Construction and Validation of a Narrative Writing Intelligence Scale (NWIS)

The major aim of this study was to construct a Narrative Writing Intelligence Scale (NWIS). To this end, the scale was designed by picking up the narrative intelligence factors proposed by Randall (1999). The designed NWIS, composed of 13 items, was used to score 200 pieces of writing of FCE students. These students were asked to watch a short animation and narrate it in written form, while they were not allowed to consult their teachers, classmates, or any English resources for vocabulary or grammar. They were not allowed to take any notes while the movie was being played either, since the power of memory and the range of vocabulary and grammar are constituents of narrative intelligence. Then, the writings were scored by the newly-developed 5-point Likert type scale. The scores were transferred to SPSS 18 and Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) was employed to determine the underlying factors in the designed scale. At the end, three items were removed and the final scale came out to be a 10-item scale. The results revealed that the scale can be explained by a 3-factor solution with a good level of reliability. The three-factor model accounted for 57.47% of the variance and the factors were named as Unity of the plot, Identification (of characters, objects and ideas), and Voice and Rhetoric. The variables which comprise the three factors, based on Randall (1999)’s definition are related to emplotment, characterization, narration, Genre-ation, and thematization.