How to use peer nomination method
When determining the nomination criteria, we should pay special attention to the following aspects:
First, determine the nature of the criteria to be selected according to the research purpose. There are two kinds of nomination criteria, namely, positive criteria (such as "You like …" and "You like …") and negative criteria (such as "You like …" and "You don't want …"). When studying, we should first decide what kind of standard to choose according to the purpose of the study, whether it is single positive or negative, or both. The results of other people's and our research show that there is only a moderate negative correlation between children's positive nomination scores and negative nomination scores, not a high negative correlation. This shows that the positive nomination score and negative nomination score reflect different aspects of children's peer communication, which represent different information. In addition, we analyze the positive and negative nomination scores of children with their actual behaviors, and find that they are specifically related to different behaviors. From these analyses, it can be seen that when applying nomination method, different nomination criteria are selected and the information obtained is different. Whether to choose one or both at the same time depends on the purpose of the study. Generally speaking, if children are to be divided into different social types according to the nomination results, such as popular type, rejected type and neglected type. Both positive and negative nomination criteria should be used. When using negative standards, we should pay attention to eliminating children's doubts and anxieties to ensure that children can answer with confidence.
Second, according to the level of children's psychological development, determine the specific content of the standard. Generally speaking, for young children, the standards should be specific and operable, and should not be general and abstract. For example, "Who do you like best" and "You like playing with Yijia best" are more specific than "Who do you think is the best". Naturally. The expression of international standards must also use children's language to make it easy to understand.
Third, the determined nomination criteria must ensure that children's choices come from their own wishes. Nomination criteria should be conducive to children's free choice, and choice is a reflection of children's own true psychological tendency, rather than an estimation of others' wishes and psychological tendencies. For example, the criteria of "which three children do you like best" can reflect children's own psychological tendency, but the criteria of "who is a good child in your class" may be difficult to accurately reflect children's own psychological tendency, because children may choose their peers according to the criteria that teachers often praise and like, but not necessarily themselves.
fourth, the number of nomination criteria should be determined appropriately. For older subjects, each nomination can use 1-3 criteria at the same time and make appropriate judgments, so it is best to use only one criterion at a time when letting children nominate.
Finally, we need to consider the number of objects that children choose according to the standard. For subjects above teenagers, the number of candidates (i.e. nominations) may be limited. There can also be no restrictions. However, from our experience and related research, children's nomination results for less than three are relatively stable and reliable, while those for more than three are not stable, which shows that they can choose companions with obvious characteristics. However, there is a relative lack of clear ability to distinguish companions who have certain differences in some characteristics. Therefore. For young children, the number of nominations should be limited to three.
iii. implementation of the nomination method
the implementation of the nomination method can usually be conducted by individuals and groups. Personal testing generally adopts conversation method, that is, ask children questions orally, let them answer orally, and record their answers. The paper-and-pencil method is often used in the group test, that is, the questions and requirements are written on the questionnaire paper, and the subjects write down their answers with pens after reading. Because children are basically illiterate, let alone able to write, their reading comprehension ability is extremely low and their self-control is poor. Therefore, group testing is not feasible for them, and only individual and oral testing can be adopted.
In individual tests, researchers and subjects are usually alone in one place, and the researchers ask questions (such as "Which three children in the class would you like to play with most"), and then let the children answer them. However, whose name children mention may be influenced by their memory, that is to say, children don't mention the names of some children in the class, perhaps not because they don't like them, but because they can't remember their names. In order to eliminate the influence of children's memory, an irrelevant factor, on the accuracy of the results, the following two methods can be adopted:
First, the photo nomination method is adopted, that is, the researcher first takes photos of every child in the class, so that when the nomination method is implemented, all the photos of his peers can be presented to a child, so that he can look at them carefully first and then nominate them. The research results show that this method can better eliminate the influence of children's memory and improve the reliability of the research results. However, this method also has the following limitations: first, it is time-consuming, laborious and expensive to take pictures of every child; Second, it is inconvenient to implement; Third, such factors as photo distortion, novelty and other related factors as dress, hairstyle, facial expression, movement and environment may distract children's attention and affect their nomination task.
Second, the on-site nomination method is adopted, that is, the children are called to a certain place in the group activity site, such as a corner of the class-in this position, the children can see all the other peers without being disturbed by them, and then they are asked questions, so that they can look at all the peers in the activity carefully first, and then nominate. This method is mainly used when we study children's peer relationship. The results show that this method can not only eliminate the influence factor of children's memory and improve the reliability of the research results, but also effectively overcome the above shortcomings of the latter compared with the photo nomination method, so it has obvious advantages such as economy, rapidity, simplicity and truthfulness.
In the actual application of this method, in order to ensure objectivity, we should pay attention to getting familiar with children in advance to eliminate children's strangeness, tension and curiosity; When asking questions, the tone, pitch, volume and expression should be natural, so as to prevent children from feeling unsafe and ensure that they can answer truthfully and safely; At the same time, it is necessary to ensure that children understand the guidance language, explain it to them in simple, clear and understandable language, and make them know how to answer. Can tell children how to say what they think, in order to eliminate children's doubts and anxiety; In particular, the location of choice is very important, so we must avoid the places where other peers and teachers are active, so as to avoid affecting and interfering with the ongoing nomination activities of children.
The research shows that the on-site nomination method is most suitable for children's characteristics, with strong practicability and feasibility, and is worth popularizing in practical research.
IV. Scoring and application of nomination results
According to the order of nomination, there are two ways: weighted scoring and unweighted scoring. The relevant analysis results of us and others show that the scores obtained by weighted and unweighted calculation methods for the same child nomination results have reached a very significant level. This shows that there is no difference in the order in which children are nominated when scoring. Because the weighted scoring method is relatively more complicated, time-consuming and of little practical significance, most researchers adopt the unweighted scoring method at present.
There are two ways to score children's nomination results: single score and comprehensive score. The single scoring method is to calculate the positive nomination score (that is, the acceptance score) according to the results of children's positive nomination, and calculate the negative nomination score (that is, the rejection score) according to the results of children's negative nomination; The comprehensive scoring method is to calculate the positive nomination points and negative nomination points in a certain way, and get the social preference points and social influence points respectively. Social preference points are obtained by subtracting negative nomination points from positive nomination points, and social influence points are obtained by adding positive nomination points and negative nomination points.
According to the positive nomination score and negative nomination score, children in different social status can be divided. The specific method is to convert the positive and negative nomination scores of a class of children into standard score respectively, and then determine their types according to the following classification criteria:
Figure 1
In addition to this classification method, two single scores and two comprehensive scores can be combined to divide different types of children. The specific way is to convert the original score into standard score first, and then determine the social status type according to the following classification criteria:
Figure 2
After classifying children according to the above classification methods, we can compare and analyze the distribution characteristics of all kinds of children in the whole, that is, what is the proportion of all kinds of children and what is the trend of their development with age, so as to explore the occurrence and development process of children's peer communication. In addition, we can also explore the distribution characteristics of all kinds of children in the gender dimension, that is, the proportion of all kinds of children in men and women, from which we can find many beneficial and valuable results. For example, among the popular children, girls are the majority; Among the rejected children, most are boys; Among neglected children, girls are the majority, but boys also have a certain proportion.
if we combine other indicators, such as the observation of children's behavior and psychological characteristics, and the evaluation of parents' educational attitudes, ways and personality characteristics, we can explore the basic psychological and behavioral characteristics of all kinds of children and various possible factors that affect children's peer communication. As for the research of educational intervention to improve children's social status, the changes of children's nomination scores before and after can also be used as an important objective index to measure the effect of educational intervention.