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Referential communication performance
Evaluation
in Education.
1930. Vol. 4, pp. 84-85
REFERENTIAL
Pergamon
Press Ltd. Prtnted in Great Britain.
COMMUNICATION
W. Patrick Wisconsin
Research
Madison,
PERFORMANCE
Dickson
and Development
Wisconsin
53706,
Center
USA
Research on children's oral communication skills has flourished in recent years. One of the major 'traditions' in research on speaking and listening skills uses referential communication tasks. A search of the literature located 70 publications in which communication skills were studied using referential tasks (Dickson and Moskoff, 1979). These 70 publications contained 85 experiments (where an 'experiment' was considered to involve different subjects) and 119 referential tasks. Each study was coded on a number of dimensions and entered in to an SPSS (Nie ct ~2, 1975) system file with each of the 119 tasks considered a separate case. By use of SELECT IF statements the number of cases for analyses on specific variables was 70 publications, 85 experiments, or 119 tasks. The analysis with respect irrespective over time in
had two different purposes: first, to examine findings across studies to the factors influencing referential communication performance and of effects, to characterise the field of research in terms of changes experimental designs employed.
With respect to factors influencing referential communication performance several conclusions emerge unambiguously. Age is strongly related to performance: of the age 44 experiments including age as a factor, all but five reported a significant effect, and the five in which age was not related had either very small numbers of subjects or a restricted age range. No further research is needed to establish that age is a factor in communication performance; what is needed is research on interactions between age and other factors. Of the 41 experiments which explicity reported sex as a factor, 34 found no differences when comparing male-male and female-female pairs. Of the seven in which sex related differences were found, females were superior in two, males in three, while results were mixed in two. Given that many of these experiments included two or more dependent measures and that several of the significant differences were statistical interactions, it appears somewhat fewer sex differences were found than No further research seems to be called might have been expected to occur by chance. for on comparisons between male-male and female-female pairs. In contrast, it is interesting that none of the 85 experiments covered in this review compared misedsex pairs with same-sex pairs. In future studies, where researchers have male and it might be worth contrasting mixed-sex and same-sex pairs, insofemale subjects, far as this variable has not been studied in referential communication research.
84
Referential
Communication
Performance
85
Verbal ability measures have tended to show a positive relationship to communication Of the 37 experiments reporting ability measures on the children, performance. there were 28 where it was not clear if IQ effects were analysed (though the supposition is that analyses were done in many cases and that non-significant difOf the nine explicitly reporting analyses of ferences were simply not reported). ability, three report finding no relationship, while in the six which did, the median correlation between ability and communication performance was .31. The socio-economic status of subjects was reported in 58 of the 85 experiments, and 44 of these were middle to upper-middle class children. Only nine of the studies explicitly report analyses of socio-economic status as a factor, and eight of these reported a significant relationship between SES and communication performance. All eight of these studies involved a comparison between lower-class children and middle-class children. It should be pointed out that many other factors covary with social class in these studies, including unmeasured differences in verbal ability and possible biases introduced in the testing situation, so these must be viewed skeptically. The second point of interest in the review was to characterise the field of research in this area. The coding of studies and entering them into an SPSS file permits one to examine changes in characteristics of the studies over time, in addition to the analysis of factors influencing the dependent variable. For example, from 1960 to 1979, there was a steady decrease in studies using communication between pairs of children and a steady increase in those using designs in which an experimenter communicated with the child, perhaps gaining tighter experimental control at the expense of ecological validity. Of the children studied, 57 per cent were between the ages of four and nine, reflecting the impact of the Piagetian concept of egocentrism upon this research. The lack of extensive research on children during middle childhood and early adolescence is a regrettable void in our knowledge of the development of communication skills. The analysis of research on referential communication skills has revealed a number of factors clearly linked to referential communication performance and a number which apparently warrant no further research. Meta-analyses can reveal not only what we know, but also 'blind spots' in our knowledge resulting from a lack of representativeness in our research designs.
in Education.
1930. Vol. 4, pp. 84-85
REFERENTIAL
Pergamon
Press Ltd. Prtnted in Great Britain.
COMMUNICATION
W. Patrick Wisconsin
Research
Madison,
PERFORMANCE
Dickson
and Development
Wisconsin
53706,
Center
USA
Research on children's oral communication skills has flourished in recent years. One of the major 'traditions' in research on speaking and listening skills uses referential communication tasks. A search of the literature located 70 publications in which communication skills were studied using referential tasks (Dickson and Moskoff, 1979). These 70 publications contained 85 experiments (where an 'experiment' was considered to involve different subjects) and 119 referential tasks. Each study was coded on a number of dimensions and entered in to an SPSS (Nie ct ~2, 1975) system file with each of the 119 tasks considered a separate case. By use of SELECT IF statements the number of cases for analyses on specific variables was 70 publications, 85 experiments, or 119 tasks. The analysis with respect irrespective over time in
had two different purposes: first, to examine findings across studies to the factors influencing referential communication performance and of effects, to characterise the field of research in terms of changes experimental designs employed.
With respect to factors influencing referential communication performance several conclusions emerge unambiguously. Age is strongly related to performance: of the age 44 experiments including age as a factor, all but five reported a significant effect, and the five in which age was not related had either very small numbers of subjects or a restricted age range. No further research is needed to establish that age is a factor in communication performance; what is needed is research on interactions between age and other factors. Of the 41 experiments which explicity reported sex as a factor, 34 found no differences when comparing male-male and female-female pairs. Of the seven in which sex related differences were found, females were superior in two, males in three, while results were mixed in two. Given that many of these experiments included two or more dependent measures and that several of the significant differences were statistical interactions, it appears somewhat fewer sex differences were found than No further research seems to be called might have been expected to occur by chance. for on comparisons between male-male and female-female pairs. In contrast, it is interesting that none of the 85 experiments covered in this review compared misedsex pairs with same-sex pairs. In future studies, where researchers have male and it might be worth contrasting mixed-sex and same-sex pairs, insofemale subjects, far as this variable has not been studied in referential communication research.
84
Referential
Communication
Performance
85
Verbal ability measures have tended to show a positive relationship to communication Of the 37 experiments reporting ability measures on the children, performance. there were 28 where it was not clear if IQ effects were analysed (though the supposition is that analyses were done in many cases and that non-significant difOf the nine explicitly reporting analyses of ferences were simply not reported). ability, three report finding no relationship, while in the six which did, the median correlation between ability and communication performance was .31. The socio-economic status of subjects was reported in 58 of the 85 experiments, and 44 of these were middle to upper-middle class children. Only nine of the studies explicitly report analyses of socio-economic status as a factor, and eight of these reported a significant relationship between SES and communication performance. All eight of these studies involved a comparison between lower-class children and middle-class children. It should be pointed out that many other factors covary with social class in these studies, including unmeasured differences in verbal ability and possible biases introduced in the testing situation, so these must be viewed skeptically. The second point of interest in the review was to characterise the field of research in this area. The coding of studies and entering them into an SPSS file permits one to examine changes in characteristics of the studies over time, in addition to the analysis of factors influencing the dependent variable. For example, from 1960 to 1979, there was a steady decrease in studies using communication between pairs of children and a steady increase in those using designs in which an experimenter communicated with the child, perhaps gaining tighter experimental control at the expense of ecological validity. Of the children studied, 57 per cent were between the ages of four and nine, reflecting the impact of the Piagetian concept of egocentrism upon this research. The lack of extensive research on children during middle childhood and early adolescence is a regrettable void in our knowledge of the development of communication skills. The analysis of research on referential communication skills has revealed a number of factors clearly linked to referential communication performance and a number which apparently warrant no further research. Meta-analyses can reveal not only what we know, but also 'blind spots' in our knowledge resulting from a lack of representativeness in our research designs.