A Study on Differences in Vocabulary Test Accuracy of Korean-English Bilingual Children according to Language Experience and Scoring Methods

Objectives: This study investigated differences in vocabulary performance among Korean- English bilingual children across four scoring methods (Korean, English, composite, and total scores) and examined how these abilities vary according to language environment and relative language proficiency.Methods: A total of 30 bilingual children aged 6-9 living in English-speaking and non-English-speaking environments participated. The Vocabulary Test for Korean-English Bilingual Children (VOKEB) was administered to calculate scores using the four methods. Data were analyzed to verify differences based on group and scoring method, and to examine relationships with environmental variables and relative language proficiency.Results: Results revealed a significant main effect of scoring methods. While single-language scores were significantly influenced by the language environment, composite and total scores showed no significant group differences and were consistently higher than single-language scores. Furthermore, relative language proficiency significantly predicted total scores in expressive vocabulary, indicating that children with greater balance between their two languages achieved higher total scores.Conclusion: The significance of this study lies in verifying that composite and total scores provide stable measures of conceptual knowledge, independent of environmental constraints. In particular, the total score method was identified as a meaningful indicator of bilingual balance in expressive vocabulary. These results suggest that employing these scoring methods as complementary measures can provide a more accurate assessment of both the overall lexical capacity and the linguistic balance of bilingual children.