Impact of Graphic Organizers on Students' Writing Skill

Abstract

The aim of this action research was to investigate the effect of using graphic organizers on students' writing ability, as well as their attitude towards this skill. The sample of the study was composed of 20 Saudi male subjects registered in the Saudi Electronics and Home Appliances Institute during the academic year 2017-2018. The study was conducted in three phases and lasted for eight weeks. Two sources were used to generate data for the study; the students’ writing before, and after using graphic organizers intervention. A written attitude survey was conducted before and after the training. The data generated from the students writing tasks was analyzed quantitatively to detect any changes in the students’ attitudes. The data generated from the written survey before and after the intervention was compared and analyzed qualitatively by using test of significance to see if there were any differences between the means of the scores. The results of this study proved that the graphic organizers had effectively improved the students' writing ability and had positively impacted their attitudes towards the writing skill. Also, the result proved that the use of cause and effects graphic organizer had good effects on the students’ writing performance and on their attitudes more than any other graphic organizers used in this study. These results suggest that graphic organizers can be an effective support in teaching writing of learners of English as a foreign language. Key words : cause and effects, main idea details, compare and contrast, concept maps, graphic organizers, writing skill, academic writing and general writing.