The role of writing permanency in the students' motivation to engage in the writing process
Date
1986
Authors
Rowles, Angela Diana
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Abstract
A six week study was conducted with fifty-six grade 8 students to investigate the effect of a programme which encouraged all students in the experimental group to display their writing at a district writing fair. The programme involved prewriting experiences, drafting and redrafting, discussion with friends and family, and the production of a polished copy. The choice of whether to display or not, and of which work to display, belonged to the student. The control group participated in the same programme but without the option of displaying their work.
Two separate self-concept questionnaires were used before and after the study: the Self Description Questionnaire (SDQ) and the Writing Apprehension Questionnaire (DWAS). There was a significant difference in the scores of the two classes on the self-concept in English section of the SDQ post test, but not in the expected direction. The experimental group maintained a consistent level of reported self-esteem but that of the control group dropped significantly.
An assessment of interactions of academic achievement, gender, and group at the end of the study found that the lower achievers of both gender in the control group reported lower self-esteem, as did the upper-achieving females in the control group. However, in the experimental group, the lower-achieving boys reported significantly higher self-esteem and the lower-achieving girls maintained the same level as in the pretest. The scores of the upper achievers in both groups did not change significantly. The reasons for the apparent drop in self-concept for these students during the first months of their grade 8 year are not known. However, the option of displaying their writing outside of the classroom setting seems to have had a positive affect on the lower-achieving males.