate whether the mind mapping strategy was
effective to help the students write descriptive texts.
Normal Distribution Test
The normal distribution test was conducted to know whether the
progress score of both classes were normally distributed by using
Kolmogorov-Smirnov test. In examining this test, the null and alternative
hypotheses were established. The null hypothesis in this test is the variances of
the experimental and control classes are normally distributed. Whereas the
alternative hypothesis is the variances of the experimental and control classes
are not normally distributed. The result of the analysis is presented in the table
below.
20
Table 5.
The Result of Normality Test in Progress Scores
Based on the table above, it shows that the p value of pre-test data in
8C as control class is 0.200 (p = 0.200) and 8D as experimental class is 0.057
(p = 0.057). It can be concluded that the probability of both groups are higher
than 0.05 (control: 0.200>0.05 and experimental group: 0.057>0.05). The
above result of the normal distribution test suggests that the null hypothesis
was accepted and the alternative hypothesis was rejected. Hence, it can be
concluded that both of the group were normally distributed.
Homogeneity of Variance
The Homogeneity of variance test was conducted after the normal
distribution test was run. To find out the homogeneity of variance in the
progress scores of control and experimental classes, Levene test on SPSS 16
was used. In this test, the null and alternative hypotheses were established. The
null hypothesis is the data variances were homogenous whereas the alternative
hypothesis is that the data of variances were not homogenous. The following
table is the result the analysis.
Table 6.
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Homogeneity of Variance in Progress Scores
Based on the table, the asymp.sig is (p = 0.419) is higher than the
determined level of significance which was set up in 0.05 or (0.419>0.05),
means the null hypothesis was accepted and the alternatives hypothesis was
rejected. In conclusion, the variances of data were homogenous. Since the data
was normally distributed and the variances were homogenous, the analysis of
the data could be continued to the Independent samples t-test.
Independent Samples t-test
The last step after knowing the normal distribution and homogeneity is
calculating Independent samples t-test to find out the equity of students’
progress score means in both classes. In this test the writer also set up the null
and alternative hypotheses. The null hypothesis is the students’ progress score
means are significantly different and the alternative hypothesis is the students’
progress score means are significantly different in both classes. The results of
this test will be used to determine the effectiveness of the mind mapping
strategy in helping students write descriptive texts. The results of independent
t-test on progress score means are shown in the table below.
Table 7.
22
The Mean of Progress scores in Control and Experimental Classes
Table 8.
Independent T-test of Progress scores in Control and Experimental Classes
In this test, the significance level established was 0.05 with the df = 62.
Based on the statistical table above, the significance value is lower than 0.05
or 0.007 < 0.05. It means the null hypothesis is rejected and the alternative
hypothesis is accepted. Hence, the progress score mean of the experimental
group (M = 27,81) was significantly different from that of the control group
(M = 19.53).
Based on the normality, homogeneity, and Independent samples t-test
that have been administered, it can be concluded that mind mapping technique
was effective to improve students’ ability in writing descriptive texts.
Based on the analyses above, it showed that there were significant changes between
pre and post test scores of both classes especially in experimental class which is treated by
23
mind mapping strategy. It can be seen from the means and independent samples t-test of both
classes after analyzing the scores. In the pre test, it showed that control class gets the higher
means than experimental class, however the t-test explained that both classes had comparable
ability in writing descriptive texts. After analyzing the progress scores of pre and post test of
both classes, it is found that the progress’ means of experimental class is higher than the
control class and from the t-test result; the difference is significant. It meant mind mapping
treatment in experimental class was successfully done as the progress mean of score in this
class was higher than that of the control class. Thus, it can be concluded that mind mapping
strategy is effective to help the students to write descriptive texts. This result is in line with
Nurlaila’s (2013) and Suyanto’s (2009) studies which stated that mind mapping is effective to
improve students’ writing ability.
THE ASPECTS OF EFFECTIVENESS OF MIND MAPPING STRATEGY TO HELP
THE STUDENTS IN WRITING DESCRIPTIVE TEXT
The second sub-session presents the analysis from questionnaire and interview data to
answer the aspects of effectiveness of mind mapping strategy. The responses to the
questionnaire were classified into six themes on the basis of the summary of the aspects of
effectiveness found in the previous studies. The six themes of the aspect of the effectiveness
of mind mappind strategy are: helping to organize the ideas, plan students’ writing, deal with
writing elements, write in an enjoyable way, understand the writing contents, and improve
writing achievement. The data is reported in a form of a frequency table. Some excerpts from
interview results are included to support the findings.
The table bellow is the data from the questionnaires administered to the students after
they were treated mind mapping strategy.
24
Table 9.
Result of Questionnaire Data Analyses
Agree
Disagree
Total
Question
number
F
%
F
%
F
%
1
32
100
0
0
32
100
2
32
100
0
0
32
100
3
32
100
0
0
32
100
4
32
100
0
0
32
100
5
27
84,38
5
15,62
32
100
6
31
96,88
1
3,12
32
100
7
32
100
0
0
32
100
Helping to
write in an
enjoyable
way.
8
31
96,88
1
3,12
32
100
Helping to
understand
writing
contents.
9
32
100
0
0
32
100
Helping to
improve
writing
achievement
10
32
100
0
0
32
100
Themes
Helping to
organize
ideas in a
writing
process
Helping to
plan
students’
writing
Helping to
deal with
writing
elements
Based on the table above, the result showed that the themes were perceived to be
accepted by the students. It can be seen by looking at the percentage of the result. All
25
students (100%) agreed that mind mapping strategy help them to organize their ideas, plan
their writing, understand their writing contents, and improve writing achievement. 31
students (96.88%) agreed that mind mapping strategy helped to write in an enjoyable way,
showed. Meanwhile, the third theme that mind mapping strategy helped to deal with the
writing elements, received various responses. All 32 students (100%) agreed that mind
mapping strategy helped to find new vocabulary (question no.4) and improve creativity
(question no.7), 31 students (96.88%) agreed that mind mapping strategy helped them to
understand grammar, and only 27 students (84.38%) agreed that mind mapping strategy could
help them improve their vocabulary.
Further, in order to get the richer explanation of the aspect of effectiveness from the
students, based on the percentage data in table 7, the following part attempted to describe
those aspects briefly based on the 6 big themes.
1) Mind mapping helps to organize the ideas in writing process.
The result of the first theme based on Table 7 above indicated that all of the
students (100%) approved that mind mapping helped them to organize the ideas in the
writing process. Here are some comments from the students related to the first theme.
“mind mapping sangat membantu karena saat membuat mind mapping
ide dapat terklasifikasi dengan baik.” (S22-B)
(Mind mapping helps to write descriptive text because when making
mind mapping I can classify the idea well.)
“Mind mapping membantu mengklasifikasikan isi dan topic per paragraf.
selain itu juga bantu megklasifikasi kata atau vocabulary yang mau saya
gunakan menulis.” (S14-B)
(Mind mapping helps to classify the content and topic in each paragraph,
besides that it helps me to classify words or vocabularies that I am going
to use in my writing.)
26
“Menurut saya melalui klasifikasi vocab-vocab atau kata di mind
mapping ide jadi lebih mengalir saat menulis paragraf.” (S4-B)
(In my opinion, through the classification of vocabularies or words in
mind mapping, I can be more productive when writing a paragraph.)
“….mind mapping bantu saya untuk mengelompokkan kata yang setema,
jadi paragrafnya gak campur aduk. Jadi lebih urut dan bagus.” (S5-B)
(…Mind mapping helps to grouped the words which is under the same
theme, so it doesn’t make the paragraph muddle and it becomes more
well-organized)
“Misalnya bisa bantu menyusun mana yang harus di tulis dulu jadi
paragrafnya bisa jadi lebih urut.” (S19-B)
(For example it can help me to arrange the paragraph so that the
paragraph becomes well-organized)
“Melalui mind mapping ide bisa dikelompokkan dengan baik.”(S22-B)
(Through mind mapping, the idea can be classified well.)
From the excerpts, the data revealed five ways of how mind mapping help the
students organize the idea. Mind mapping strategy helps the students to organize the
idea in several ways: grouping or classifying ideas, classification of the content and
topic, classification of vocabulary, grouping the words under several themes, and
arranging the ideas in a paragraph. By doing so, the students expressed that their
writing process is much more productive and well organized. This finding is in line
with Backwell’s (2009) and Supriyanto’s (2013) studies that found that mind mapping
is effective to help the writer to organize the ideas.
2) Mind mapping helps the students to plan students’ writing
Related to the second theme, here are the comments of the students:
“balon-balon di mind mapping yang berisi ide awal, memudahkan
saya untuk merencanakan hal apa saja yang mau saya tulis di
paragraf.”
(S17-B)
(The rough idea written in the bubble of mind mapping makes me
easier to plan what kinds of things that should be written in the
paragraph.)
27
“Menutut saya, itu memudahkan untuk menglasifikasi isi per paragaf
karena saya sudah membuat rencana untuk ditulis dalam paragaraf.”
(S15-B)
(In my opinion, mind mapping helps to classify the content in each
paragraph because I have made a plan to be written in the paragraph
later.)
Based on the excerpts above, the result of the second theme revealed that mind
mapping helped them to plan their writing as supported by Nurlaila (2013), Ling
(2004) & Fictorius (2013). The students reported that the rough ideas in bubbles
helped them to plan their writing more easily. Furthermore, the content of the
paragraph could be classified well when the students made mind mapping.
3) Mind mapping helps the students to deal with writing elements.
The students’ opinions about the third theme are mostly positive that mind
mapping help them to deal with the writing elements such as vocabulary, grammar and
creativity in the process of writing descriptive texts. Here are some statements given by
the students related to the third theme.
“…..bisa tanya langsung ke guru atau teman kalau gak bisa.” (S21-B)
(….I can directly ask the information to the teacher or friends if I do
not understand it yet.)
“ Bisa cari vocab di kamus saat membuat mind mapping. Waktunya
banyak.”(S25-B)
(I can look it up in the dictionary when I make mind mapping because
I have more time to do it.)
“Bisa tanya langsung ke guru atau teman. Terus mind mapping juga
memudahkan buat nyari kata yang tepat atau sesuai yang mau
digunakan.” (S13-B)
(I can directly ask the information to my friends or teacher. Besides
that it makes me easier to find the appropriate vocabulary that I am
going to use.)
The excerpts above explained that mind mapping helped the students to find
proper vocabulary as the previous study done by Supriyanto (2013) suggested that
28
mind mapping helped the students to find new vocabulary. The excerpt also
discovered that it helped the students in a way of time availability to look up in the
dictionary, the chance to ask some information to the teacher or friends and the
chance to find related or appropriate vocabulary to use in their writing.
The next one is about how mind mapping facilitates the students to improve
their vocabulary. The following comments are the students’ opinions of how mind
mapping could facilitate them to improve their vocabulary.
“Saat membuat mind mapping saya tidak hanya sekedar mencari
vocabulary baru tapi secara tidak langsung kita juga lebih mudah
mengingat
vocabulary
yang
kita
cari
tersebut
saat
memvisualisasikannya ke dalam gambar.” (S27-B)
(When making mind mapping I do not only look for the new
vocabularies but also it facilitates me to remember those vocabularies
easier when visualize it into the pictures.)
“Saat membuat mind mapping saya bisa mengklasifikasikan
vocabulary sesuai kelasnya jadi hal itu bisa lebih membantu saya
dalam mengingat vocabulary baru.” (S12-B)
(When making mind mapping I can classify the vocabulary based on
their classes so it is easier for me to remember the new vocabulary.)
“karena pas buat mind mapping kita gak langsung nulis jadi kalimat
tapi per kata, jadi lebih mudah mengingat vocab baru yang kita
temukan tadi.” (S17-B)
(Because when I am working with mind mapping, I do not directly
write those new vocabularies into sentences but words, thus it is
easier to remember new vocabularies that just found.)
Based on the exceeding excerpt, there are three ways about how mind
mapping can help the students to improve their vocabulary. It is reported that mind
mapping helped them in terms of visualization of the ideas, classification of the ideas
according to their class and facilitate the students to memorize vocabulary in the form
of words instead of sentences. As a result, the students found it easier to remember the
29
vocabulary. In conclusion, this finding is in line with the previous study done by
Nurlaila (2013) that mind mapping helps the students to enrich their vocabulary.
Then, most of the students explicitly reported that mind mapping helps them to
understand the grammar.
“…saya bisa lebih paham sama tenses yang mau dipakai dengan lihat
catatan atau kalau belum jelas ya tanya guru.” (S27-B)
(… I become understand more about tenses that I am going to use by
reread my notes or I can ask it to my teacher if I haven’t understood
yet.)
“Soalnya saya jadi lebih bisa mbedain dan memilih tenses mana yang
harus dipakai dengan tanya ke guru, teman atau melihat catatan.
Intinya punya waktu lebih untuk itu.” (S15-B)
(I can be more careful to differentiate and choose which tenses I
should used in a paragraph by asking to the teacher, friends or reread
the notes. Basically, I can have more time to do all those things.)
It has been reported that mind mapping helps the students to deal with the
writing elements such as grammar (Supriyanto, 2013). The previous statements above
also reflect that mind mapping helps the students to deal with grammar especially in
terms of the availability of time to seek the information from the teacher or friends
related to the grammar used, the availability of time to choose appropriate tenses they
are going to use and the availability of time to read their notes. By doing so, they can
understand the grammar used.
Lastly, related to the third theme, the students also experienced that mind
mapping helped them to improve creativity in writing. Here are some reports related to
writing creativity improvement.
“bikin mind maping kaya pelajaran kesenian. Boleh gambar, boleh
pakai pulpen warna-warni. Jadi makin asik dan semangat buat nulis.”
(S2-B)
30
(Working with mind mapping is like joining an art class. I can draw
and use color pencil. It is so fun, so I can do my writing
enthusiastically. )
“Dengan membuat mind mapping tingkat kestressan dalam menulis
menurun sehingga kreativitas meningkat karena kita menikmati proses
menulis.” (S6-B)
(By making mind mapping the degree of stress is decreased, as a
result my creativity is increase because I enjoy the process of my
writing.)
“mind mapping bantu saya merefresh otak sebelum bikin paragraf
deskripsi, Miss. Nah… dari situ saya jadi lebih menikmati saat
menulis paragraf.” (S14-B)
(Mind mapping helps to refresh my mind before making paragraph.
From that thing, I become more enjoy when writing a paragraph.)
The excerpts above revealed that there were at least three ways of how mind
mapping helped the students to deal with the writing elements especially how it
improved their writing creativity. First, mind mapping facilitated fun writing by
visualization of the ideas second, it reduced the stress level of the students. Third, it
could refresh students’ mind. Thus, the students became more productive, and they
enjoyed the writing process. This finding is in line with Nurlaila’s (2013) finding that
mind mapping helps the students to improve creativity of writing.
4) Mind mapping helps the
WRITING DESCSRIPTIVE TEXTS FOR 8 GRADERS”
THESIS
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Degree
Sarjana Pendidikan
Iis Hidayah Romadhloni
112011051
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF LANGUAGE AND LITEATURE
SATYA WACANA CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY
SALATIGA
2015
“THE EFFECTIVENESS OF MIND MAPPING STRATEGY IN
WRITING DESCSRIPTIVE TEXTS FOR 8 GRADERS”
THESIS
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Degree
Sarjana Pendidikan
Iis Hidayah Romadhloni
112011051
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF LANGUAGE AND LITEATURE
SATYA WACANA CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY
SALATIGA
2015
ii
iii
iv
v
COPYRIGHT STATEMENT
This thesis contains no such material as has been submitted for examination in any
course or accepted for the fulfillment of any degree or diploma in any university. To the best
of my knowledge and belief, this contains no material previously published or written by any
other person, except where due references is made in the text
Copyright @ 2015 Iis Hidayah Romadhloni and Athriyana Santye Pattiwael, M.Hum
All rights reserved. No part of this thesis may be reproduced by any means without
the prior written permission of at least one of the copyrights owners of the English
Department of Satya Wacana Christian University, Salatiga.
Iis Hidayah Romadhloni : 112011051 (
)
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“THE EFFECTIVENESS OF MIND MAPPING STRATEGY IN
WRITING DESCSRIPTIVE TEXTS FOR 8 GRADERS”
Iis Hidayah Romadhloni
ABSTRACT
The study aims at finding the effectiveness of using mind mapping as a prewriting
strategy in order to help the students in writing descriptive texts, and to uncover the aspects
of effectiveness addressed by the students after the treatment of mind mapping strategy. The
participants were 64 Eighth-graders of State 1 Junior High School (SMPN 1) Banyubiru,
Indonesia. This research used a mixed method of quantitative and qualitative study
particularly quasi experimental with questionnaire and interview techniques. This study used
Independent samples t-test in order to analyze and compare the statistical data. The statistical
result showed significant difference of progress shown by the experimental class as compared
to the control class. It indicated that mind mapping was effective to help the students write
the descriptive text. Furthermore, the result of questionnaires and interviews showed that
most of the students give positive responses toward the use of mind mapping strategy in
writing descriptive text. In particular, mind mapping facilitated the students to organize their
idea, plan students’ writing, deal with the writing elements, write enjoyably, understand the
writing content and improve their writing achievement.
Keywords: mind mapping strategy, writing, descriptive text
INTRODUCTION
Writing is one of the four basic skills that the second language learners have to learn
when learning English. Uunsen (2009) states that the processes of expressing ideas through
the written form while writing, the writer’s mental processes are involved. However, writing
skill is often considered as a difficult skill to learn as Westwood (2009) points out that
writing requires the active coordination of cognitive, linguistic and psychomotor processes.
Though writing is included as a basic skill that EFL learners should master as a benchmark of
their achievement, it is obstructed by the difficulties in learning it. Over my observation to
some junior high school students around me who came from different schools, including my
1
students in my teaching practicum site, most of the students said that writing is difficult to
learn as it demands them to express their ideas, organize the ideas and discover some new
vocabulary related to the topic written. As Nurlaila (2013) claims, one part that makes the
students feel that writing is difficult is when they have to convey their ideas to be written on
the paper.
In order to help solve the students’ difficulties in writing, an appropriate learning
strategy is very important. O’Malley & Chamot (1990) define learning strategy as a part of
second language acquisition which includes the particular belief and behavior to figure out,
learn and maintain the original information that is done by someone. Moreover, a study by
O’Malley & Chamot (1990) suggested that the success of L2/FL learners is determined by
their awareness of their own learning strategies. Related to the definition about learning
strategy above, one of the strategies that can be used to solve the students’ problems in
writing is pre-writing strategy. Pre-writing strategy is defined as experimental writing that
helps the students to start writing and find new ideas before writing. (Mahnam & Nejadansari,
2012).
This study is conducted to investigate the role of pre-writing strategies. Among the
existing pre-writing strategies, Buzan (1993) defines mind mapping strategy as a radiant
thinking expression which includes the natural function of the human brainpower that can be
used to help the students to write. The function of this method suggests the new approach to
accept and process information, enhance creativity, memory and concentration. The
organizational structure of mind map basically begins from the center which represents the
general idea following the branches containing the significant ideas which are usually
represented by symbols, lines, images and colors. They are like highly organized diagrams
that work in line with the brain’s natural way of doing things. In other words, mind mapping
2
is especially useful in determining the relationship between ideas. It will distinguish what
ideas are appropriate to be included in your writing, let alone when there are lots of ideas
coming and you do not know how to organize them appropriately. Clearly, Murley (2007)
adds, mind mapping can maximize the brain’s ability in associating numbers with visual
qualities and as a result, the memory will be able to store more facts.
In line with that, several studies regarding mind mapping strategy have previously
been conducted. The first is the study by Nurlaila (2013) about the effectiveness of mind
mapping technique to teach descriptive texts. The participants were seventh graders in a
junior high school in Bandung. This study used a mixed method of pre experimental design,
particularly one group pretest-posttest design, questionnaire and interview techniques to
analyze the data. The result of this study was mind mapping technique was effective to
improve students’ score in writing descriptive texts. Moreover, based on the questionnaire
and interview data, the results showed that most students responded positively to this
technique in terms of mind mapping technique motivated them to write descriptive text in an
enjoyable way, increased vocabulary and creativity and help the students to plan their writing.
The second is the study by Supriyanto (2013) about the effect of mind mapping
strategy on the students writing ability. The participant was 22 second-semester students in
English Department of Islamic University of Malang. The study used quasi-experimental
pretest and posttest design. The score was analyzed by using ANCOVA. The finding showed
that the students taught by mind mapping strategy got better scores than those taught by
conventional teaching because it could help the students to deal with the writing elements
such as grammar and the use of vocabulary.
The third is the study by Backwell (2009) about how mind maps have effectively been
employed in the writing classes. The participants were the students of Sugiyama Women’s
3
University and Nagoya City University. The finding showed that mind mapping strategy
helped the students to organize the idea, and through images and key words made in mind
mapping, the students could understand more about their writing content.
Although those three studies bring the same topic about the use of mind mapping
strategy to teach writing, the focuses of the studies were different. Nurlaila (2013) focused on
applying mind mapping in the descriptive text, Supriyanto (2013) focused more on the effect
of mind mapping strategy in writing ability, and Backwell (2009) focused on applying mind
mapping to write an essay. The present study is conducted to investigate the effectiveness of
using mind mapping as a pre-writing strategy to write a descriptive text.
The study is conducted to answer these two research questions:
1. Is mind mapping strategy effective to help the students in writing a descriptive
text?
2. In what ways is the mind mapping strategy effective to help the students in writing
a descriptive text?
This study aims to find out whether mind mapping strategy is effective to help the
students write a descriptive text and to describe the aspect(s) of the effectiveness addressed
by the students after they are given the treatment of mind mapping strategy.
This study is important to be conducted as Westwood (2008, p. 56) states that written
language is conceivably the most difficult skill to learn because it needs the coordination of
linguistic, cognitive and psychomotor practices in its development. It is also supported by
Nurlaila (2013) and Richard and Renandya (2002) who say that the difficulty in writing in a
second language usually happens because of their difficulties in conveying ideas. Hence,
prewriting strategy is important for the students. Before writing, preparation and strategies
are important to help EFL students organize the ideas and cope with the difficulties
4
(Pishghadam & Ghanizadeh, 2006, pp. 108-109). Another thing which makes this study
important to be conducted is according to Depdiknas (2006)—descriptive text is one of the
various text types that Indonesian students should learn in junior high schools. Therefore, the
concept of mind maping strategy as a pre-writing strategy is so important for the learning
process of junior high school students in Grade 8. Lastly, it is hoped that training mind
mapping to SMPN 1 Banyubiru could help them overcome the difficulties in writing various
texts, especially descriptive text, in order to improve their writing performance.
5
LITERATURE REVIEW
DIFFICULTIES IN EFL WRITING
It is a well known fact that writing is one of the difficult skills to learn. It is because
writing requires cognitive and linguistic strategies. Rao (2007) states that the difficulties in
writing that many students often face are how to find an interesting topic and the lack of ideas.
In other words, the students find it difficult to decide the topic to write, and to express their
ideas. While Rao (2007) supports that lacking of ideas becomes the factor that affects the
students’ ability in writing, Farooq, Uzair, & Wahid (2012) point out that there are three
factors contributing to the students’ difficulties in writing such as poor understanding of
structure, interference of L1 use and lack of vocabulary. Meanwhile, Siahaan (2013)
emphasizes that the difficulties faced by EFL students in writing descriptive texts are more on
the grammatical errors and generic structure. Moreover, White (2007) adds that basically the
students lack the skill of organizing the content of writing such as not focus on the
composition’s central image, the subject being described, and wordiness.
To sum up, the EFL students’ difficulties in writing, especially when they have to write
a descriptive text, are related to the understanding of the generic structure, the limited
grammatical knowledge, the skill in organizing the content and the conciseness of the
paragraphs.
PREWRITING STRATEGIES
In order to facilitate EFL students in learning writing, a pre-writing strategy is needed
to overcome the difficulties. According to Lanon (2011), pre-writing strategy is a technique
used to facilitate writing in finding the ideas and supporting the details of the writing. In
addition, Mahnam and Nejadansari (2012) add that it is a kind of practice in helping the
6
individual to activate prior background knowledge, discover new ideas and specify areas of
the research. In conclusion, the definition of prewriting strategy based on both theories above
is a process done before the real writing activity that helps the individuals to find new and
supporting ideas for their writing piece.
Lanon (2011) suggests five different kinds of prewriting strategies. They are free
writing, listing, reporter’s question, journaling and clustering or mind mapping. Free writing
or fast writing is a technique to write freely without any concern about accurate grammar,
punctuation and spelling. The second technique is listing which enables the students to list
some specific and disorder ideas or questions without worrying about the relationship of the
paragraphs. The third is reporter’s questions which include 5w & 1h (who? what? why?
where? when? and how?) questions to guide the students to find specific ideas and details
about a particular topic. Next technique is journaling which involves the students to check
and recheck certain events, topics or ideas. And the last is clustering or mind mapping, whose
process includes writing a key word and write down other ideas that sprout from it by
c
o
n
n
e
c
t
i
n
g
l
i
n
e
s
.
While Lanon (2011) suggests five different kinds of prewriting strategy, Mogahed
(2013) implies pre-writing strategy into two major parts called invention and arrangement
activities. Both parts are processes which should be done chronologically. In the invention
activities, the students will be required to focus more on the process of discovering new ideas.
It has seven different sub-parts such as free writing, listing, questioning or reporter’s
questions, clustering, interviewing or journaling which have been explained above, and
brainstorming and looping. Brainstorming is the technique to help the students generate new
ideas by thinking individually, verbalizing and classifying idea and completing the writing
task. Then, looping is a pre-writing activity that enables the writer to focus on the ideas and
discover a writing topic. Different from the invention activities, in the arrangement activities
7
the students are required to consider the organization of the content by using graphic
organizer.
Basically, what Mogahed (2013) and Lanon (2011) suggest in categorizing the parts of
prewriting strategy are almost the same. Both theories imply some parts like free writing,
brainstorming, mind mapping, listing and questioning. However, Lanon (2011) makes the
category simpler and easier to understand. This study relies on Lanon (2011)’s theory as it is
easy to follow and understand.
MIND MAPPING STRATEGY
As mind mapping is one of the strategies that can facilitate writing, some experts tried
to define the meaning of mind mapping strategy differently. One of the well-known experts
of this field is Tony Buzan (1993, 2006) who defines mind map as a figure which functions
as a tool to sort out thoughts and organize words, tasks or other relations that set central key
words and branches that usually contain words, colors, short phrases and pictures. As mind
mapping is one of the sub-part of pre writing strategy, Mc Crimmon (2009) analyzes that
mind map is the prior process that the writer usually does before starting to write a paragraph
which needs a certain time to do. Thus, based on those definitions, the researcher tries to
conclude that mind mapping is a technique used before starting writing which functions to
sort out ideas that usually contain words, colors, phrases or pictures. Moreover, it organizes
the relationship between central ideas and branches.
Many experts had found the benefits that lay upon the mind mapping strategy. Firstly,
according to Tee, Azman, Mohamed, Mohamad, Yunos, Yee, & Othman (2014) mind
mapping is good for the brain because it requires the active coordination of the left and right
brain. In other words, working with mind mapping enables the students to balance their
brain’s work. They also add that it can help the writer to raise creativity and help to memorize
8
something better. In line with Tee et al. (2014), Polson (2004) proposes that mind map can
facilitate to develop memory. Secondly, Manham and Najedansari (2012) state that mind
mapping can help the students to sort out the information being written. It is supported by
Davies (2010) who says that the relationship of the diagram in mind mapping will help the
writer understand the relationship of the ideas and analyze each component better.
So, based on the theory of mind mapping above, this study will follow Buzan’s (2006)
theory in implementing the mind mapping process. The process includes setting central key
words and branches that usually contain words, colors, short phrases or pictures to sort out
information, ideas, words or other relations.
THE ASPECTS OF EFFECTIVENESS OF MINDMAPPING STRATEGY IN
STUDENTS’ EFL WRITING
One of the main focuses on this study is to find the effectiveness of the use of mind
mapping strategy. The definition of effectiveness based on Oxford Advance Learner’s
dictionary is the degree to which something is successful in producing the desired result.
Related to the definition mentioned, the term of effectiveness in this study can be described
as the degree of how successful the mind mapping strategy is to facilitate the students’
writing so that they can improve their writing achievement.
Based on the previous studies done by some experts, the researcher classifies the
aspects of effectiveness of mind mapping strategy in students’ EFL writing. Firstly, mind
mapping is effective to help the writer organize the ideas as suggested by Supriyanto (2013)
and Backwell (2009). Secondly, it is effective to plan the students’ writing as stated by
Nurlaila (2013), Ling (2004) & Fictorius (2013). Thirdly, mind mapping is effective to deal
with the writing elements such as grammar, vocabulary, enrich vocabulary and creativity
(Supriyanto & Nurlaila, 2013). Fourthly, it helps the students to write enjoyably (Nurlaila,
9
2013) and create enjoyable learning environment (Tee et al., 2014). Fifthly, mind mapping
strategy is effective to help the students to understand their writing contents (Farrand,
Hussain, & Henessy, 2002 and Backwell, 2009). Lastly, mind mapping is effective to
improve writing achievement as mentioned by Riswanto & Prandika (2012) and Ling (2004).
These six aspects then will be used as the basis of classification in the data analysis
especially to answer the research question about the aspects of effectiveness addressed by the
students after they are given the treatment of mind mapping strategy.
10
REASERCH METHODOLOGY
TYPE OF RESEARCH
To answer the two research questions, the researcher used a mixed method of
quantitative and qualitative research, particularly quasi experimental group pretest and
posttest, with questionnaire distribution and interviews. The quantitative method, the quasiexperimental group pre-test-posttest, was employed to answer the first research question: is
mind mapping strategy effective to help the students in writing descriptive text. The
qualitative method using a questionnaire and interviews was employed to answer the second
research question: in what ways is mind mapping strategy effective to help the students in
writing descriptive text.
CONTEXT OF THE STUDY
The context of this study was in SMP Negeri 1 Banyubiru. This School was chosen
because the researcher had conducted teaching practicum in this school so that it made the
researcher get the permission from the school more easily. Besides that, the researcher also
had been familiar with the situation of the school and the 8 graders that became the
participants of this study.
PARTICIPANTS
The researcher worked with two different intact classes: 8C and 8D, each consisting
of 32 students. Both classes were treated differently; the first class (8C) was used as the
control group and the other class (8D) as the experimental group which was treated with
mind mapping strategy. The average age was around 12-13 years old. The two classes were
chosen because the students in both classes always had the eagerness to learn, were
enthusiastic to learn English and were considered as active students compared with other
11
classes. Besides that, the ability of both classes was comparable when the researcher
measured the mean of their mid-term English test which means of control group is 57,56 and
experimental group is 56,87. Further, the 8 graders were chosen as participants because
descriptive writing became the subject of their second semester and their writing ability
considered low as they were still beginners in learning English. Hence, it was hoped that both
classes were able to cooperate well in giving their contribution during the data collection.
Moreover for the interview session, the participants were chosen by using the grade
intervals to get more thorough data. For each interval, the researcher randomly chose the
same number of representatives to be interviewed. The intervals used were as follows:
Interval
0-25
26-50
51-74
75-100
Sampling
4 students
4 students
4 students
4 students
INSTRUMENTS OF DATA COLLECTION
In this study, three kinds of instruments were used to collect the data: writing test, a 4likert-scale questionnaire and semi structured interview questions.
The writing test was used as the pre-test and post-test. While the pre-test was used to
predict the students’ level in the beginning of the research, the post-test was administered to
measure the students’ progress after the treatment. The writing test was administered to the
control and experimental classes. In the pre test and post test the researcher asked the students
to write two paragraph-long about their seatmates for about 45 minutes and it was done
individually in the classroom. The described objects were the same for both tests. The scoring
rubric was adopted from Brown (1994) because it was simple and easy to follow. Besides, the
12
scoring criteria also represent some aspects in scoring the descriptive text. There were four
aspects graded to measure students’ writing ability in descriptive text such as content,
vocabulary, generic structure and language feature. The point of each criterion ranges from
one up to five, the maximum total score is 20.
A questionnaire was given to the experimental class. This instrument was used to find
the aspect(s) of effectiveness after the students were given the treatment of mind mapping
strategy. The questionnaire consists of 10 items of closed ended questions by using likertscale. The students were asked to respond to each statement on four scales. 1 representing
strongly disagree, 2 disagree, 3 agree and 4 strongly disagree. The questionnaire items were
developed from the aspects of the effectiveness of mind mapping strategy theories discussed
in the previous chapter. The questionnaire was written in the Indonesian language to make it
easier for the participants to understand the statements.
The Interview was also given to the experimental class in order to get the richer data
of the aspect(s) of effectiveness. It was developed based on the questionnaire items in order
to get the richer data of the qualitative research. The type of the interview was semi
structured interview which enables the interviewer to develop the interview questions during
the interview session and it consists of seven main questions.
RESEARCH PROCEDURE
In collecting the data, there were some steps that were conducted. Firstly, conducting
a pilot study for 5 students which were not included in control and experimental classes. It
covered pre test, treatment, post test and conducting the questionnaire. The pilot test was
conducted to examine the instruments used in this study whether it was appropriate or not
before those are administered to the control and experimental classes. The result of the pilot
13
study showed that those 3 instruments of data collection worked well: thus, the researcher
didn’t make any changes to continue the next steps.
Secondly, administering pre tests to both, control and experimental classes. Thirdly,
conducting treatments for both classes, here the experimental class was treated by using mind
mapping strategy and control class was treated by using conventional method. Fourthly,
administering post test for both classes. Fifthly, administering questionnaire to all students in
experimental class. The last step was conducting interviews with 16 students from
experimental class.
DATA ANALYSIS PROSEDURE
Two main analyses were done to analyze the collected data in order to answer the two
research questions. The first is running an Independent Samples T-test to investigate the
effectiveness of the mind mapping strategy. The second was conducting a qualitative analysis
of the questionnaire and interview data in order to uncover the aspects of effectiveness of the
mind mapping strategy. To investigate the effectiveness of mind mapping strategy, first of all
an Independent Samples T-test of both groups’ means of the pre-test scores was run to
determine whether the two groups’ performances were comparable. If they were, another
Independent Samples t-test was run comparing the means of the two groups’ progress scores
(pre test scores -post test scores) to find out whether mind mapping strategy was effective.
The software used in analyzing the test was SPSS 16. To answer the first research question
the researcher determined the null and alternative hypotheses. The Ho of this study was
“mind mapping is not effective to help the students improve their writing ability and
overcome the difficulties in writing descriptive texts”. While the Ha was “mind mapping is
effective to help the students improve their writing ability and overcome the difficulties in
14
writing descriptive texts”. Finally, the data analysis results were presented in the form of
tables and numbers followed by brief explanations.
Secondly, to answer the second research question about the aspect(s) of effectiveness
addressed by the students after being treated with the mind mapping strategy, the researcher
gathered the data by using a questionnaire which was distributed for the students in
experimental class. Here, Microsoft excel 2007 was used to determine the percentage of the
effectiveness aspect(s). The scoring option was 1 for strongly disagree, 2 for disagree, 3 for
agree and 4 for strongly agree. Lastly, for processing the data from interview, the researcher
used Express Scribe 5.69 transcription software. The data were transcribed and classified into
six big themes: mind mapping is effective to help the writer organize the ideas, plan the
students’ writing, deal with such writing elements as grammar, vocabularies and creativity,
write in an enjoyable way, understand their writing contents, and improve their achievement
in writing descriptive texts.
15
FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
The discussion of this section is divided into two sessions based on the research
questions on this study. Firstly, it discusses the statistical analysis of the effectiveness of
mind mapping strategy to write descriptive texts which aim at answering the first research
question. Meanwhile, the second is the analyses of the questionnaire and interview data
which aim at describing the aspects of effectiveness to answer the second research question.
STATISTICAL ANALYSIS ON THE EFFECTIVENESS OF MIND MAPPING
STRATEGY TO HELP THE STUDENTS IN WRITING DESCRIPTIVE TEXT
In order to answer the first research question, this first sub-session provides statistical
analysis about the effectiveness of mind mapping strategy. It is accompanied by the
description of the analysis to explain the statistical results. The statistical analyses are divided
into two parts which consist of three sub parts each. The first is Independent samples t-test of
the pre test results, which analyzes the normal distribution, homogeneity of variance and
Independent samples t-test of the pre-test scores. The second is Independent samples t-test of
the progress scores (posttest scores – pretest scores) in both classes which analyzes the
normal distribution, homogeneity of variance and Independent samples t-test of progress
scores. The score of students’ writing was evaluated based on Brown’s (1994) rubric and
statistically analyzed using SPSS 16. The level of significance of the test was set up at 0.05
(α = 0.05). Further, the analyses were done as follows:
16
INDEPENDENT SAMPLES T-TEST OF PRE TEST RESULTS
This Independent samples t-test was run to determine whether the
performances of the two groups (control and experimental groups) were comparable
in the beginning of the study.
Normal Distribution Test
The normal distribution test was conducted to know whether the scores
in students’ pre-tests were normally distributed by using Kolmogorov-Smirnov
test. In examining this test, the null and alternative hypotheses were
established. The null hypothesis in this test is the variances of the experimental
and control classes are normally distributed. Whereas the alternative
hypothesis is the variances of the experimental and control classes are not
normally distributed. The result of the analysis is presented in the table below.
Table 1.
The Result of Normality Test in Pre-test Scores
Based on the table above, it shows that the p value of pre-test data in
8C as control class is 0.126 (p = 0.126) and 8D as experimental class is 0.059
(p = 0.059). It can be concluded that the probability of both groups are higher
than 0.05 (control: 0.126>0.05 and experimental group: 0.059>0.05). Based on
the results of the normal distribution test above, the null hypotheses were
17
accepted and the alternative hypothesis was rejected. Hence, it can be
concluded that both of the group were normally distributed.
Homogeneity of Variance
The Homogeneity of variance test was conducted after the normal
distribution test was administered. To find out the homogeneity of variance in
the pre-test of the control and experimental classes, Levene test on SPSS 16
was used. In this test, the null and alternative hypotheses were established. The
null hypothesis is the data variances were homogenous whereas the
alternatives hypotheses is that the data of variances were not homogenous. The
following table is the result of yhe analysis.
Table 2.
Homogeneity of Variance in Pre-test Scores
Based on the table, the asymp.sig (p = 0.700) is higher than the
determined level of significance which is set up in 0.05 or (0.700>0.05). It
means the null hypothesis was accepted and the alternative hypothesis was
rejected. In conclusion, the variances of the data were homogenous. Since the
data was normally distributed and the variances are homogenous, the analysis
of the data could be continued to the Independent samples t-test.
18
Independent Samples t-test
The last step after knowing the normal distribution and homogeneity is
running the independent samples t-test to find out the equity of students’ pretest score means in both classes. In this test the writer also set up the null and
alternative hypotheses. The null hypothesis is the students’ pre-test score
means are not significantly different and the alternative hypothesis is the
students’ pre-test score means are significantly different in both classes. The
results of independent sample t-test on the pre-test scores are shown in the
table below.
Table 3.
The Mean of Pre-test scores in Control and Experimental Classes
Table 4.
Independent T-test of Pre-test scores in Control and Experimental
Classes
19
In this test, the significance level established was 0.05 with the df = 62.
Based on the statistical Table 4 above, the significance value (p = 0.890) is
higher than 0.05 or (p > α). It means the null hypothesis is accepted and the
alternative hypothesis is rejected. Hence, there is no difference between
control and experimental classes’ means.
Based on the normality test, homogeneity test, and the independent
samples t-test that have been administered, both classes had comparable
abilities in writing descriptive texts. Therefore, both classes were comparable
and could be used as the samples of this research.
INDEPENDENT SAMPLES T-TEST OF BOTH CLASSES’ PROGRESS
This Independent samples t-test on students’ progress scores (posttest scores –
pretest scores) was run to investigate whether the mind mapping strategy was
effective to help the students write descriptive texts.
Normal Distribution Test
The normal distribution test was conducted to know whether the
progress score of both classes were normally distributed by using
Kolmogorov-Smirnov test. In examining this test, the null and alternative
hypotheses were established. The null hypothesis in this test is the variances of
the experimental and control classes are normally distributed. Whereas the
alternative hypothesis is the variances of the experimental and control classes
are not normally distributed. The result of the analysis is presented in the table
below.
20
Table 5.
The Result of Normality Test in Progress Scores
Based on the table above, it shows that the p value of pre-test data in
8C as control class is 0.200 (p = 0.200) and 8D as experimental class is 0.057
(p = 0.057). It can be concluded that the probability of both groups are higher
than 0.05 (control: 0.200>0.05 and experimental group: 0.057>0.05). The
above result of the normal distribution test suggests that the null hypothesis
was accepted and the alternative hypothesis was rejected. Hence, it can be
concluded that both of the group were normally distributed.
Homogeneity of Variance
The Homogeneity of variance test was conducted after the normal
distribution test was run. To find out the homogeneity of variance in the
progress scores of control and experimental classes, Levene test on SPSS 16
was used. In this test, the null and alternative hypotheses were established. The
null hypothesis is the data variances were homogenous whereas the alternative
hypothesis is that the data of variances were not homogenous. The following
table is the result the analysis.
Table 6.
21
Homogeneity of Variance in Progress Scores
Based on the table, the asymp.sig is (p = 0.419) is higher than the
determined level of significance which was set up in 0.05 or (0.419>0.05),
means the null hypothesis was accepted and the alternatives hypothesis was
rejected. In conclusion, the variances of data were homogenous. Since the data
was normally distributed and the variances were homogenous, the analysis of
the data could be continued to the Independent samples t-test.
Independent Samples t-test
The last step after knowing the normal distribution and homogeneity is
calculating Independent samples t-test to find out the equity of students’
progress score means in both classes. In this test the writer also set up the null
and alternative hypotheses. The null hypothesis is the students’ progress score
means are significantly different and the alternative hypothesis is the students’
progress score means are significantly different in both classes. The results of
this test will be used to determine the effectiveness of the mind mapping
strategy in helping students write descriptive texts. The results of independent
t-test on progress score means are shown in the table below.
Table 7.
22
The Mean of Progress scores in Control and Experimental Classes
Table 8.
Independent T-test of Progress scores in Control and Experimental Classes
In this test, the significance level established was 0.05 with the df = 62.
Based on the statistical table above, the significance value is lower than 0.05
or 0.007 < 0.05. It means the null hypothesis is rejected and the alternative
hypothesis is accepted. Hence, the progress score mean of the experimental
group (M = 27,81) was significantly different from that of the control group
(M = 19.53).
Based on the normality, homogeneity, and Independent samples t-test
that have been administered, it can be concluded that mind mapping technique
was effective to improve students’ ability in writing descriptive texts.
Based on the analyses above, it showed that there were significant changes between
pre and post test scores of both classes especially in experimental class which is treated by
23
mind mapping strategy. It can be seen from the means and independent samples t-test of both
classes after analyzing the scores. In the pre test, it showed that control class gets the higher
means than experimental class, however the t-test explained that both classes had comparable
ability in writing descriptive texts. After analyzing the progress scores of pre and post test of
both classes, it is found that the progress’ means of experimental class is higher than the
control class and from the t-test result; the difference is significant. It meant mind mapping
treatment in experimental class was successfully done as the progress mean of score in this
class was higher than that of the control class. Thus, it can be concluded that mind mapping
strategy is effective to help the students to write descriptive texts. This result is in line with
Nurlaila’s (2013) and Suyanto’s (2009) studies which stated that mind mapping is effective to
improve students’ writing ability.
THE ASPECTS OF EFFECTIVENESS OF MIND MAPPING STRATEGY TO HELP
THE STUDENTS IN WRITING DESCRIPTIVE TEXT
The second sub-session presents the analysis from questionnaire and interview data to
answer the aspects of effectiveness of mind mapping strategy. The responses to the
questionnaire were classified into six themes on the basis of the summary of the aspects of
effectiveness found in the previous studies. The six themes of the aspect of the effectiveness
of mind mappind strategy are: helping to organize the ideas, plan students’ writing, deal with
writing elements, write in an enjoyable way, understand the writing contents, and improve
writing achievement. The data is reported in a form of a frequency table. Some excerpts from
interview results are included to support the findings.
The table bellow is the data from the questionnaires administered to the students after
they were treated mind mapping strategy.
24
Table 9.
Result of Questionnaire Data Analyses
Agree
Disagree
Total
Question
number
F
%
F
%
F
%
1
32
100
0
0
32
100
2
32
100
0
0
32
100
3
32
100
0
0
32
100
4
32
100
0
0
32
100
5
27
84,38
5
15,62
32
100
6
31
96,88
1
3,12
32
100
7
32
100
0
0
32
100
Helping to
write in an
enjoyable
way.
8
31
96,88
1
3,12
32
100
Helping to
understand
writing
contents.
9
32
100
0
0
32
100
Helping to
improve
writing
achievement
10
32
100
0
0
32
100
Themes
Helping to
organize
ideas in a
writing
process
Helping to
plan
students’
writing
Helping to
deal with
writing
elements
Based on the table above, the result showed that the themes were perceived to be
accepted by the students. It can be seen by looking at the percentage of the result. All
25
students (100%) agreed that mind mapping strategy help them to organize their ideas, plan
their writing, understand their writing contents, and improve writing achievement. 31
students (96.88%) agreed that mind mapping strategy helped to write in an enjoyable way,
showed. Meanwhile, the third theme that mind mapping strategy helped to deal with the
writing elements, received various responses. All 32 students (100%) agreed that mind
mapping strategy helped to find new vocabulary (question no.4) and improve creativity
(question no.7), 31 students (96.88%) agreed that mind mapping strategy helped them to
understand grammar, and only 27 students (84.38%) agreed that mind mapping strategy could
help them improve their vocabulary.
Further, in order to get the richer explanation of the aspect of effectiveness from the
students, based on the percentage data in table 7, the following part attempted to describe
those aspects briefly based on the 6 big themes.
1) Mind mapping helps to organize the ideas in writing process.
The result of the first theme based on Table 7 above indicated that all of the
students (100%) approved that mind mapping helped them to organize the ideas in the
writing process. Here are some comments from the students related to the first theme.
“mind mapping sangat membantu karena saat membuat mind mapping
ide dapat terklasifikasi dengan baik.” (S22-B)
(Mind mapping helps to write descriptive text because when making
mind mapping I can classify the idea well.)
“Mind mapping membantu mengklasifikasikan isi dan topic per paragraf.
selain itu juga bantu megklasifikasi kata atau vocabulary yang mau saya
gunakan menulis.” (S14-B)
(Mind mapping helps to classify the content and topic in each paragraph,
besides that it helps me to classify words or vocabularies that I am going
to use in my writing.)
26
“Menurut saya melalui klasifikasi vocab-vocab atau kata di mind
mapping ide jadi lebih mengalir saat menulis paragraf.” (S4-B)
(In my opinion, through the classification of vocabularies or words in
mind mapping, I can be more productive when writing a paragraph.)
“….mind mapping bantu saya untuk mengelompokkan kata yang setema,
jadi paragrafnya gak campur aduk. Jadi lebih urut dan bagus.” (S5-B)
(…Mind mapping helps to grouped the words which is under the same
theme, so it doesn’t make the paragraph muddle and it becomes more
well-organized)
“Misalnya bisa bantu menyusun mana yang harus di tulis dulu jadi
paragrafnya bisa jadi lebih urut.” (S19-B)
(For example it can help me to arrange the paragraph so that the
paragraph becomes well-organized)
“Melalui mind mapping ide bisa dikelompokkan dengan baik.”(S22-B)
(Through mind mapping, the idea can be classified well.)
From the excerpts, the data revealed five ways of how mind mapping help the
students organize the idea. Mind mapping strategy helps the students to organize the
idea in several ways: grouping or classifying ideas, classification of the content and
topic, classification of vocabulary, grouping the words under several themes, and
arranging the ideas in a paragraph. By doing so, the students expressed that their
writing process is much more productive and well organized. This finding is in line
with Backwell’s (2009) and Supriyanto’s (2013) studies that found that mind mapping
is effective to help the writer to organize the ideas.
2) Mind mapping helps the students to plan students’ writing
Related to the second theme, here are the comments of the students:
“balon-balon di mind mapping yang berisi ide awal, memudahkan
saya untuk merencanakan hal apa saja yang mau saya tulis di
paragraf.”
(S17-B)
(The rough idea written in the bubble of mind mapping makes me
easier to plan what kinds of things that should be written in the
paragraph.)
27
“Menutut saya, itu memudahkan untuk menglasifikasi isi per paragaf
karena saya sudah membuat rencana untuk ditulis dalam paragaraf.”
(S15-B)
(In my opinion, mind mapping helps to classify the content in each
paragraph because I have made a plan to be written in the paragraph
later.)
Based on the excerpts above, the result of the second theme revealed that mind
mapping helped them to plan their writing as supported by Nurlaila (2013), Ling
(2004) & Fictorius (2013). The students reported that the rough ideas in bubbles
helped them to plan their writing more easily. Furthermore, the content of the
paragraph could be classified well when the students made mind mapping.
3) Mind mapping helps the students to deal with writing elements.
The students’ opinions about the third theme are mostly positive that mind
mapping help them to deal with the writing elements such as vocabulary, grammar and
creativity in the process of writing descriptive texts. Here are some statements given by
the students related to the third theme.
“…..bisa tanya langsung ke guru atau teman kalau gak bisa.” (S21-B)
(….I can directly ask the information to the teacher or friends if I do
not understand it yet.)
“ Bisa cari vocab di kamus saat membuat mind mapping. Waktunya
banyak.”(S25-B)
(I can look it up in the dictionary when I make mind mapping because
I have more time to do it.)
“Bisa tanya langsung ke guru atau teman. Terus mind mapping juga
memudahkan buat nyari kata yang tepat atau sesuai yang mau
digunakan.” (S13-B)
(I can directly ask the information to my friends or teacher. Besides
that it makes me easier to find the appropriate vocabulary that I am
going to use.)
The excerpts above explained that mind mapping helped the students to find
proper vocabulary as the previous study done by Supriyanto (2013) suggested that
28
mind mapping helped the students to find new vocabulary. The excerpt also
discovered that it helped the students in a way of time availability to look up in the
dictionary, the chance to ask some information to the teacher or friends and the
chance to find related or appropriate vocabulary to use in their writing.
The next one is about how mind mapping facilitates the students to improve
their vocabulary. The following comments are the students’ opinions of how mind
mapping could facilitate them to improve their vocabulary.
“Saat membuat mind mapping saya tidak hanya sekedar mencari
vocabulary baru tapi secara tidak langsung kita juga lebih mudah
mengingat
vocabulary
yang
kita
cari
tersebut
saat
memvisualisasikannya ke dalam gambar.” (S27-B)
(When making mind mapping I do not only look for the new
vocabularies but also it facilitates me to remember those vocabularies
easier when visualize it into the pictures.)
“Saat membuat mind mapping saya bisa mengklasifikasikan
vocabulary sesuai kelasnya jadi hal itu bisa lebih membantu saya
dalam mengingat vocabulary baru.” (S12-B)
(When making mind mapping I can classify the vocabulary based on
their classes so it is easier for me to remember the new vocabulary.)
“karena pas buat mind mapping kita gak langsung nulis jadi kalimat
tapi per kata, jadi lebih mudah mengingat vocab baru yang kita
temukan tadi.” (S17-B)
(Because when I am working with mind mapping, I do not directly
write those new vocabularies into sentences but words, thus it is
easier to remember new vocabularies that just found.)
Based on the exceeding excerpt, there are three ways about how mind
mapping can help the students to improve their vocabulary. It is reported that mind
mapping helped them in terms of visualization of the ideas, classification of the ideas
according to their class and facilitate the students to memorize vocabulary in the form
of words instead of sentences. As a result, the students found it easier to remember the
29
vocabulary. In conclusion, this finding is in line with the previous study done by
Nurlaila (2013) that mind mapping helps the students to enrich their vocabulary.
Then, most of the students explicitly reported that mind mapping helps them to
understand the grammar.
“…saya bisa lebih paham sama tenses yang mau dipakai dengan lihat
catatan atau kalau belum jelas ya tanya guru.” (S27-B)
(… I become understand more about tenses that I am going to use by
reread my notes or I can ask it to my teacher if I haven’t understood
yet.)
“Soalnya saya jadi lebih bisa mbedain dan memilih tenses mana yang
harus dipakai dengan tanya ke guru, teman atau melihat catatan.
Intinya punya waktu lebih untuk itu.” (S15-B)
(I can be more careful to differentiate and choose which tenses I
should used in a paragraph by asking to the teacher, friends or reread
the notes. Basically, I can have more time to do all those things.)
It has been reported that mind mapping helps the students to deal with the
writing elements such as grammar (Supriyanto, 2013). The previous statements above
also reflect that mind mapping helps the students to deal with grammar especially in
terms of the availability of time to seek the information from the teacher or friends
related to the grammar used, the availability of time to choose appropriate tenses they
are going to use and the availability of time to read their notes. By doing so, they can
understand the grammar used.
Lastly, related to the third theme, the students also experienced that mind
mapping helped them to improve creativity in writing. Here are some reports related to
writing creativity improvement.
“bikin mind maping kaya pelajaran kesenian. Boleh gambar, boleh
pakai pulpen warna-warni. Jadi makin asik dan semangat buat nulis.”
(S2-B)
30
(Working with mind mapping is like joining an art class. I can draw
and use color pencil. It is so fun, so I can do my writing
enthusiastically. )
“Dengan membuat mind mapping tingkat kestressan dalam menulis
menurun sehingga kreativitas meningkat karena kita menikmati proses
menulis.” (S6-B)
(By making mind mapping the degree of stress is decreased, as a
result my creativity is increase because I enjoy the process of my
writing.)
“mind mapping bantu saya merefresh otak sebelum bikin paragraf
deskripsi, Miss. Nah… dari situ saya jadi lebih menikmati saat
menulis paragraf.” (S14-B)
(Mind mapping helps to refresh my mind before making paragraph.
From that thing, I become more enjoy when writing a paragraph.)
The excerpts above revealed that there were at least three ways of how mind
mapping helped the students to deal with the writing elements especially how it
improved their writing creativity. First, mind mapping facilitated fun writing by
visualization of the ideas second, it reduced the stress level of the students. Third, it
could refresh students’ mind. Thus, the students became more productive, and they
enjoyed the writing process. This finding is in line with Nurlaila’s (2013) finding that
mind mapping helps the students to improve creativity of writing.
4) Mind mapping helps the