Study of the relationship between the creative writing skills of primary school students and their self-efficacy perception and types of achievement goal orientation

This study is intended to detect the relationship between creative writing skills of eighth-grade primary school students and their self-efficacy and the relationship between these students? self-efficacy perception in writing and their performance goal orientations, and to examine students? creative writing skills and self-efficacy perceptions in writing in terms of various variables. Relational screening model was used in the study.The population of the study included the eighth-grade students from the schools of central Ankara (Altındağ, Çankaya, Etimesgut, Gölbaşı, Keçiören, Mamak, Sincan ve Yenimahalle) who received education in the school year of 2010 and 2011. Because the whole of the population could not be reached, 518 eighth-grade students from lower, middle and upper socioeconomic strata (Mamak, Yenimahalle, Çankaya) were used as sample.To collect data, ?Writing Self-efficacy Scale? and ?Achievement Goal Orientation Scale? was adapted to Turkish in the study. In addition, the same students were given two writing tasks quarterly in order to determine their success in creative writing. In the first writing task, the students were allowed to write on whatever topics they prefer but in the second task, they were given topics with which they could show their creativity. Their writings were assessed through ?Grading Key for Creative Writing Level?. The data collected were analysed through SPSS 16.0.The following results were obtained in the study relating creative writing: It was detected that the students wrote more creatively when they were allowed to write without any topic restriction, that their creativity was limited when they were to write on a given topic, and that they were at an intermediate level in creative writing. In addition, it was observed that there were meaningful differences between students? creative writing skills and such variables as gender, educational level of parents, professions of parents, internet access at home, reading newspapers at home, preschool education, keeping journal, going to the cinema and the theatre, imagining the things to be written before writing and the grades obtained in Turkish course.A positive, medium-level and meaningful relationship was observed between students? creative writing skills and their self-efficacy perceptions in writing. Accordingly, the students with a high level of self-efficacy had a better creative writing skill. There was a positive low-level and meaningful relation between students? creative writing skills and their performance goal orientations and their learning goal orientations. Accordingly, the fact that students have performance or learning goal orientations is not directly influential on their creative writing skills.The following results relating self-efficacy perception in writing were obtained in the study: Meaningful differences were detected between students? self-efficacy in writing and such variables as gender, educational level of parents, professions of parents, internet access at home, reading newspapers at home, preschool education, going to the cinema and the theatre, and the grades obtained in Turkish course.A positive medium-level and statistically meaningful relation was detected between students? self-efficacy perception in writing and their performance goal orientations and learning goal orientations. Accordingly, it might be argued that students? possession of performance or learning goal orientation increases their self-efficacy in writing.