Page 102 - Second language development of newly arrived migrant kindergarteners - Frederike Groothoff

102 Chapter 5 measure of complexity, leaving only the GOA sequence. The Structural Complexity score ranges from high to low, based on the relationships between the macrostructural elements. Different combinations of these three elements are seen as more or less complex (Bonifacci, Barbieri, Tomassini, & Roch, 2017). Different authors have used different methods for calculating Structural Complexity. Some authors counted all elements, others assigned points to different combinations of elements (a.o., Altman et al., 2016; Gagarina, 2016). Another possibility is to include the setting (Peristeri, Andreou, & Tsimpli, 2017). Other researchers assigned a level to the complexity, varying from absence of complexity to a high level of complexity. Some used these levels and did their analysis with only the highest level assigned to one of the episodes of the story (Bonifacci et al., 2017). In the present study we used four levels of complexity which will be explained below. Furthermore, we assigned points according to the level of complexity to each episode of the story to calculate a total score as a measure of complexity. An episode could have one of the following four levels of complexity: “Absence of complexity” implies none of the elements or only an Attempt or an Outcome. “Low complexity” implies the presence of only the Goal, or both Attempt and Outcome but no Goal. “Medium complexity” implies the presence of two elements, of which at least one is the Goal. “High complexity” implies the presence of all three elements, thus a complete sequence of Goal, Attempt, and Outcome. The levels “Absence,” “Low,” “Medium,” and “High” complexity were respectively scored as 0, 1, 2, and 3 (see Table 5.5). Finally, the scores of all three episodes were added up, resulting in a maximum score of 9 for Structural Complexity. Table 5.5: The four Levels of Structural Complexity Level of complexity The presence of Goal, Attempt, or Points Outcome assigned Absence of complexity Low complexity Medium complexity High complexity Goal Attempt Outcome ---0 -+-0 --+0 +--1 ++1 ++-2 +-+2 +++3 Our analysis of complexity is similar to Bonifacci et al. (2017), with one adjustment, namely that also the mentioning of only the Goal was assigned as having a LOW COMPLEXITY, instead of counting the mentioning of only the Goal as absence of