Theory of Mind development and narrative writing: A longitudinal study

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to study the development of Theory of Mind capacities in one individual´s narrative writing from year 1 in elementary school through high school and onwards. To this end this longitudinal study focuses on evaluative expressions while drawing on the Appraisal theoretical frame work, developed by Martin (2000) and Martin and White (2005). Both quantitative and qualitative methods are applied. The findings illustrate clear developmental trends in the evaluative choices regarding Appraisal categories, as well as the amount and types of evaluations, and the linguistic realizations of the evaluations in the texts. The findings also display how the individual´s Theory of Mind capacities are inextricably linked to the level of advancement in linguistic repertoire and an increased complexity and sophistication in the organization of narrative structure. The paper concludes with a discussion of some pedagogical implications of the study.

Improvisations: Methods and Methodologies in Lifespan Writing Research

“…Mixed methods research can deepen the information retrieved from a study, ultimately leading to more informed findings; however, mixed methods can be time-consuming (Almalki, 2016;Greene et al, 1989). From studies which attempt to investigate changes in the nature and amount of preschoolers' parental writing support (Skibbe et al, 2013), to single-subject studies which attempt to examine the development of figurative competence in narrative writing from elementary school through high school and beyond (Svensson, 2018), longitudinal mixed methods studies of writing draw on both qualitative and quantitative methods in combination with one another in order to quantify the phenomena under investigation while also accounting for the contexts in which the phenomena occurs.…”

“…Our final corpus of studies included 2 mixed method studies (Skibbe et al, 2013;Svensson, 2018). These studies measured lexicalized figurativeness and genuine figurativeness, with number of units (clauses) and percentage of these measures in the narrative texts (Svensson, 2018), and semistructured writing tasks for both parents and children (Skibbe et al, 2013;Svensson, 2018).…”

“…For studies which focused on both students and texts (7/14), all but one were a combination of assigned texts and interviews, with two of those studies also allowing for extracurricular writing (Sommers & Saltz, 2004;Roozen, 2008), and one study strictly based on interviews (Compton-Lilly, 2014). The mixed method studies in our corpus used categorization of narrative texts and its method of analysis of the data (Svensson, 2018) and t-tests, regression, and observation (Skibble et al, 2013).…”

Chapter 11. An Autoethnographic Springboard to More Extensive Lifespan Writing Research

“…Mixed methods research can deepen the information retrieved from a study, ultimately leading to more informed findings; however, mixed methods can be time-consuming (Almalki, 2016;Greene et al, 1989). From studies which attempt to investigate changes in the nature and amount of preschoolers' parental writing support (Skibbe et al, 2013), to single-subject studies which attempt to examine the development of figurative competence in narrative writing from elementary school through high school and beyond (Svensson, 2018), longitudinal mixed methods studies of writing draw on both qualitative and quantitative methods in combination with one another in order to quantify the phenomena under investigation while also accounting for the contexts in which the phenomena occurs.…”

“…Qualitative longitudinal writing research includes many different types of methods of research and research designs. From single-subject interview-based studies that follow a student throughout their entire school career (e.g., Svensson, 2018), to text-based studies that attempt to gauge how college students' literate lives beyond the academy shape their writing in the classroom (e.g., Roozen, 2008), to grounded theory-based accounts of how extracurricular writing helps to support students' development of voice through writing (e.g., Chen, 2017), qualitative studies of longitudinal writing all share the common concern of trying to understand how writers develop over time by attending closely to a wide range of complex contexts and situations.…”