Kastamonu Education Journal, vol.27, no.5, pp.2115-2127, 2019 (Peer-Reviewed Journal)
This study aimed to investigate the influence of the Synectics Model as a prewriting technique on a group of Turkish EFL learners’ vocabulary development in higher education. For this reason, a mixed research design utilising both quantitative and qualitative techniques was employed. The quantitative part included repeated measures design to observe the participants’ progress in vocabulary over time. The quantitative data collection instruments were learner-written texts analysed via an online text analysis programme in terms of type, family, and word frequency levels. The data were analysed through Friedman Test for repeated measures and Wilcoxon Signed Ranks Test for pairwise comparisons. As for the qualitative part, a descriptive qualitative research design was used to gain a deeper understanding of the participants’ experiences. To this end, semi structured interviews were conducted, and inductive content analysis technique was employed. The results indicated a significant increase in almost all indicators of vocabulary development. In addition, qualitative findings revealed the participants had mostly positive perceptions about the use of synectics in learning and retaining new vocabulary items. It is concluded that the Synectics Model could be used as a prewriting technique in EFL contexts.