World knowledge questions

Children’s success on the world knowledge questions increased significantly over time
(Friedman Two Way Anova: X² = 45.8, df=2, p<.0000). The same pattern was found for the
Ostensive definition group (Friedman Two Way Anova: X² = 9.5, df=2, p<.05), the Lexical
contrast group (Friedman Two Way Anova: X² = 16.4, df=2, p<.0005) and the Definition
group (Friedman Two Way Anova: X² = 23.1, df=2, p<.0000).

Does the children ^,s prior knowledge of the lexical items influence their performance in the
short questions task?

Categorisation questions

Figure 7.13 shows that all the children performed better in the partially represented words
than the unknown words across testing. The differences were found to be significant
(Wilcoxon: Pl: Z=2.5, p<.05; P2: Z=1.9, p<.05; P3: Z=2.8, p<.005). Separate analysis for
each group revealed the same pattern. Significant differences were found for the Definition
group during post test 1 (Wilcoxon: Z=2.07, p<.05).

Figure 7.13 Total number of correct responses in the “categorisation questions” by
children’s prior knowledge of the lexical items across testing

100

Post test 1       Post test 2       Post test 3

I Unknown
∏ Partially represented

80
60
40
20
O

World knowledge questions

Figure 7.14 below shows that children performed better in the partially represented than the
unknown words. The differences were significant across testing (Wilcoxon: Pl: Z=4.01,
p<.0005; P2: Z=2.04, p<.05; P3: Z=3.05, p<.005). The same pattern was found for the
Ostensive definition group in post test 3 (Wilcoxon: Z=2.4, p<.05) and the Lexical contrast
group in post test 1 (Wilcoxon: Z=3.2, p<.005) and post test 3 (Wilcoxon: Z=2.07, p<,05).

230

<<   227   228   229   230   231   232   233   >>

More intriguing information