The effect of teaching mind mapping strategies on EFL students' writing performance and their perceptions towards mind mapping technique in persuasive and descriptive essays

This study aimed to investigate the effect of the mind-mapping strategy on intermediate-level English foreign language learners' writing performance in descriptive and persuasive essays and explore their perceptions towards the mind-mapping strategy. A quasi-experimental design with a mixed-method approach was employed, involving an experimental group and a comparison group with thirty-nine participants in total. The pre-test, the post-test, and the questionnaire were administered to both groups to collect quantitative data for the study. For qualitative data, semi-structured interviews and reflection papers were conducted for the participants in the experimental group. The quantitative data were analyzed through the Mann- Whitney U test, the Wilcoxon Signed-rank test, and the descriptive statistics, while the thematic analysis was used to obtain data for the qualitative analysis. The findings indicated a significant difference in writing performance between the experimental and comparison groups, demonstrating the positive impact of mind mapping on writing in both essay types. Regarding the comparison of descriptive and persuasive essay performances in experimental group, task response criteria revealed less improvement in presenting arguments in persuasive essay genres. The questionnaire analysis also revealed that participants mostly agreed on the benefits of cognitive and metacognitive aspects, but they showed less agreement on the impact of motivation. For the qualitative analysis, students' responses to the mind-mapping technique indicated a generally positive perception of cognitive and metacognitive aspects. However, less agreement was found regarding the effect of the mind-mapping strategy on vocabulary improvement and time management. These findings provide insights into the mind-mapping technique in writing instructions and its genre-specific effects and students' perceptions.