Teachers as Psychologist: Experience in Beginner Level of Creative Writing Classes Using Behavior Modification

Abstract

This article is a part of an investigative research report on students’ behavior towards creative writing using a psychological approach. This research was carried out for one semester (4 months). This study aims to explore experiences in beginner level creative writing classes. As we all know, there have been many studies on creative writing, but only a few which discussed creative writing using psychological approaches. This research focused on problems in learning to write creatively and behavior modification practices in creative writing using a behavioral psychology approach. The method used was qualitative involving 81 participants from the Indonesian Language and Literature Department, Universitas Negeri Surabaya, East Java, Indonesia. Interviews and questionnaires were used as data collection techniques. The questionnaire is used to capture the difficulties of participants in creative writing. Meanwhile, the interview is used to capture the difficulties experienced by students in creative writing. Interviews are conducted with reflective and flexible techniques. The research findings show that (1) 70 participants answered that the difficulty in creative writing mostly occurred due to psychological problems; and (2) 51 participants answered that their weakness in creative writing mostly because they are lack of talent.. Other findings indicate that students are very enthusiastic about learning creative writing using psychological approaches because this approach is more mental. https://doi.org/10.26803/ijlter.18.12.7