The Effect of Using Nice Mind Map Application on Students’ Writing Abilities of Descriptive Text at the Eleventh Grade of SMA Negeri 5 Pekanbaru

Abstrak

Writing descriptive text remains challenging for many Indonesian EFL learners because they must generate ideas, select relevant details, organize information, and express meaning with appropriate vocabulary, grammar, and mechanics. This study examined whether the Nice Mind Map application affected the descriptive-text writing ability of eleventh-grade students at SMA Negeri 5 Pekanbaru. A quantitative quasi-experimental pre-test-post-test design was used. The participants were 80 students selected through simple random sampling from the eleventh-grade population; 40 students formed the experimental class and 40 formed the control class. Both groups wrote descriptive texts in the pre-test and post-test. The experimental class received six instructional meetings using Nice Mind Map as a pre-writing medium, whereas the control class received conventional instruction. Writing was assessed across content, organization, vocabulary, language use, and mechanics using a rubric adapted from Brown. The experimental class improved from a mean of 57.60 to 77.70, a gain of 20.10 points. The control class improved from 55.50 to 63.60, a gain of 8.10 points. Shapiro–Wilk results indicated normal distributions, and Levene’s test indicated homogeneous variances. Paired-samples tests were significant for both groups (p < .001). The larger gain and higher post-test mean in the experimental class suggest that Nice Mind Map provided useful support for idea generation and organization.