2013 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

Measurement of children's judgment regarding the degree of reliability in vague expressions

Research Project

Project/Area Number	22730516
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
Allocation Type	Single-year Grants
Research Field	Educational psychology
Research Institution	Shokei Gakuin College
Principal Investigator	YOSHIKO Koizumi 尚絅学院大学, 総合人間科学部, 准教授 (80447119)
Project Period (FY)	2010-04-01 – 2014-03-31
Keywords	あいまいさ / メタ言語 / 情報のなわばり
Research Abstract	This study examined children's understanding of vague and metalinguistic expressions, especially in regard to their determination of the degree of reliability in short sentences (including vague expressions) by two speakers describing the taste of a real but unknown fruit. The subjects were asked to rate the degree of reliability by three different approaches: the point estimation method, the interval estimation method, and multiple scale tests. The results show that elementary school students only grasped the differences between the vague expressions and the middle school and high school students realized the differences between the metalinguistic expressions, but were unable to use them effectively. In addition, the university students selected the degree of reliability based on the vague and metalinguistic expressions. The implication of this study is that students should be aware of various vague expressions in language learning.