The Effect of Social Constructivist SCAMPER Model on Creative Writing Skill

This research was conducted with the aim of investigating the impact of social constructivist SCAMPER model on creative writing skill. Saudi students face difficulties in writing skill, especially in being required to memorize pieces of ready-written paragraphs without any understanding of what they should write and how. The participants were 30 female high school students studying in the third secondary school in Yanbu Industrial City. This study was a quantitative study. The participants were divided into an experimental and a control group. Data was collected by using a pre-post writing test and a questionnaire. The results showed that the social constructivist SCAMPER model had a positive effect on students’ creative writing skill. Also, based on the questionnaire, students showed a positive attitude toward using social constructivist SCAMPER model for developing creative writing. Based on the findings, the social constructivist SCAMPER model is highly recommended to be used in EFL writing classes in order to foster creative writing. The participants were native Arabic speakers in their tenth grade, and their ages ranged between 15 and 16 years old. The participants were assigned to two groups. One was the experimental group consisted of 22 students taught using SCAMPER technique, and the other was the control group consisted of 25 students taught by using the traditional method. A pre-test and a post-test were given to both groups to test students' creative writing abilities in the Arabic language. The study lasted for a whole semester, and the writing classes took place for an hour each week throughout the semester. The results showed that there were important statistical variations in the mean scores of the outcomes of both groups which can be attributed to the beneficial application of the SCAMPER technique on the experimental group. The researchers concluded that there is a need for trained teachers in the SCAMPER model, so that it can be used in the teaching of all language skills, especially creative writing.


Introduction
Creativity in writing means that students would be able to produce totally different paragraphs and even essays that are beyond the samples provided in the English as foreign language (EFL) textbooks. As Sapkota (2012, p. 71) mentioned, "writing is the ability not only to put ideas from mind to paper but also to generate more meaning and make ideas clear." There are many techniques that have been used to develop this creativity in writing, and the social constructivist SCAMPER model is one of them. By using the social constructivist SCAMPER model, students follow several steps to come up with ideas that are imaginative and creative. The application of SCAMPER is supported by the social constructivist theory of learning because SCAMPER, as a model of cognition, needs to have the right learning environment to be implemented in writing classes. As stated by Pavlenko and Lantolf (2000), the social constructivist model has been built upon the strong link between the social, organizational, and historical statuses and the cognitive process of learning. The social constructivist SCAMPER technique has an actual effect on writing skills because it trains students to collaboratively and meaningfully think out of the box and produce creative pieces of written texts which have wide-ranging implications on their journey to learn how to write effectively. This relationship is supported by principles in the constructivism and active learning approaches to instruction. Active learning suggests that students should be involved mentally, and social constructivism suggests that students should be involved physically in the learning process. The integration of the two approaches helps students generate totally new different ideas than the ones being presented in the textbooks. As Dewey (1916, p. 46) pointed out, "education is not an affair of telling and being told, but an active and constructive process." The social constructivist SCAMPER model can help students think creatively so that they can produce creative pieces of written texts. Abdalabari (2010) claims that the relationship between creative writing and creative thinking is that the creative writing represents the outer appearance for creative thinking that is students need to think about the topic, words, sentence structures, and the meanings in order to write accurately.

Statement of the Problem
EFL students at public schools are only able to write paragraphs that are similar to what they already have in their textbooks. They are only taught how to write paragraphs similar to the textbooks, but when it comes to creative writing, most of them pass the course knowing nothing about how to construct their own paragraphs. In addition, students tend to study ready-written paragraphs to write them on exams and quizzes which will never fulfill the aim of the EFL courses. As a result, this will have huge effects on students' sentence structures, vocabulary, and grammar. They will not be able to develop their creative writing abilities as well as writing skill in general.

Purpose of the Study
The main purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of using social constructivist SCAMPER model on Saudi EFL students' creative writing. In addition, it attempts to find out students' attitudes toward using the social constructivist SCAMPER model for improving International Journal of Linguistics ISSN 1948-5425 2021 www.macrothink.org/ijl 12 creative writing.

Research Questions
This research answers the following questions:


Does the use of social constructivist SCAMPER model have an effect on Saudi EFL students' creative writing?
 What are Saudi EFL students' attitudes toward using social constructivist SCAMPER model for improving creative writing?

Literature Review
This section includes a description of the key concepts. In addition, it includes an overview of some of the previous studies done within the domain of the current study.

Definitions of Key Concepts
2.1.1 Social Constructivism Beck and Kosnik (2006,p. 8) claimed that "social constructivism is an approach that encourages all members of a learning community to present their ideas strongly while remaining open to the ideas of others. It is a passionate approach, involving the whole person: thoughts, emotions, and actions." A teaching strategy views social interactions and cooperation as fundamental parts of the learning process (Grant &Templet, 2017). The pioneer in this field, Lev Vygotsky, emphasized that learning is not an isolated process occurred within an individual, but it is a process that emphasizes the use of social interactions and collaborative work to be meaningfully achieved (Grant & Templet, 2017). Vygotsky formed this theory based on different components that need to be accomplished for successful learning and effective teaching. Zone of proximal development (ZPD) is one of these elements. According to Bentham (2002), ZPD is a distinction between what an individual can accomplish independently and what he can do with the assistance of a more talented person. ZPD can be reached to its highest level through collaborative work. Collaboration is a way of solving problems by working with a small group in a socially constructed setting (Slavin, 1991). Furthermore, the kind of help known as scaffolding offered by peers or teachers forms another component of social constructivism. Bentham (2002) points out that scaffolding is one of the Vygotsky's contributions that describes the varieties of aids and supports teachers give to students as a help to assist their learning. In addition, as suggested by Grant and Templet (2017), scaffolding is the help students need to be able to reach their ZPD. It is the aided learning provided by teachers, other peers or adults.

SCAMPER Model
The SCAMPER model was created with the aim of cultivating creativity in children, but it can be used for adults as well (Mijares-Colmenares, Masten, & Underwood, 1993). SCAMPER is one of the problem-solving and creative thinking techniques which was originated on the belief that new things are basically a change or alteration of already found things around us. Glenn (1997) points out that it is an effective way to promote creativity International Journal of Linguistics ISSN 1948-5425 2021 www.macrothink.org/ijl 13 through a series of practical systematic steps involved in the process which the acronym SCAMPER stands for. According to Glenn (1997), these phases are substitute, combine, adapt, modify, put to other uses, eliminate, and reverse or rearrange. These keywords represent the idea of a series of different questions that would promote critical creative thinking during the meeting. SCAMPER is an effective technique which enables learners to generate ideas through the implementation of a series of different steps (Glenn, 1997). Kara (2015) maintains that creativity is seen as the combination of different things in a new manner and having a strong link with effectiveness and innovativeness. Writers' main goal is to pass on their thoughts, opinions and views with the readers, so in order to accomplish this, writers need to be trained and proficient and utilize their creativity and imagination while writing (Surasith, 1998). MacVean ( 2016, p.14) points out that "creative writing is the process of creation through writing that involves a focused and imaginative attention to originally producing a text that holds meaning and value, if only to the writer. Its form and content can range all across the spectrum, but most involve imaginative thought and the creation of something new." In this understanding, the researcher combined the two separated trends in defining creative writing: the academic creative writing and literary creative writing. Creative writing is the writing of texts based on real information and evidence but transferred in a more stylistic way that exceeds the everyday borders and limits of academic writers (Literature Wales, 2016, as cited in Price, Hirter, Lippiatt, and O'Neill, 2016).

Previous Studies in the Literature
Several studies had been carried out to investigate the effects of SCAMPER model or the effect of social constructivist cooperative learning for improving creative writing skill. And, others had been conducted to investigate the effects of SCAMPER technique on students' creativity and critical thinking skills.
AbuSaif and Maqabala (2017) carried out a study to investigate the effect of SCAMPER model on creative writing skill in the Arabic language of 47 female students at a high school in the Maddaba governorate, Jordan. The participants were native Arabic speakers in their tenth grade, and their ages ranged between 15 and 16 years old. The participants were assigned to two groups. One was the experimental group consisted of 22 students taught using SCAMPER technique, and the other was the control group consisted of 25 students taught by using the traditional method. A pre-test and a post-test were given to both groups to test students' creative writing abilities in the Arabic language. The study lasted for a whole semester, and the writing classes took place for an hour each week throughout the semester. The results showed that there were important statistical variations in the mean scores of the outcomes of both groups which can be attributed to the beneficial application of the SCAMPER technique on the experimental group. The researchers concluded that there is a need for trained teachers in the SCAMPER model, so that it can be used in the teaching of all language skills, especially creative writing. ISSN 1948-5425 2021 www.macrothink.org/ijl 14 Another study carried out by Ozyaprak (2016) to find out the impact of applying SCAMPER technique to improve creative thinking skills of Turkish undergraduate elementary students in Istanbul University, Turkey. The participants were 11 females and 3 males which represented a total of 14 students whose ages ranged between 20 and 22 years. This research involved only an experimental group. The researcher used a pre-test and a post-test to examine the students' performances before and after the application of SCAMPER. He used a Creative Thinking-Drawing Production Test (TCT-DP) (Urban and Jellen, 1996) to measure the students' creative thinking abilities. After the pre-test, the researcher introduced SCAMPER technique to the participants. In each lesson, he explained a new phase of it and provided students with real-life examples. The teaching of SCAMPER lasted for six weeks. The result showed that SCAMPER developed creative thinking especially divergent thinking.

International Journal of Linguistics
Moreover, a study was carried out by Islim and Karatas (2016) to discover the impacts of SCAMPER strategy on the creative critical thinking aptitudes and academic accomplishments of students. It took place in a high school in Turkey. The participants were 40 students who were divided into two groups. Twenty students (8 females and 12 males) studying in the 11th grade were selected as the experimental group. Their ages ranged between 16 and 20. Likewise, twenty students (7 females and 13 males) studying at the 10th grade were selected as the control group. Their ages ranged between 15 and 17. This study was conducted in Information and Communications Technology (ICT) courses which were taught via Case-Based Learning (CBL) for both groups; however, the experimental group had the SCAMPER technique in addition to CBL. Furthermore, a pre-test and a post-test were conducted. In the pre-test, the researcher asked the students to compile systems with a very limited budget. In the post-test, the students were put in a problem of system damage while playing video games and they were asked to produce creative solutions to the problem. The findings showed that using the SCAMPER technique had a significant effect on the creative problem-solving skills and academic achievements of students.
In order to investigate the effect of peer cooperative work on developing classroom-based innovative writing activities and to clarify the meaning of young children's creativity, Vass, Littleton, Miell, and Jones (2008) conducted a study on 24 English female students whose ages ranged between 7 and 9 years. The participants were taking a literacy class at a middle school in England. This study was a qualitative research which lasted for a period of one year. It involved teacher's observation and analyzing of literacy class which were recorded for investigating pair interactions during writing tasks. The literacy classes started with cooperative work guided by the teacher, followed by individual work and ended with a brief task. The researchers followed the planned projects of writing designed by teachers during the observed literacy sessions. An analytic tool was used to measure students' creative writing. The findings showed that emotions played an important role on the pair work during the cooperative creative writing tasks. Also, it demonstrated students' dependence on collaborative floor which was a sign of joint focus and deep collaboration.
In addition, Majid, Tan, and Soh (2003) conducted a study on the effect of the internet and SCAMPER on creative writing of 60 elementary school pupils. The participants were 33 females and 27 males whose ages ranged between 10 to 11 years. They were all in grade five, International Journal of Linguistics ISSN 1948-5425 2021 and their proficiency level in English was sufficient for composition writing. The study involved conducting a creative writing program in Singapore, Malaysia. The program was carried out through four two-hour sessions for one month. The participants were divided into three groups; the internet group, the SCAMPER group, and the control group. An English streaming test was given to the participants as a pre-test. Subsequent sessions were held for each group separately. After that, a post-test was used, and two rubrics were adopted: Language Creativity Score Sheet and Language Creativity Rating Score. The results showed that using the internet helped improve the students' creative writing in terms of elaboration and fluency. Moreover, using the SCAMPER technique did not help in improving the children's creative writing.
By reviewing the literature, it was observed that several studies were carried out pertaining to the effect of the SCAMPER model on the critical thinking and problem-solving abilities. Additionally, a study was conducted to investigate the application of cooperative work based on social constructivism to improve creative writing skill. Two studies dealt with the application of the SCAMPER model to improve creative writing skill. Also, one was created in the context of teaching creative writing to native speakers, and the other was carried out in an English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classroom in Turkey. None of the studies was conducted in Arab EFL learners with the integration of social constructivism and SCAMPER model. This study is different because it was conducted in the context of Saudi EFL classrooms with the integration of social constructivism as a teaching method and the SCAMPER model as a creative fostering tool.

Methodology
This section provides an explanation of the research types, research tools, participants of the research and procedure used for collecting data.

Type of the Research
The research followed a quantitative approach; in which a pre-test, post-test, and questionnaire were utilized to gather quantitative data.

Research Tools
In this study, the three tools mentioned below were used to gather data:

Pre-test and Post-test
The participants of this research were students from two classes that were already separated from each other. The researcher assigned one class as an experimental group and another class as a control group. Both classes were given a pre-test that was aimed at gauge their abilities in creative writing. The experimental class was taught writing by the researcher who implemented the social constructivist SCAMPER model. However, participants of the control group were taught writing by their school teacher who implemented the traditional method of teaching. This process lasted for almost three weeks. Consequently, a post-test was given to each student of both groups in order to assess performances and check for enhancements. The pre-test and the post-test were designed by the researcher. The tests were marked out of 35. ISSN 1948-5425 2021 These tests contained two topics same as those covered in the students' textbooks, and the students had to choose one topic and write a paragraph on it. (See Appendix A & B for pre-posttest).The researcher used Language Creativity Rating Scale as a rubric for correcting tests which was used in a similar study by Majid, et al. (2003). (See Appendix D for the rubric).

Questionnaire
After implementing the treatment, members of the experimental group were given a questionnaire which was designed to investigate students' attitudes toward the use of social constructivist SCAMPER model in a writing class. The questionnaire contained 7 statements about the social constructivist SCAMPER model. The Likert scale composed of five possible responses "strongly agree", "agree", "neutral", "disagree", "strongly disagree" was used. To ensure better understanding, the questionnaire was translated into Arabic. (See Appendix C for the questionnaire).

Participants of the Research
Thirty high school female students studying in the third grade at the Third Secondary School in Royal Commission, Yanbu, were selected to be the participants of this research. Their ages ranged from 17 to 18 years. They were taking English as a Foreign Language (EFL) course as one of the school curricula.

Data Collection Procedure
First of all, the 30 students were divided into an experimental group and a control group. Each group consisted of 15 participants. A pre-test was distributed among the participants of both groups to check their level of creative writing. The researcher taught writing to the experimental group, using the social constructivist SCAMPER model. Since the participants were adult learners, the researcher organized a brief workshop to explain how the SCAMPER model can be employed to generate new ideas. During each writing class, the students were given the chance to work with peers who had more expertise in the area. Each group had members with different language proficiency levels. Teacher's assistance during writing tasks took place so that all students can get the required interaction, dialogues and modeling. This helped students learn new structures and vocabulary that are needed to produce creative pieces of writing. Thus, scaffolding was necessary until all students reached their Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) either with the help of the teacher or through peer negotiations.
To facilitate and enhance collaborative work, students were either given each phase of SCAMPER in a separate card with a pocket at the back of each card, so that they could write down different ideas and collect them in the end to write a whole paragraph, or a SCAMPER sheet that consisted of the phases distributed in columns. These provided what Vygotskians called anchored instructions. The groups exchanged their paragraphs for peer feedback. The teacher helped improve their drafts by checking their work and suggesting ways to organize them. On the other hand, participants of the control group were taught writing by another teacher who used the traditional method of teaching for the same four-week period. At the end of the treatment, both groups were given a post-test to check performances and International Journal of Linguistics ISSN 1948-5425 2021 improvements. Finally, the results of the pre-test and post-test were compared for each group individually. To know which technique worked better in terms of improving creative writing, a comparison of the results of the experimental group and the control group was made. Finally, a questionnaire was distributed among the experimental group members to know their opinions on the strategy applied in writing classes. The responses obtained from the distributed questionnaire were analyzed separately. The lesson plan can be seen in Appendix E.

Results and Discussion
This section presents the research findings and evaluates the data gathered using the pre-test, the post-test, and the questionnaire.

Pre-test
To answer the first question of this study which was "Does the use of the social constructivist SCAMPER model have an effect on Saudi EFL students' creative writing?", the researcher conducted pre-and post-tests on the experimental group and the control group.
The same patterns were adopted when writing the pre-test and the post-test. Both consisted of two topics. The students had the freedom to choose one topic and write about it. The Language Creativity Rating Scale used by Majid et al. (2003) was adopted as a rubric, and marks were given out of 35. The researcher used the pre-test to measure the creative writing abilities of both groups. The pre-test results can be seen in Table 1.  Table 1 shows that the mean scores for the experimental group and the control group were almost identical and comparable to each other. The experimental group did better than the control group; however, no one of the groups got the full 35 points in the pre-test.

Post-test
To find out the effectiveness of the social constructivist SCAMPER model and assess the improvements in the students' creative writing skill, a post-test was given to both groups. The test was carried out after the SCAMPER sessions, which were conducted only for the experimental group. The post-test results can be seen in Table 2.  ISSN 1948-5425 2021 Maximum 33 21 Minimum 10 7 Table 2 demonstrates that the mean score for the experimental group in the post-test is (16) which are higher than their mean score in the pre-test (12.6). In addition, the mean score for the control group in the post-test is (13.31) which is higher than their mean score in their pre-test (11.31). In all instances, the results of the post-tests for both groups illustrated that there were enhancements and improvements in their performances regardless of the method of teaching that was used.
As shown previously, the findings of both tests answer the first question in this study "Does the use of the social constructivist SCAMPER model have an effect on Saudi EFL students' creative writing?" By examining the results, it is evident that the experimental group improved in the creative writing skill due to the application of the social constructivist SCAMPER model. These outcomes are supported by some of the previous studies and stand against others.
This study is supported by that of AbuSaif and Maqabala (2017) in which the SCAMPER strategy had a great effect on students' creative writing skills. Furthermore, the result of this study aligns with that of Vass et al. (2008) in which collaborative work based on the social constructivist theory of learning enhanced students' ability to write creatively. However, findings of this study disagree with the conclusions of Majid et al. (2000) that the SCAMPER technique did not enhance creative writing. This difference in the results of the two studies may be due to the over dependence in Majid et al.'s (2000) study on the use of the SCAMPER strategy without the systematic application of any learning theory as had been done in this study through the integration of the social constructivism theory of learning with the SCAMPER model. Moreover, the ages of the participants might have contributed to the difference in the results.
The outcomes show that the social constructivist SCAMPER model is more effective than the traditional method because it helps students think out of the box and be involved socially and mentally in the learning process.

Questionnaire
The third tool utilized in this study was a questionnaire that was distributed among the experimental group after the post-test. It was designed with the aim of examining students' attitudes toward the application of the social constructivist SCAMPER model in their writing classes. It contained 7 statements. The responses were based on five-point Likert scale. In other words, participants had the freedom to choose from fixed-choice responses "strongly agree", "agree", "neutral", disagree", or "strongly disagree". The findings of the questionnaire can be seen in Table 3. ISSN 1948-5425 2021 Table 3. Response frequencies for questionnaire items Table 3 indicates students' attitude towards the use of the social constructivist SCAMPER model in a writing class. The mean response to statement 1 (4) indicates that most students believe that the technique used in the class is a successful method to foster creative writing skill because it helped them come up with new ideas, think critically and learn new vocabulary and grammar structures due to the need to collaboratively construct sentences by using some of the new structures and vocabulary. Moreover, the mean response to statement 2 (3.73) shows that students were able to produce ideas different from the ones presented in their textbooks; this can be attributed to the use of SCAMPER phases and group work. Using the social constructivist SCAMPER model in any writing class provides students with more time to express their ideas clearly and organize them accurately; hence, the mean of the responses to statement 3 was (3.53). Statement 4's mean response (4) shows that the social constructivist SCAMPER model helped students focus on the use of vocabulary and sentence structures. Working in groups and having the chance to discuss ideas with other students, helped in creating powerful coherent paragraphs as illustrated by the responses to statement 5 (4.13). For statement 6 (4.4), the students thought that the integration of the strategy made writing more exciting. Finally, the mean response to statement 7 (4.06) indicates that many students preferred their teacher's guidance, which included answering questions and explaining concepts individually.

International Journal of Linguistics
Almost all the statements presented a mean score of above 4. Only two statements had mean scores below 4 which pertained to group discussion and organizing ideas. This may be a result of the general background of the learning settings; as students do not like group work. International Journal of Linguistics ISSN 1948-5425 2021 www.macrothink.org/ijl 20 With regard to organizing ideas, learning creativity may be hard for students to begin with, and thus, they may need more time to be trained on how they can generate ideas and then organize them.

Conclusion
The researcher conducted a quantitative study aimed at investigating the effects of the social constructivist SCAMPER model on the creative writing skill of Saudi secondary school students. The test findings showed that using the social constructivist SCAMPER model in EFL classrooms can help students develop their creative writing skills. The experimental group showed improvements in paragraph writing as well as generating creative ideas. In addition, they displayed positive attitudes toward the implemented strategy.

Limitations of the Study
The duration and number of participants were the only two drawbacks faced during the implementation of this technique; however, these two factors can cause a huge difference in the results. In this regard, the time was too short for conducting such a study. Moreover, the number of participants was too small. Therefore, generalizations cannot be made based on the results of this study.

Recommendations
Based on the current findings, it is recommended to use the social constructivist SCAMPER model in writing classes to improve creative writing, even within the context of native language learning. School teachers can train their students on how to use this technique to generate ideas instead of reproducing the dull meaningless paragraphs that are to be studied a day before the exam, written on paper, and finally forgotten.
Vass, E., Littleton, K., Miell, D., & Jones, A. (2008). The discourse of collaborative creative writing: Peer collaboration as a context for mutual inspiration. International Journal of Linguistics ISSN 1948-5425 2021 www.macrothink.org/ijl 25 Students will be able to: 1. Identify the order of information necessary for writing an announcement. 2. Recognize the different phases of SCAMPER model needed for generating creative ideas. 3. Apply the SCAMPER model to brainstorm ideas and produce new texts. Aids/Materials: white board and markers, SCAMPER worksheet, paper and pens. Prior Knowledge: Ability to write.
Students may copy ideas from their textbooks. 45 Possible problem/s: Estimate time: minutes.

Time
What does the teacher do? What do the students do?
Rationale 2 minutes -Welcomes the students.
-Asks students how they can inform friends and relatives when they have parties.
-Respond to greeting.
-Answer the question.

minutes
-Asks the students to form groups. Distributes the SCAMPER worksheet.
-Set within their groups.
-Prepare the students for their activity on writing an announcement. 10 minutes -Give the students some time to discover the new type of writing the announcement within their group.
-Discuss with the students the parts necessary for writing an announcement.
-Students read the announcement in their textbooks.
-Students find out the elements of an announcement.
-Objective 1 10 minutes -Explain the SCAMPER model, and it is used to generate ideas.
-Students listen to explanation and ask questions.
Objective 2 20 minutes -Monitor students and answer their questions.
-Students write new announcements.

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