Pilot study on measuring narrative skills using multidimensional recording framework and quantifiable analysis method

Abstract

The children's ability of oral narrative skills is important for social and school success so it is very helpful if we can save time and efforts on narrative analysis. The current narrative analysis is based on qualitative approach that it is inherently difficult to show the interrelation of text components through the analysis particularly on the sequence and relationship of those text components. The main purpose of this Engineering Doctorate (EngD) research is an attempt to investigate an analytical engineering modeling approach to convert the transcribed verbal responses of the test questions into a diagrammatical and graphical presentation. This graphical representation enables the mathematical analysis on explicit multi-dimensional movements in the diagrammatical and graphical presentation triggering by test questions. The research has conducted comprehensive tests of expressive narrative skills to a group of six students with normal IQ in conjunction with a survey of additional data received from 55 students for the formation of an engineering modeling. The modeling can capture the six information aspects of knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis and evaluation into graphical movement. A newly constructed recording and analytical framework, namely Structured Performance Evaluation of Expressive Capability Hierarchy (SPEECH) has been established through the modeling approach together with the Multi-Layer Analysis Presentation (MAP) diagrams. The transcribed verbal responses from participants in the narrative skills test based a software package were transformed into the corresponding boxes in the MAP diagrams. Those transcribed verbal responses were then converted as the occurrence of movement and orientation such as right side, upward, left side, standing still and downward in the diagram, as well as the correlation of association and relationship along the diagrams by mathematical analysis. The research has found the questions sensitive to the analytical and synthetical capabilities of participants such as "What Happened ...?" and "Can you Name ...?", can trigger downward movement in MAP, i.e. ability to give more details and breakdowns. The other pair of questions, likes "What were the Motives ...?" and "What was the Underlying Theme ...?", can initiate upward movement in MAP, i.e. ability to summarize and generalize. However, the graphical movement was not sensitive to triggering by test questions such as Knowledge (KL), Application (AP) and Evaluation (EV). Most important of this research has proven that the proposed SPEECH framework and MAP model can convert the children's ability of oral narrative skills particularly in terms of analytical and synthetical skills in the form of graphical movements. In conclusion, this study provides an innovative mechanism with methods and techniques elaborated with examples to convert text based information in to diagrammatical and graphical presentation which opens a door to apply an analytical engineering modeling approaches for enabling mathematical analysis.

Date of Award	16 Jul 2012
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	City University of Hong Kong
Supervisor	Kin Lim John HO (Supervisor)