2. Literature Review

2.1 Mind Mapping

2.1.1 The concept of Mind Mapping

Mind mapping, a popular brainstorming tool and thinking technique of visually arranging ideas and their interconnections; a way of representing associated thoughts with symbols rather than with extraneous words (Abdeen, Elsahan, Ismaeil, ElHarouny &Yagoub, 2009). It is an active learning strategy, focusing on the combination of abstract thinking with imaginal thinking. From the perspective of operation, a mind map is a diagram used to visually organize information. It is often created around a single concept, drawn as an image in the center of a blank page, to which associated representations of ideas such as images, words and parts of words are added. Major ideas are connected directly to the central concept, and other ideas branch out from those. It is also an active learning strategy, focusing on the combination of abstract thinking with imaginal thinking.

Budd (2004) once said that “a mind map is an outline in which the major categories radiate from a central image and lesser categories are portrayed as branches of larger branches” (p.36). And according to Buzan (1996), mind mapping is a graphic illustration, containing various elements like words, images, colors and branches that extend from a central idea illustrating finer details and associations in a nonlinear format, emphasizing the use of diagrams and pictures that enhance memory and cultivate knowledge. Others define mind maps as forms of an outline with ideas and pictures radiating out from a central concept (Buzan & Buzan, 1993).

The technique of mind mapping, also called mental mapping, was firstly invented by the British scholar, Tony Buzan (1993) based on the theory of radiant thinking and Mind Mapping in the early 1960s. The first researchers described the technique as an effective aid of visualization, reflecting the natural function of our brain – “The language brain uses for thinking comes from pictures and associations.” (Buzan,1993:11). Tony Buzan(1993) described the technique as “working harmoniously with the way human’s brain, processing the information.”