The Impact of Using Writing-to-Learn Activities and Literary Products on Students’ Academic Achievement in Social Studies Course

Abstract

The present study aims to investigate the impact of using writing to learn activities and literary products on students’ academic achievement by employing a quasi-experimental pre-test/post-test control group design and was con-ducted with 101 seventh graders in a secondary school affiliated to the Ministry of National Education in Erzurum, Türkiye, in the 2022/23 academic year, with 2 classrooms selected as the experimental group and 1 as the control group. For teaching the subject matter related to the course unit of “Culture and Heritage”, writing-to-learn activities were engaged in for the purpose of teaching one of the groups (EG1, n=35), while activities based on literary products were used in the other (EG2, n=33), yet curriculum-based teaching was sustained for the control group (CG, n=33). The Culture and Heritage Academic Achievement Test developed by the researcher was used as a data collection tool in the study. While no statistical significance was noted between the groups considering the pre-test results before the experimental study, the post-test results obtained after the experimental activities demonstrated a statistical significance in favour of the experimental groups. It was concluded that the use of writing-to-learn activities and literary products for learning purposes in the social studies course had a positive impact on students’ academic achievement.