The effect of the mind mapping technique on 7th grade secondary school students' attitudes toward listening, listening comprehension and retention

This study was conducted to determine the effect of the mind mapping technique on 7th-grade secondary school students' comprehension, retention, and attitudes toward listening. The sample of this study, which was conducted using a pre-test and post-test-based experimental design with a control group, consisted of 76 students from Esengül Hasan Keleşoğlu Secondary School in Kızıltepe, Mardin Province, with 38 students from class 7/A and 38 students from class 7/B. According to the pre-test results, there was no statistically significant difference between the two groups in terms of listening comprehension achievement and attitudes toward listening. Through random selection, class 7/A was designated as the control group, while class 7/B was designated as the experimental group. The application phase was conducted by the researcher over a period of 10 weeks, with two hours per week for each of the experimental and control groups. While the students in the experimental group received strategy training on the mind mapping technique, the students in the control group received lessons within the curriculum framework without any specific method or technique-related strategy training. At the end of the process, the listening comprehension achievement test and attitude scale, initially applied as a pre-test, were administered as post-tests to both the experimental and control groups. Four weeks after the post-test, the listening comprehension achievement test was administered again as a retention test to both groups. The data obtained at the end of the study were analyzed using the SPSS 28.0 software package. According to the analysis results: Listening comprehension achievements of both the experimental group students, who used the mind mapping technique, and the control group students, who were taught within the framework of the curriculum, increased. However, this increase was more pronounced in the experimental group students. In recalling the listened text, the experimental group students who used the mind mapping technique performed better than the control group students who were taught within the curriculum framework. While there was no significant change in the attitudes toward listening among the control group students, the experimental group students who took notes using the mind mapping technique showed a significant improvement in their attitudes toward listening in favor of the experimental group. Keywords: Turkish language teaching, listening skill, note-taking techniques, mind mapping technique.