A Quasi-Experimental Study on the Development of Creative Writing Skills in Primary School Students
Ginna Brock
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe paper presents an intervention study of creative writing skills in primary school students. The experimental group carried out an intervention program to develop their creative writing skills. The control group followed the school curriculum. The authors tested an experimental and control group with a grid from the literature in a pre- and post-test.
Overall the paper is well-structured and the introduction contains all relevant recent literature. Further, I believe that the message of the paper would be interesting for the scientific communities. Still, I have some issue with the results part of the paper that need to be fixed before publication.
My first question would be who (and how many persons) rated the written products according to the values presented in Table 3?
Table 3 presents frequencies and percentages of the levels of rating on the grid from needs improvement to above average level. However, the grid contains four levels of rating. If the highest level was never achieved, please write about this in the text.
On page 10 between tables 4 and 5 the authors write about "the average regarding the development of the creative writing skill before the intervention" - what does this value represent? Does 1.96 mean that this is nearly the second level of the grid? It is not clear, please elaborate.
On page 10 lines 328 to page 11 lines 357 the authors repeat what is already visible in the tables. In my view, this text is not necessary.
Table 7 could be displayed as a graph with lines that shows the improvement. This graph could also include the control group to show no significant improvement. It needs to be shown that both groups started off at the similar levels of creative writing skills and only the experimental group improved significantly.
The authors could also think about using ANOVAs instead of t-tests. Then they could include group as well. But this is just suggestion.
Author Response
Reviewer 1
Comment:
My first question would be who (and how many persons) rated the written products according to the values presented in Table 3?
Reply:
The creative writing products were evaluated by the research team and received the appropriate score, according to the evaluation grid.
Comment:
Table 3 presents frequencies and percentages of the levels of rating on the grid from needs improvement to above average level. However, the grid contains four levels of rating. If the highest level was never achieved, please write about this in the text.
Reply:
The creative writing skill evaluation grid contains four rating levels. The highest level, excellent, was not achieved by any participant. We introduced the following clarification in the text:
17 students, representing 11.6%, registered Needs improvement level, and 4 students, representing 2.7%, obtained Above average level. No student achieved the excellent level in terms of creative writing ability.
Comment:
On page 10 between tables 4 and 5 the authors write about "the average regarding the development of the creative writing skill before the intervention" - what does this value represent? Does 1.96 mean that this is nearly the second level of the grid? It is not clear, please elaborate.
Reply:
We used the paired samples t-test to compare the means between the two sample groups. 1.96 does not refer to the second level of the evaluation grid, but to the average of the experimental group, before the introduction of the experimental program.
Comment:
On page 10 lines 328 to page 11 lines 357 the authors repeat what is already visible in the tables. In my view, this text is not necessary.
Reply:
The text from page 10, lines 328, to page 11, lines 357, includes an explanation of the data in the table. According to the suggestion, we deleted this fragment, because the data is visible in the table.
Comment:
Table 7 could be displayed as a graph with lines that shows the improvement. This graph could also include the control group to show no significant improvement. It needs to be shown that both groups started off at the similar levels of creative writing skills and only the experimental group improved significantly.
Reply:
2 graphs were drawn for both the experimental and control groups to demonstrate that both groups started at similar levels of creative writing skills and only the experimental group improved significantly. We introduced the following clarification in the text:
If in the pre-test stage both groups started at similar levels in terms of the level of development of creative writing skills, in the post-test stage only the experimental group recorded a significant improvement in results (Figure 4), compared with the control group (Figure 5).
Comment:
The authors could also think about using ANOVAs instead of t-tests. Then they could include group as well. But this is just suggestion.
Reply:
We used Paired-Samples T test, in order to compare the scores of two paired variables. Thank you for the suggestion!
Thank you for your constructive feed-back!
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe front part of the manuscript is strong. The introduction and literature review work well together to help the reader understand the set up and need for the study.
The research questions would be better stated as null hypothesis statements. This would allow the authors to provide more direct discussion of the findings in the discussion section. As written most of the discussion is done in a general terms without specifics regarding some important findings in the study. In other words, the discussion section would benefit from being expanded to guide your reader through the connections between the study and the existing literature. Of course, this expansion would also necessitate a minor adjustment in the conclusion.
Comments on the Quality of English LanguageThe quality of English was excellent within the manuscript. There are few words here and there that could be refined.
p. 1 line 24 content instead of contents.
p. 1 line 34, consider using 'development' instead of 'formation' (though the latter is okay.)
p. 10 lines 328ff consider varying how you report the findings. Instead of using 'regarding' each time, give the sentences some variety.
Author Response
Comment:
The research questions would be better stated as null hypothesis statements. This would allow the authors to provide more direct discussion of the findings in the discussion section. As written most of the discussion is done in a general terms without specifics regarding some important findings in the study. In other words, the discussion section would benefit from being expanded to guide your reader through the connections between the study and the existing literature. Of course, this expansion would also necessitate a minor adjustment in the conclusion.
Reply:
General hypothesis 2 was reformulated as the null hypothesis:
- There is no significant difference between mean of scores of pre-test and post-test referring to the level of development of the specific components of the writing skill, after implementation of the programme.
Therefore, the discussion section was expanded, in accordance with general hypothesis 2:
- The results clearly indicate that there is a significant difference between the mean pre-test and post-test scores on all nine components of creative writing ability (narrative voice, characterization, mood and atmosphere, language and technical aspects of writing, dialogue, narration, setting, image and plot). If in the pre-test stage, the average scores are lower in the experimental group, as well as in the control group, in the post-test phase, higher averages were recorded in the experimental group. Therefore, creative writing skills can be improved considerably, as a result of the use of different didactic methods and creative techniques within the intervention program.
At the conclusions, a phrase related to the discussions was added:
The mean scores for the nine components of the creative writing skill were considerably higher in the post-test phase, in the experimental group, in contrast to the pre-test phase, when the mean scores were lower in the experimental group and the control group.
Comment:
The quality of English was excellent within the manuscript. There are few words here and there that could be refined.
- 1 line 24 content instead of contents.
- 1 line 34, consider using 'development' instead of 'formation' (though the latter is okay.)
- 10 lines 328ff consider varying how you report the findings. Instead of using 'regarding' each time, give the sentences some variety.
Reply:
All words have been corrected. Thank you for finding the errors!
The text on page 10 has been deleted, because it is repeated, and the data is visible in the table.
Thank you for your constructive feed-back!
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe topic and results of this study are interesting and relevant to the field. However, there are many areas which must be improved. The Theoretical Framework should summarize the students that are brought up in the Discussion, and the Discussion should make more links to the results of the study in relationship to the references. The intervention is not clear: the Appendix should not replace a description of the intervention, plus what the control group did is not described (or how this was controlled for). The sociodemographic questionnaire is not presented, nor is the self-assessment and peer assessment tests. These measures (self-assessment and peer assessment) are not well justified nor explained, which makes it difficult to understand and interpret the data presented. The Results section should present means & SDs before the results of the T-tests. The coding procedure of the data is completely absent. Please refer to the comments added to the manuscript.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
There are many errors throughout the text, and many passages should be rephrased (yellow highlighting in the attached file). Also, in the Results section, there is a clear case of self-plagiarism (see comment in the attached file).
Author Response
Comment:
The Discussion should make more links to the results of the study in relationship to the references.
Reply:
In the discussion section, several correlations were made with the results of the study in relation to the references. The following fragments were added:
- In a similar way, it was found that the methods and techniques used in the intervention program at the level of the experimental group, such as the author's question, concept maps, the text comment method, the reading technique with written text drafting, the performative reading method, the circular review, contributed to making real progress in developing creative writing skills.
- The results clearly indicate that there is a significant difference between the mean pre-test and post-test scores on all nine components of creative writing ability (narrative voice, characterization, mood and atmosphere, language and technical aspects of writing, dialogue, narration, setting, image and plot). If in the pre-test stage, the average scores are lower in the experimental group, as well as in the control group, in the post-test phase, higher averages were recorded in the experimental group. Therefore, creative writing skills can be improved considerably, as a result of the use of different didactic methods and creative techniques within the intervention program.
Comment:
The intervention is not clear: the Appendix should not replace a description of the intervention, plus what the control group did is not described (or how this was controlled for).
Reply:
In the Annex, the assessment grid for creative writing skills is described.
A sentence was added to explain what the students in the control group did:
- The students in the control group completed the school curriculum for the discipline Romanian language and literature. For these students, traditional teaching methods were used, such as explanation, conversation, exercise, explanatory reading. In school textbooks, there are very few learning tasks that are based on practicing creative writing skills.
Comment:
The sociodemographic questionnaire is not presented, nor is the self-assessment and peer assessment tests. These measures (self-assessment and peer assessment) are not well justified nor explained, which makes it difficult to understand and interpret the data presented.
Reply:
A sentence was added regarding the socio-demographic questionnaire:
- The socio-demographic questionnaire included some data regarding gender (female/ male), age (10 years/ 11 years), participation in school competitions in the discipline Romanian Language and Literature (yes/ no), reading frequency (daily/ weekly/ monthly/ very rarely).
Self-assessment and peer assessment measures were not used. The creative writing products were evaluated by the research team and received the appropriate score, according to the evaluation grid.
Comment:
The Results section should present means & SDs before the results of the T-tests. The coding procedure of the data is completely absent.
Reply:
Arithmetic mean and standard deviation from the Paired Samples T Test are presented in the results, before and after the intervention.
Comment:
Please refer to the comments added to the manuscript.
Reply:
All corrections were made regarding the comments in the text.
Thank you for your constructive feed-back!
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 4 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsWonderful investigation into the development of creative writing skills in fourth graders. The experiment was interesting and definitely showed some results. Might want to consider transition sentences/words/phrases from each idea to enhance readability. Be careful not to let the data speak for the idea, be sure to unpack each point and directly relate that point to the stated goal and purpose of the paper. Also, the discussion and conclusion sections remain a bit general and vague - they could use some more tangible and robust understandings of what the was observed through this research and what this suggests about the teaching of creative writing in primary school.
Author Response
Comment:
Might want to consider transition sentences/words/phrases from each idea to enhance readability. Be careful not to let the data speak for the idea, be sure to unpack each point and directly relate that point to the stated goal and purpose of the paper. Also, the discussion and conclusion sections remain a bit general and vague - they could use some more tangible and robust understandings of what the was observed through this research and what this suggests about the teaching of creative writing in primary school.
Reply:
The readability of the phrases was improved by reformulating several sentences.
We have added new phrases to the discussions and conclusions to provide a better understanding of the results.
Thank you for your constructive feed-back!
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe authors have improved the manuscript in the first revision round. Especially the figures enhanced understanding of the results. Good job.
Author Response
Thank you for your constructive feed-back!
