Research Problem and Hypotheses

Research problem: Students do not create well-structured, meaningful films.

Egri’s Creative Model: Playwrights must develop a premise (also known as a theme or central organizing principle (COP)). According to Egri, drama requires character, conflict and resolution (CCR) but Egri also advised writers to search for a simple one sentence statement of their theme. A premise or COP is a one sentence statement of the big idea behind a dramatic work that a writer can use to organize their creative efforts.

Our Pedagogical Model: Students discover their COP and use it to develop their CCR by choosing from a list of exercises (intrinsic self-motivation) which will not be graded by the instructor (no extrinsic reward).

Research method:
1) Pre-test self-report determines a) level of intrinsic motivation and b) creative self-efficacy (other independent variable information collected, such as age, gender, etc.)
2) Test Group A: Students choose their own exercises which are not graded
Test Group B: Students are assigned exercises which are graded
Control Group C: No exercises are available or assigned

3) Post-test self-report determines which exercises were completed and creative self-efficacy (How can we test for film structure and meaning? Outside evaluators?)

Hypotheses:
H1: The higher the level of intrinsic motivation on pretest, the more exercises the student will complete
H2: The lower the level of intrinsic motivation on pretest, the fewer exercises the student will complete
H3: The more exercises the student completes, the higher their post-test score will be in creative self-efficacy
H4: The more exercises the student completes, the more significant difference will be present when comparing pretest and post-test measures of creative self-efficacy
H5: Some independent variables, such as gender, will be predictors of creative self-efficacy

RQ1: Which group will produce the best-structured and most meaningful films?