The Effects of the Application of Graphic Organizers on EFL Students’ Ability to Write Opinion Essays and Self-Efficacy

Abstract

This study examines the effectiveness of ready-to-use researcher-developed graphic organizers to boost students' abilities in writing opinion essays. The study was carried out in the COVID-19 pandemic situation, with the implementation of the teaching and learning process as part of a learning management system. Thirty-one students living in several regions of Indonesia were involved in the study. A Pre-Experimental One Group Pretest Posttest Design was applied in this study, and then descriptive statistics and N-gain scores as well as one way Anova were used to analyze the data. In the pretest and posttest, respondents wrote opinion essays. Furthermore, they filled out a questionnaire on writing self-efficacy. The results indicate a significant improvement in the means of the students as shown in the comparison of the pretest and posttest scores. In addition, the result shows that there is no effect of the application of graphic organizers on the students’ self-efficacy.