Digital Graphic Organizers and English Academic Writing

Abstract

This research aimed to establish the effectiveness of digital graphic organizers in English academic writing. The participants of this study were 68 students of the fourth semester B1 intermediate level from the Mechanics Faculty at Escuela Superior Politécnica de Chimborazo. This study applied a qualitative and quantitative approach, and an experimental design focused on cause and effect. Therefore, it was necessary to conduct six lesson plans to accomplish the goals of the current study. The lesson plans were elaborated by the researcher and had a duration of 3 weeks, with a length of 60 minutes in each session. They were oriented to improve the structure of the written text based on the aspects of content, communicative achievement, organization, and language. The lesson plan included the following components: The grammar topic, objectives, time, materials, application activities that incorporated the use of digital graphic organizers, and the evaluation, which entailed the writing of a text to check learners' understanding which was assessed through the rubric of Cambridge. The instruments used for the data collection were: A web 3.00 tools survey to diagnose its practice in the educational field that was categorized into a Likert scale; and validated with a 0.846 Cronbach Alpha, a questionnaire to gather information about digital graphic organizers and English academic writing validated by pairs that were administered to both groups through google form to compile qualitative information, and a standardized pre and post-test that was taken from the PET writing section by Cambridge; the test considered four writing assessment subscales. To verify the hypothesis, a paired t-test was applied to determine the efficiency of the Digital graphic organizers on English academic writing. The results showed a significant change in academic writing after using the online tools. Consequently, learners had a remarkable improvement in their English academic writing after implementing digital graphic organizers