Effect of the Use of Writing Rubrics in Enhancing Creative Writing among Senior Secondary School Students in Sokoto State, Nigeria

Abstract

This quantitative quasi-experimental study investigated effect of the use of writing rubrics in enhancing creative writing among Senior Secondary School Students (SSS) in Sokoto State, Nigeria. The objective was to find out if the use of writing rubrics in creative writing will improve students’ writing ability. Three research questions along with three null hypotheses guided the conduct of the research. The study used research adviser (2006) to select 364 participants from SSS 2 out of the total number of 12,220 students in SSS2 in the state to serve as samples for the study. A Quasi-experimental design was used where a pretest, treatment and post-test were conducted. The researcher developed test instrument called Essay Writing Performance Test (EWPT) which was used to measure students’ writing ability and collect data for the study. A pilot study was launched to establish the reliability of the instrument which indicated the reliability index of 0.76 using Pearson Product Movement Correlation Coefficient (PPMCC). Intact classes served as Experimental and Control Groups respectively. The Experimental Group received instruction on rubrics used in creative writing while the Control Group received instruction on creative writing with the conventional English text. Findings from the research revealed that participants in the Experimental Group performed better than those in the Control Group. Based on the findings, it was discovered that using writing rubrics in teaching creative writing would help students to write better in content development, organization of ideas and use of good expression.