Measuring receptive grammar in kindergarten and elementary school children in the German National Educationa Panel Study
NEPS Survey Paper No. 24. Leibniz Institute for Educational Trajectories, National Educational Panel Study, (2017)Abstract
Listening comprehension, the ability to understand the meaning of words, sentences and texts, is an important skill for participation in educational processes and a significant predictor of learning outcomes. Therefore, listening comprehension is measured in different starting cohorts within the German National Educational Panel Study (NEPS). In the NEPS Starting Cohort 2, the kindergarten cohort, listening comprehension in the majority language (German) is measured on the word (receptive vocabulary) and sentence level (receptive grammar). This paper presents an overview of the measurement of receptive grammar, i. e. the comprehension of sentences and words with varying grammatical characteristics. In Starting Cohort 2, receptive grammar skills were assessed at two measurement points, namely in the penultimate year of kindergarten, when children were 4 to 5 years old, and the first year of elementary school, when children were 6 to 7 years old. The paper reports the test procedures and describes common factors as well as differences between the two assessments. Furthermore, the detailed test administration processes are described and descriptive results are succinctly presented.