Trend Analysis of Research Using Evaluation Tools of Languages Abilities for Young Children: Based on Early Children Education Journals registered with the Korea Research Foundation

유아 언어능력 평가연구의 동향 분석 -한국학술진흥재단 등재 학회지를 중심으로

This study has a goal to read a trend of language research by analysing evaluation tools and methods that researchers have used for assessing young children's language abilities. Thus the study has chosen 237 language ability evaluation methods out of 121 young child's language ability evaluation researches. The treatises were selected from 4 types of early childhood education journals registered on the Korea Research Foundation. The data analysis was employed for processing the frequency and percentage of the collected data. The results were as follows: First, of single age groups the subject group most selected was five-year-olders and of mixed-age groups the subject group most selected was from three to five, and the number of subjects in researches were mostly below fifty children. The researches were sorted into an 'experimental/ investigational researching' type that has been frequently re-utilized by others, an 'interview type' using a data collection method, and a 'difference verification' type using a data analysis method which has been used in majority of studies. Second, the number of treaties that required data analysis has increased since 1996. Concludingly, the analysis of young child's language ability evaluation tools shows that the purposes of many researches were concentrated on studying children's knowledge about language, children's language functions such as speaking, reading, writing and listening, while evaluation contents were focused on speaking and writing.