The Effects of Digital Storytelling on the Creative Writing Skills of Literature Students Based on their Gender

Creative Writing in the education of English Language and Literature is a crucial skill yet difficult to acquire. For this reason, various methods and techniques have been tested to enhance the efficiency of this learning process. One of the technological tools used in the field of education in the last decade is digital storytelling. Due to current advances in digital tools and techniques as 21st-century basic skills, digital storytelling has emerged as an art that combines images, audio and video to tell a story sometimes using a narration overlay, and sometimes a musical background (Frazel, 2010). With the help of these emerging technologies, the students create their story in which many skills like decision-making, critical and creative thinking are effectively employed. Research shows that in the process of creating their own digital stories, the motivation, as well as the participation of the students, has increased; in line with their success in this process, their problem-solving skills, as well as creativity, have also improved. The aim of this study is to analyse the effect of digital storytelling on creative writing skills based on student gender. This study also seeks to determine whether there is a remarkable difference between male and female students' creative writing skills when they are introduced to certain technological tools. The course was designed with a blended learning approach; the stories of the students created by suitable programs and applications were shared on Google-classroom, an open source learning management system. In order to evaluate the digital stories created by the students, the researchers formulated a rubric including a list of criteria related to the field of creative writing, and the students' stories were assessed by five English Literature Professors. Qualitative Approach was utilized in this research. This study was carried out with 3rd-year undergraduate students in the department of English Language and Literature in a foundation university in Turkey.