Examining Effects of Writing Prompt Type on Choice Decision-Making Process
Open Access
- Author:
- Brace, Jennifer
- Area of Honors:
- Educational Psychology
- Degree:
- Bachelor of Science
- Document Type:
- Thesis
- Thesis Supervisors:
- Rayne Audrey Sperling, Thesis Supervisor
Amy C Crosson, Thesis Honors Advisor - Keywords:
- writing prompts
education
elementary education - Abstract:
- Research shows a decline in students’ academic achievement motivation over time and calls researchers to examine this phenomenon and its impact on student outcomes (Anderman & Maehr, 1994; Otis, Grouzet, & Pelletier, 2005; Prawat, Grissom, and Parish, 1979). Allowing students meaningful, autonomy-enhancing choices when faced with academic tasks may combat this decline (e.g., Assor, et al., 2002; Katz & Assor, 2006). The present study compared two types of writing prompts to examine learning motivation and writing outcomes and explored why fourth-grade students selected varied writing prompts when provided choice. Traditional story starters provided a sentence fragment (e.g., “if I had a million dollars, I would…”). New story starters allowed students to choose two words from lists (e.g., sister or surprise). Students selected a prompt from the list(s) provided and then wrote a narrative. Following their writing, students selected the reasons for their choices from a multiple-choice list and answered additional questions. Though no correlation between prompt type and reason for prompt selection was found in this study, future research into the motivation of students’ choice of prompt and its alignment with Self-Determination Theory could benefit educators. Given the significantly higher word count and significant student preference for the new story starters, greater research into types of writing prompts is called for because of the implications for future practice.