Title

THE COMBINED EFFECT OF CREATIVE THINKING AND SENTENCE-COMBINING ACTIVITIES ON THE WRITING ABILITY OF ABOVE AVERAGE ABILITY FIFTH AND SIXTH GRADE STUDENTS

Date of Completion

January 1982

Keywords

Education, Educational Psychology

Degree

Ph.D.

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the combined effect of creativity and sentence-combining activities on the quality of writing exhibited by above average fifth and sixth grade students. Pre and post writing samples were collected from 180 above average fifth and sixth grade students repesenting four Connecticut school districts. Two school districts provided services "within" the regular classroom, a third utilized a "pull-out" model, and the fourth served as the Comparison Group.^ Students within each of the three treatment districts were further divided into Group A (sentence-combining and creativity) and Group B (sentence-combining only). These groups each met for two forty minute sessions weekly for the six week period.^ The 360 pre and post writing samples each received one holistic rating, four creativity subscores, and four syntactic maturity counts. One ANCOVA and two separate MANCOVA's were then performed followed by Univariate and Tukey (HSD) procedures as necessary.^ The results indicated students in Groups A (sentence-combining and creativity) and B (sentence-combining only) scored significantly higher in overall quality than did the Comparison Group. The analyses further showed Group A scored significantly higher in the creativity ratings than either Group B or the Comparison Group. Finally, the data revealed Groups A and B scored significantly higher in syntactic maturity than the Comparison Group. With the exception of overall quality of writing, the location of treatment ("within" versus "pull-out") did not make a significant difference. Only one of nine possible interactions was found to be significant, and even this interaction was later determined to be of minor import.^ In summary, this study has shown those above average fifth and sixth grade students who participated in six weeks of sentence-combining and creativity activities scored significantly higher in overall quality, creativity, and syntactic maturity than those who had no such exposure; and that those students exposed only to sentence-combining scored significantly higher in overall quality and sentence-combining than the Comparison Group. In light of the on-going concern over the declining writing quality of seemingly able students, these findings are most significant and uplifting. ^

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