This section covers the procedures of employing the above experimental materials in the current study. Section 3.3.1 introduces a pilot study and its limitations,
and Section 3.3.2 describes the procedures of the formal study. Scoring and statistical analysis are given in Section 3.3.3.
3.3.1 Pilot Study
The purpose of the pilot study was to see if the social status relation is a factor in determining Chinese children‘s understanding of promises by examining their responses to broken promises with different obstacles. Forty-eight participants, 32 children and 16 adults were further divided into two experimental groups, which consisted of a group of children (6-year-olds and 8-year-olds) and an adult control group (around 25 years old).
The subjects were asked to complete a comprehension task with six short stories of broken promises individually. In every situation of broken promises, a different obstacle kept the promiser from fulfilling the commitment: (1) the involvement of an authority figure (e.g. an elder asking the promiser to help with other tasks), (2) a dilemma between carrying out an obligation of something perceived to be very important or the promise (e.g. homework), or (3) an unforeseen event (e.g.
illness). In half of the stories, the promiser was making commitment to an elder (e.g. a parent or a teacher). In the rest of the stories, the promiser was making a promise to someone of the same generation (e.g. a friend or a classmate). The scores were subjected to a 3 (age groups) × 2 (social status) × 3 (obstacles) analysis of variance.
After listening to the six stories, the subjects were asked to reply to twelve questions of promise judgments and responsibility judgments. After the children answered the questions, the experimenter asked them to justify their answers.
The results showed that there was a slight difference in the judgment of responsibility; our participants tended to blame the promiser when making a promise to a person from higher social status. In addition, they tended to blame the promiser
more often for breaking a promise as a result of his/her own business. The present findings showed that children‘s understanding of promises was not affected much by the social distance between the promiser and the promisee. It was also found that the 8-year-old Chinese children showed a clear concept of promise, a finding which differed from the results of previous studies.
Certain inadequacies and limitations were found in this pilot study. First, the relatively small amount of subjects may have led to a lack of significance in the statistical analysis. Moreover, there were only two groups (6-year-olds and 8-year-olds); therefore it was difficult to yield a developmental tendency. Furthermore, only a comprehension task was conducted in this pilot study, which could not reveal children‘s strategy use of making a promise. The above inadequacies of the pilot study were thus modified in the formal study.
3.3.2 Formal Study
In the formal study, consent forms for the supervisors of children were given to the teachers of the kindergarten and elementary school in advance. A brief introduction of the tasks was presented in the consent forms. The supervisors were informed that the performance of the subjects would be recorded and that the data would only be used for the purpose of conducting research.
The children whose parents agreed to allow them to participate in the experiment were asked do the tasks individually in the classroom. They were told they would watch a short story on a laptop and then have to answer some questions afterward. They were also informed that there were no ―standard‖ or ―correct‖
answers for each question, and that the experimenter would provide them with as much support as they needed. Before starting each task, the subjects underwent a
same form with the experimental items. After the experimenter was sure that the subjects understood the process of the experiment, the story of the tasks were played out on the laptop using cute animal characters and pre-recorded voices in a sequential order. The twenty scenarios of Yuanyuan talking to different people (sixteen experimental items and four fillers) were played randomly to the subjects. In every scenario, the subjects went through the production and first comprehension tasks before the outcome was told. After presenting the outcome of the promise, the subjects were then asked to complete the second comprehension task, as shown in Figure 3-1.
Figure 3-1. The Order of the Three Tasks in Each Scenario
All of the subjects‘ answers and responses were audio-recorded during the 25-minute experiment section. In addition, all the recording data were transcribed and analyzed afterward.
Scenario Description
Production Task
First Comprehension Task
Informing of Outcome
Second Comprehension Task
3.3.3 Scoring and Statistical Analysis
In the comprehension tasks, the subjects had to provide a ―yes‖ or ―no‖ answer to judge whether a promise had been made or not. The expected answer to the promise judgment question ‗Do you think Yuanyuan has promised the teacher
something?’ was given one point. Unexpected, indeterminate, or irrelevant responses
were not given any points. According to Searle (1969), an insincere promise is still considered a legal promise. In addition, the content of the promise can be implied in the context, and thus an implicit promise might be accepted (Mey, 2001; Searle, 1969).Therefore, all the expected answers in the first comprehension task are ―yes.‖
For the promise judgment of the second comprehension task, the expected responses were also scored 1, and unexpected responses were scored 0. In Astington‘s (1988a) analysis, the outcome of the promise could not be an element that constitutes a promise; that is, an unfulfilled promise is still a promise for adults. Hence, the expected answers in the second comprehension task are ―yes‖ as well.
In the producion task, the question, ‘How would you say to make a promise?’
the promises spontaneously made by the subjects were examined structurally and categorized into different types of strategies based on Astington‘s (1988b) classification, as shown in Table 3-9:
Table 3-9. The Types of Promising Strategies
Major Type Sub-type Examples Astington‘s
classification will help you to get the color paper‘ you water the plant after I finish my homework.‘
Type 4: Irrelevant responses ‗Zhe ge xiaoji hen keai.‘ ‗This chick is really cute.‘
Astington‘s ST1
Type 5: No response nothing; ‗Wo bu zhidao.‘ ‗I don‘t know.‘
Astington‘s ST1
All of the tasks were analyzed using SPSS 19, a type of statistical software. The descriptive statistics of mean scores and standard deviation of the comprehension tasks were reported. One-way ANOVA and pair sample t-test analysis was executed to examine the significance of different variables as well as the interaction among them.
Finally, the data of the production task were examined by Chi-square analysis. A second rater was invited to code the production data independently, and the agreement reached 98%.