Use of Group Discussion and Mind Mapping Strategies in Essay Writing

Abstract

This research entitled Use of Group Discussion and Mind Mapping Strategies in Essay Writing aims at exploring the effectiveness of group discussion and mind mapping strategies and to find out the problems in essay writing of secondary level learners. This is an action study for which I selected a community school of Gorkha district as a sample using non-random purposive sampling procedure. I observed 25 students from class ten. Pre-tests, progressivetests and post-tests, observation checklist, unstructured interview and

documentation review were the main tools of data collection. The major findings

of this study were students had various problems in their essay writing mostly the

grammatical errors, weak organization of ideas, and incorrect format. And group

discussion and mind mapping were the effective strategies to improve students‟ essay writing. Group discussion helped to generate more ideas and mind mapping

strategy helped students to plan and organize their ideas on a particular topic to develop an essay. These strategies also helped to complete their writing within the

certain time and they were able to change their attitude positively towards writing.

This thesis consists of five different chapters. The first chapter 'introduction' includes the background of the study, statement of the problem, objectives, research questions, significance and delimitation of the study. The second chapter deals with the review of theoretical perspectives, earlier related empirical literature, implications of the literature review and conceptual framework. The third chapter deals with the methodology employed to conduct the study. It provides information about the design of the study, population of the study, sampling procedures, data collection tools and data collection procedures. Data are presented, analyzed and interpreted in the fourth chapter. Lastly, the fifth chapter consists of findings, conclusion and recommendations of the study. This chapter is followed by references and appendices to make the study reliable and authentic.