Investigating the dimensions and determinants of children’s narrative writing in Korean

Abstract

This study investigated the dimensionality and determinants of Korean-speaking sixth-grade students’ narrative writing. The sample included 113 Korean children in one elementary school, aged 12.48 years. The Story Composition component of the Test of Written Language (Hammill & Larsen, 2009) was employed to evaluate writing quality and the Writing Assessment Measure (Dunsmuir et al., 2015) rubric was used to assess seven component skills of narrative writing: handwriting, spelling, punctuation, sentence structure and grammar, vocabulary, organization and overall structure, and ideas. Results of a confirmatory factor analysis supported both a one-factor and a three-factor model of narrative writing among Korean students. Further, hierarchical linear modeling analysis revealed that better handwriting and sentence structure and grammar skills significantly predicted higher writing quality. Gender also uniquely contributed to students’ narrative writing quality, with females performing better than males. Overall, the effects on narrative writing quality were largest for gender, followed by handwriting, and then by sentence structure and grammar.