Research Symposium

BIO

Yali Chen is a sophomore pursuing a degree in Bachelor of English Education. She exhibits interests in the field of education, teaching method, cognitive development, and effective communication. She joined the UROP program and started to do the research in her sophomore year, focusing on the narrative ability of preschool children.

Correlations Between Macrostructure Narrative Skills Exhibited by Pre-school Children

Abstract

Past research has identified a general tendency: children’s narrative ability aligns with their cognitive and learning development. One study found more frequent use of attempt than consequence descriptions in children when retelling narratives, possibly indicating that consequences are a more challenging element for children to include (Schachter & Craig, 2006). This research aims to examine the relationship between macrostructure elements in children's oral narratives exhibited by 3-5 years old preschool children. We hypothesize that children tend to focus more on macrostructure elements (e.g., attempt and consequence), since these elements often reflect a cause-and-effect relationship. The children are shown a series of cartoon videos, and then tasked to retell the story. We coded narratives using Diehm et al.’s (2020) scheme, including character, setting, plot, initiating events, reactions, attempts, consequences, and ending. Each element was scored 1 if present, 0 if not. The results indicated that producing more of one story-grammar element was generally associated with greater production of others, suggesting that macrostructure skills tend to cluster rather than develop in isolation. The strongest links involved core components of causal structure and character information, indicating that children who produce richer narratives in one area often produce richer narratives overall. Equipped with this insight, educators can gain a deeper understanding of young learners’ developmental needs, and subsequently design more targeted instructional strategies to support narrative skill growth. As this is a longitudinal study, further investigation will be required to better determine the children’s narrative macrostructure, capturing their growth.

Keywords: preschool children narrative trajectory