Effects of Self- and Others’ Evaluations on Correct Tracing Behavior: Children in Special Support Classes Learning Kanji Handwriting

Abstract

Study objective: Effects on correct tracing behavior when learning kanji handwriting of self-evaluations and others’ evaluations of pupils’ handwriting. Design: ABAC and AC designs with follow-ups. Setting: A kanji-writing task in lessons in writing Japanese. Participants: Children (N=5) enrolled in special support classes at an elementary school. Independent variables: Study I: Self-evaluations of the quality of the pupils’ tracing of gray kanji characters; Study II: Self- and teachers’ evaluations of the tracing behavior and the concordance of those evaluations. Measure: The percentage of strokes written outside of the gray lines of the kanji characters being traced. Results: In Study I, the conventional method of teaching kanji handwriting had no significant effect on the percentage of incorrect (outside-of-the-lines) strokes made when tracing. The children’s performance improved in the self-evaluation period, but that effect was not long-lasting. When the self-evaluation procedure was no longer being used, the percentage of outside-of-the-lines strokes returned to the pre-intervention level. In Study II, evaluations by the teachers were added and the percentage of outside-of-the-lines strokes decreased. This level of correct tracing performance was maintained after termination of the intervention. Conclusion: Self- and others' evaluations are easy to use in classrooms. In the present study, they were associated with an increase in correct kanji tracing. Because the intervention effect was small for some children, further research is needed to develop more successful teaching methods.