Is two better than one? Comparing children's narrative competence in an individual versus joint storytelling task

This research looks at the potential of peer interaction practices in improving narrative competence by analysing the efficacy of peer learning on children’s oral narrative productions. Gains on a macro-level (structure and coherence of the narrative) and a micro-level (cohesion of the narrative) were analysed. Fifty-six primary school children school participated in this study. Each child told a narrative either individually (individual condition) or while interacting with a peer (joint condition). We explored whether: children produce longer, more structured, coherent and cohesive narratives in a joint condition rather than individually; under which condition was the joint task more beneficial for children’s narrative competence, in terms of narrative scores in the individual condition, discrepancy between the members of the same pair, and quality of interaction. Initially, no difference in frequencies was found between pairs including children who incremented their narrative performance from the individual to the joint condition and pairs including children who did not increment their narrative performance. Results suggested that peer interaction was particularly beneficial for individuals with lower individual competence, and for pairs with a high discrepancy among individual scores. Children’ quality of interaction did not seem to influence the efficacy of peer learning on children’s narrative competence.