Puteri, Natasya Permata. 2025. The Effect of Canva Application on Student’s Writing Achievement of 7th Grade at SMP Negeri 13 Banjarmasin. SARJANA’S THESIS, English Language Education Program, Faculty of Teacher Training and Education, Lambung Mangkurat University, Banjarmasin. The first advisor: Emma Rosana Febriyanti, M.Pd., the second advisor: Raisa Fadillah, M.Pd.

Keywords: Canva, Google Slides, Writing Achievement, Students.

Digital learning media in English Language Teaching (ELT) is increasingly applied to create a more effective and engaging learning process. However, in many schools, including SMP Negeri 13 Banjarmasin, the teaching of writing, especially descriptive text, is still dominated by conventional methods such as the use of printed worksheets or LKS. These traditional approaches tend to limit students’ interest and creativity in learning. This condition also contradicts the principles of Kurikulum Merdeka, which encourages student-centred learning, the integration of technology, and creative expression in written communication. This research aims to measure whether there is a difference in students’ writing achievement between those who are taught using the Canva application and those who are taught using the Google Slides application at the 7th grade of SMP Negeri 13 Banjarmasin. The gap found in this study is the lack of research that specifically investigates the effect of Canva on students’ writing achievement, particularly in comparison to Google Slides. Therefore, this study aims to examine whether the use of Canva can enhance students’ writing achievement in descriptive texts, in line with the principles of Kurikulum Merdeka which promote creative, student-centred, and technology-integrated learning.

This research used a quantitative approach with a quasi-experimental design involving 50 seventh-grade students of SMP Negeri 13 Banjarmasin who were selected through cluster random sampling. The samples in this research were divided into two groups: twenty-five students from class VII C as the experimental group, who were taught using the Canva application, and twenty-five students from class VII D as the control group, who were taught using the Google Slides application. To collect data, a writing test was administered in the form of a pre-test and a post-test to measure students’ writing achievement. The test results were analysed using the Mann-Whitney U test using SPSS 21 on computer program.

Based on the findings of the Mann-Whitney U test, the significance value obtained was 0.006, which is lower than the significance level of 0.05. This result confirms that there is a difference in students’ writing achievement between those who were taught using the Canva application and those who were taught using the Google Slides application among 7th grade students at SMP Negeri 13 Banjarmasin. Therefore, it is suggested that teachers take advantage of digital learning media such as Canva to support writing instruction, as it can help enhance students’ learning outcomes and support the implementation of Kurikulum Merdeka in the classroom.