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Summary of Packard-CSU Ed.D. Dissertation Fellowship Report
Title: Creative Confidence: Self-Efficacy and Creative Writing in an Out-of-School Time
Program and Beyond
Ed.D. Candidate: Allison Deegan, CSU Long Beach
Research Question(s):
1. Does participation in an Out-of-School Time (OST) creative writing program impact participants’
creative writing self-efficacy?
2. Does participation in an OST creative writing program impact participants’ overall self-confidence?
3. Does participation in an OST creative writing program impact participants’ educational goals while
enrolled and after their participation concludes?
Conceptual Framework and/or Guiding Purpose of the Study:
The conceptual framework of this study was based upon theories from several fields, including
adolescent psychology, social theory, writing pedagogy, and the educational contributions of OST
learning. This study investigated how adolescents develop self-efficacy in an OST creative writing
program, and whether advances in creative writing play a role in educational and life outcomes.
Specific constructs of the framework include freedom and self-efficacy.
Freedom, the first pillar of this study’s conceptual framework, is based on Elbow’s (1973a, 1973b)
theories on a writer’s need for freedom and the manner in which the writer’s voice is represented by
their texts. Elbow’s approach is supplemented by the related work of Gilligan, Brown and Myhill, and
founded on the landmark treatises of Freire (1970) and Dewey, among others.
Self-Efficacy, the second pillar of this study’s conceptual framework, is built upon the work of Pajares
and Johnson (1995), who studied the pathway to self-efficacy for young writers. Pajares and Johnson’s
work is founded on Bandura’s (1977) groundbreaking theories of self-efficacy, and is supplemented by
the work of Chandler.
Figure 1 displays the conceptual framework for studying how a confident creative writer develops and
how the writer forms goals and achieves educational outcomes, including high school graduation and
entrance into college.
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Summary of Packard-CSU Ed.D. Dissertation Fellowship Report
Figure 1. Conceptual framework
Freedom
Elbow
Dewey, Freire, Gilligan
Brown, Myhill
Self-Efficacy
Pajares and Johnson
Bandura, Chandler
Goals/Outcomes
This Study
Quantitative Data—Goals
Qualitative Data—Outcomes
What to Write
As a Creative Writer
Confident Creative Writer?
How to Write
As a Writer Generally
Confident Writer?
Writing as Voice
As a Student
Confident Student/Graduate?
Writing as Self
As a Person
College/Beyond?
Relevant Theoretical and Empirical Literature:
Key literature guided the development of the conceptual framework’s pillars of freedom and self-efficacy
in examining creative writing. Sources included Elbow’s (1973a, 1973b) work on writing and freedom,
especially his 1970 treatise, Writing Without Teachers, and Pajares and Johnson’s (1995) work on
writing self-efficacy among adolescents, supported by Bandura’s (1977) classic work on general selfefficacy. In addition, a body of literature about the inception and implementation of the Listening Guide
methodology by Gilligan, Spencer, Weinberg and Bertsch (2003) and sources on emerging research
methods, notably Salmons’ (2009) work on online interviewing, contributed to this study.
Methods of Data Collection and Analysis:
This case study examined a theory about the connection between participants’ experiences in WriteGirl
and effects on creative writing confidence and was centered on interviews with 18 WriteGirl alumni. All
had participated in the program during high school and were college students or college graduates.
Additional sources of evidence, such as documents, records, personal observations and discussions
emanating from the WriteGirl program were reviewed as source material to complete the study.
Participant solicitation, selection and consent, as well as data gathering, were conducted entirely online,
in real-time online sessions in social networking sites and via email. This approach was selected in
order to maximize participants’ sense of comfort. In addition, the researcher is deeply embedded in the
culture of the WriteGirl program, and working online provided a measure of distance and objectivity
while maintaining access to a broad range of rich and nuanced data.
Interview transcript data were analyzed using an adaptation of the Listening Guide methodology
(Gilligan et al., 2003), a voice-centered approach that places the interviewer in the center of a process
that reveals participants’ multi-layered articulation about their experiences. Under the Listening Guide
methodology, transcripts are reviewed four times under four different perspectives, and participants’
words are converted into informational identity forms called “I Poems”. The methodology was chosen in
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Summary of Packard-CSU Ed.D. Dissertation Fellowship Report
order to achieve several goals, including to capture a snapshot of WriteGirl alumni participants’ attitudes
and perceptions of their experiences and outcomes and to compare them to one another in order to
examine the experience of achieving creative confidence. In addition, the methodology provided
participants with a forum to speak about this process and, as they are all accomplished writers, an
opportunity to “write” their data in their own words.
Study Findings:
The findings of this study include representative and comparative poetry, created from interview
transcripts using the Listening Guide methodology. These I Poems, which utilize first person statements
to conjure hidden meanings, expressed recurring themes about how creativity is achieved, both as a
process and a goal or status, and the strong connection between self-efficacy (and the support that
builds it) and achieving creative confidence. Participants, categorized as hidden voices, high achievers
and writing professionals (or pros) based on their statements, personalities and approach to writing
(informed by the researcher’s insider status), discussed the process of creative writing and contrasted it
with other genres of writing. In addition, the interview protocol guided them to ponder the connection, if
any, between the development of confidence as creative writers and confidence in other areas of their
lives (including confidence as academic writers). They shared a sense of freedom in creative work that
is not duplicated in academic work, and faced similar challenges in leveraging their confidence in their
creative writing toward achievements in academic writing. Across categories, virtually all participants
expressed the challenges they faced in college to recreate the supportive writing environment they had
enjoyed and benefitted from as part of the WriteGirl program and to maintain their writing self-efficacy.
The study approached data synthesis by the use of exemplar analysis, both for content value and as
catalysts for reaction by the researcher (part of the Listening Guide methodology is for the research to
react to the transcripts and capture those reactions as data). Categories of aligned, organic and
surprising synthesis emerged to describe the manner in which participants’ data speak to one another
by evoking connected themes, called organic synthesis. Some synthesis was expected by the
researcher, as a deeply embedded insider to the program, called aligned synthesis. Participants
recounted that they had achieved confidence as writers, and faced with challenges beyond the
supportive environment of the WriteGirl program, attempted to draw on that past experience as skilled
writers to attain confidence as academic writers.
Among the surprising synthesis was the notion that a lack of support, or even a hostile environment
(such as a structure that demands more compliance than creativity) was seen by several participants as
a provocation to inject even more freedom and creativity into their writing projects (viewing it as fighting
over creative oppression). The resonant theme throughout the study was that the more freedom a
creative writer has (or the more freedom one demands), the more creative they feel when they write,
and the higher caliber of writing they produce. This sense of freedom was attributed directly to
participation in the WriteGirl OST creative writing and mentoring program.
Conclusions and Recommendations:
Inclusion of creative writing. Both school-based and OST programs would benefit from the inclusion
of creative writing curricula. Students who develop confidence in their creative writing abilities through a
program that is founded on freedom and fortified by strategies for self-efficacy may in some cases
transfer that confidence into other academic pursuits, both in high school and beyond. The inclusion of
similar programs should be predicated on staff or faculty training so that a creative writing program is
managed differently than a traditional writing classroom, freeing teachers from their traditional mandate
of assigning “right or wrong” assessments to creative writing. Merely offering a writing program of any
sort would be a good first step.
Training of writing teachers. Writing teachers would be well served to have training about creativity
and creative writing. In fact, taking them through the paces as creative writers (writing, brainstorming,
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Summary of Packard-CSU Ed.D. Dissertation Fellowship Report
workshopping, rewriting, performing/reading aloud, submitting for publication) may be the best training
of all so that they understand the process of taking free thought and turning it into literature or published
work. Following a combination of Elbow’s (1973a, 1973b) theories on freedom for writers, with Pajares
and Johnson’s (1995) guidance on the components of writing self-efficacy, a powerful formula for all
sorts of writing can be developed and followed by writing teachers. Becoming writers themselves in
order to train and guide better writers seems like a natural process for them.
Support for OST programs. This study demonstrates the benefit of participation in an OST creative
writing program. Educational programs that seek to boost student achievement should consider a
partnership with OST programs that can deliver creative writing content. The OST program in which this
study was cited, WriteGirl, serves adolescent girls in the Los Angeles area and works with more than 60
schools to enroll mentees. Members participate for three or four years on average. Fielding this kind of
program requires a significant infrastructure and funding to sustain it. Thus, policymakers would be wise
to extend support for focused, time-intensive programs that can foster the development of creative
confidence, especially through activities as valuable as writing. At present, it is challenging to fund this
year-long program model.
College transition support. Some of the findings from this study indicate the delicacy of the transition
from high school to college, even for high-achieving students. More resources should be dedicated to
this process. While the WriteGirl program includes an individualized college transition program where
each mentee has access to significant resources, many OST programs do not include this facet.
Further, the WriteGirl program has limited resources to work with alumni participants and to follow them
and provide support after they enroll in college. Policymakers would be wise to include an assessment
of creative skills in their college transition and support programs to provide the opportunity for students
to develop confidence from these activities.
Suggestions for Further Study:
The findings of this study suggest many additional avenues to be researched. First, the program targets
high school girls. It is not clear if the WriteGirl model would be as successful if high school boys
participated. A few boys do participate at one WriteGirl site, but their participation is not the norm.
Further, it is not clear if the WriteGirl program would produce similar outcomes if participants were in
elementary and early middle school (WriteGirl participants enter as 8th graders).
Another area for additional study would be to explore if some success would be achieved if this
program targeted general or academic writing. Because WriteGirl is specifically a creative writing
program built on the pillars of freedom and mentoring, it is unique. It would be interesting to see if the
same kind of confidence could be gleaned from a program model that does not encourage and guide
personal, creative writing.
While a study of the WriteGirl program is well suited to qualitative analysis, there is also a place for
quantitative analysis of the longitudinal data that has been gathered since the program’s inception This
is in the form of pre-and post-participation data from every participant over the past nine years, inquiring
about their writing confidence and educational goals. It would be interesting to conduct path analysis as
a means to document the journey to confidence for participants of divergent demographic or
experiential characteristics, such as different program dosages.
One of the most frequent questions asked about the WriteGirl program pertains to the academic grades
of program participants. WriteGirl does not request or review participants’ grades as part of their
membership in the program, which is viewed as unusual for a program with a strong emphasis on
graduation and college entrance. As a result, it may be valuable to conduct a study that aligns
participant outcomes with more standard measures of academic success.
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Summary of Packard-CSU Ed.D. Dissertation Fellowship Report
Selected References:
Bandura, A. (1977). Self-efficacy: Toward a unifying theory of behavioral change. Psychological
Review, 84, 191-213.
Elbow, P. (1973a). The pedagogy of the bamboozled. Soundings, 56(2), 247-258.
Elbow, P. (1973b). Writing without teachers. New York: Oxford University Press.
Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Continuum.
Gilligan, C., Spencer, R., Weinberg, M. K., & Bertsch, T. (2003). On the listening guide: A voicecentered relational model. In P. M. Camic, J. E. Rhodes & L. Yardley (Eds.), Qualitative research
in psychology: Expanding perspectives in methodology and design. (pp. 157-172). Washington,
DC: American Psychological Association.
Pajares, F., & Johnson, M. J. (1993, April). Confidence and competence in writing: The role of selfefficacy, outcome expectancy and apprehension. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the
American Educational Research Association, Atlanta, GA.
Pajares, F., & Johnson, M. J. (1995, April). The role of self-efficacy beliefs in the writing performance of
entering high school students. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational
Research Association, San Francisco, CA.
Salmons, J. (2009). Online interviews in real time. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
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