The Relationship of Young Children's Peer Group Status to Their Use of Communication Strategies
Rosegrant, Teresa Jane
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Permalink
https://hdl.handle.net/2142/65965
Description
Title
The Relationship of Young Children's Peer Group Status to Their Use of Communication Strategies
Author(s)
Rosegrant, Teresa Jane
Issue Date
1980
Department of Study
Education
Discipline
Education
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Degree Level
Dissertation
Keyword(s)
Education, Early Childhood
Language
eng
Abstract
Problem. The purpose of this study was to investigate the communicative competence of preschool children by examining the relationship between their use of communication strategies and their high or low status within the peer group.
Research Questions. Three research questions guided this investigation: (1) Are peer status differences (high vs. low) among four-year-old children in a preschool setting related to their use of communication strategies in child-child interactions? (2) Do inappropriate communication strategy choices due to a lack of deference by a low status child to a high status child result in problematic situations or negative responses? (3) What adjustments in language use concerning deference of low status child to high status child exist within formal linguistic categories?
Procedure. The social status and communication strategies used by four-year-old preschool boys and girls were obtained through interviews and observations. The high or low peer status of children in the girls' and boys' groups was determined by an interview in which children ranked each other on social attributes (toughness, smartness, and niceness). The verbal data gained during observations of same-sex child-child interactions were categorized into communication strategies. Additionally, negative responses to the use of communication strategies and three linguistic categories (use of stress, mean length of interaction events and number of verbs) were obtained from the observations. Comparisons of both high and low status boys and girls were submitted to analysis of variance.
Findings. The results indicated that twelve of the twenty-seven communication strategies used by boys, were selected significantly more often by high status boys than by low status boys. Thirty communication strategies were used by girls but only one was used significantly more often by low status girls. A significant difference between high and low status boys was also found for three linguistic categories: use of stress, mean length of interaction and number of verbs used. A qualitative analysis of the boys' group indicated that negative responses resulted from the low status boys' use of communication strategies associated with high status. This investigation offered insights into the communicative competence of preschool children.
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