Journal of Research in Music Education

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of music training on preschoolers' Performance IQ (Wechsler Preschool and Primary Intelligence Scale-Revised, 1989). Preschoolers in the treatment group (N = 15) met weekly from October 1996 through April 1997. A Mann-Whitney test on Performance IQ (scaled) gain scores by group yielded U = 67, p =.059; a Mann-Whitney test on Performance IQ (raw) gain scores by group yielded U = 65, p =.049. Regressions of IQ gain scores on age showed significantly less gain for older children in the control group (N = 15). A regression analysis showed that the relationship of Performance IQ to age was not significant for the treatment group. Slopes intersected at age 3. For 3-year-olds in this study, an intellectually stimulating environment, per se, results in a gain in the ability to perform spatial-temporal tasks.

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of individual testing, in conjunction with group instruction, on students' sight-singing skills. A quasi-experimental study was designed to test the following prediction: Choir students given a regular program of individual testing will show a significantly greater improvement in individual sight-singing over students given group sight-singing instruction alone. A sample of 306 subjects was drawn from the beginning and advanced choirs of six high schools in the State of Washington where sight-singing was taught. Intact choirs were randomly assigned in a pretest-posttest control group design to examine the effect of a señes of three individual tests administered to the experimental group throughout one semester. Results showed a significantly greater gain in individual sight-singing performance on the major melody for members of the experimental group. Members of the advanced choirs scored significantly higher on the major melody across conditions. There were no significant differences in either variable for the minor melody. There was a significant school-to-school difference in individual achievement for both melodies, but no interaction with the treatment. Individual testing was found to be an effective means of improving individual sight-singing performance in group instructional situations.

A questionnaire regarding music classroom activity preferences was administered to 2,251 kindergarten through fifth-grade students. Students stated whether they liked to participate in 13 traditional music-classroom activities and eight music-program-related activities, and they identified their favorite activity among six. Students preferred playing instruments above all other activities within and across grade levels, and 50% reported instrument playing as their favorite activity. Singing and listening were about equally liked within and across grades. Students preferred creative movement over dance within and across grades; first graders responded less positively to dance than to any other activity. Positive attitude toward composing declined with advancing grade level. Eighty-one percent liked to perform in music programs, and more than half liked to perform in small ensembles. Students responded very positively to attending concerts and having performers come to the classroom, but were less positive about participating in music contests.

The purpose of this study was to examine the role of same- and other-group identification in musical preference decision-making. Subjects were African-American (n = 189) and white (n = 280) music students in Grades 6, 7, and 8. Each subject responded along a 9-point Likert scale to 10 instrumental music excerpts, five performed by African-American jazz artists and five performed by white jazz artists. Examples were presented according to one of three conditions: (1) music only, (2) music accompanied by a photograph of the performers, or (3) music accompanied by a photograph of different performers representing a different ethnicity. Results indicated that white subjects preferred examples by white performers regardless of presentation condition. African-American subjects preferred examples by white performers when presented with music alone, but preferred examples believed to be by African-American performers under the musical/visual conditions.

Charles Faulkner Bryan (1911-1955), music educator and ethnomusicologist, was best known as a composer who was influenced by Appalachian folk music. This study focuses on his ideas about general music and the qualities of exemplary music teachers. Bryans own general music curriculum and his teaching attributes are also examined. Bryan believed in solid planning for instruction and maintained that the general music curriculum should be eclectic, experiential, community-oriented, founded on local culture and student interests, and include both vernacular and art music. Bryan valued adaptability, resourcefulness, and creativity in music educators. He believed that a teacher should demonstrate thorough musical knowledge, strong technical skill, an attractive personality, good work habits, and positive attitudes. By all accounts, he displayed these qualities in his own teaching. Bryan designed and taught a general music course that included multicultural music and curriculum integration. His work may have influenced present practices and curricula.

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of a pullout string program on student achievement in the writing, reading, mathematics, and citizenship sections of the Ohio Proficiency Test. One hundred forty-eight fourth-grade string students and 148 fourth-grade nonstring students from a southwestern Ohio city school district were ability-matched according to their performance on the verbal section of the Cognitive Abilities Test. The scores of the Ohio Proficiency Test were then recorded and compared. This study involved a two-group static-group comparison design. A two-sample independent t-test analysis was used to determine if there was a significant difference between the achievement scores of the string students who were excused from class twice a week for 30 minutes and the matched group of nonstring students who remained in class. It was hypothesized that there would be no significant difference between the two matched groups. The results revealed a significant difference in favor of the string students' achievement in reading and citizenship, with no significant difference between the two matched groups in the writing and mathematics sections of the Ohio Proficiency Test.

From as early as 1855 and extending to the middle of the twentieth century, American industry encouraged the formation of bands and other musical organizations for workers, ostensibly to enhance their welfare. The actual purposes of music in industry, however, were often to prevent formation of unions and maintain social regimes. As industry expanded into the agrarian South, industrial bands augmented the limited town band tradition. Their performances, role-modeling and community-based instruction of young people filled curricular voids and developed favorable cultural environments for the eventual addition of instrumental music to public school curricula. A historical case study of the activities and influences of a significant industrial band in the state of Georgia provides a basis for formulating conclusions regarding influences of industry on music education in the American South.

The present study was designed to assess novice teachers* perceptions of timing in music instruction and to identify the aspects of timing that are associated with positive perceptions of instructional pacing. We selected eight 1-3-minute excerpts from teaching-practicum videotapes of four novice teachers teaching in a choral rehearsal, a band rehearsal, and two elementary music classrooms. Each teacher appeared in two excerpts that differed with regard to the pace of instruction depicted in each. Novice teachers (N = 44) viewed the videotaped excerpts and evaluated the pace of instruction along six semantic differential scales: fast—slow; appropriate—inappropriate; tense—relaxed; smooth-uneven; too fast-too slow; good-bad. Subjects discriminated among the faster and slower examples on five of the six evaluation dimensions, and among teachers on all six dimensions. Subjects rated the pace of instruction more positively when the rates of student performance episodes and teacher activity episodes were higher rather than lower, and when the mean durations of teacher and student activity were shorter rather than longer. These variables may function as operational measures of the pace of instruction in music performance.

Through collaboration, a music teacher and a researcher attempted to learn more about the teaching/learning processes in one second-grade general music classroom. While some components of the teaching/learning processes that occurred in this music classroom were identified through tins qualitative study, the most important findings were those that emerged during the collaborative process of analysis and interpretation of data. Through active participation in the analysis process, the teacher came to understand the impact of the emergent issues on the teaching and learning in her own classroom and, as a result, made some concerted efforts to change her teaching. Her reactions point to the importance of providing teachers with opportunities to examine their own work and to consider how issues related to teaching and learning processes manifest themselves in their work. They also suggest that unless teachers have these opportunities, discussions of issues related to their teaching may be meaningless to them.

This study was designed to determine if a relationship exists among the terms “aesthetic response, ” “felt emotional response, ” and “perceived tension ” when used by individuals to describe their personal response to music. Subject groups, music majors (n = 128) and nonmusic majors (n = 128), were randomly divided into three experimental groups, one for each term, and one control group for free response. Data were gathered as subjects manipulated the dial of the Continuous Response Digital Interface (CRDI) to indicate the magnitude of their response to the musk heard during four taped listening segments. Written responses were collected following each segment in a packet provided to each subject. The four pieces heard were “Nessun dorma” from Turandot by Giacomo Puccini, “Fugue” from Toccata and Fugue in D minor by J. S. Bach, “Scherzo” from Symphony No. 3 (“Eroica”) by Ludwig van Beethoven, and “The Stars and Stripes Forever” by John Philip Sousa. These selections were presented in four different orders in an attempt to control for a possible order effect. An analysis of variance (ANOVA) indicated no significant difference between the responses of music majors and nonmusic majors. However, a significant difference was found among the terms. Analysis of group graphs indicated a strong similarity between aesthetic-response and felt-emotional-response conditions. Surprisingly, the free-response condition, where subjects were given no instructions except to move the dial, demonstrated a remarkable similarity to the aesthetic-response and felt-emotional-response conditions. The perceived-tension condition showed marked differences to the other three conditions.

The purpose of this study was to assess the degree to which listeners can discern if melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic parameters and pairings of these parameters are abstracted from the ongoing flow of a musical event. Students in Grades 3, 6, 9, and 12(N = 114) listened three times to 12 prerecorded, four-phrase songs and moved the pointer of a Continuous Response Digital Interface dial to indicate whether they considered the second, third, and fourth phrase of each song to be the same as, similar to, or different from the songs initial phrase. In the significant grade-by-phrase-type interaction, students in Grades 3, 6, and 9 identified phrases predetermined as being the same as a song's initial phrase a greater percentage of time than they did similar or different phrases; students in Grade 12 identified different phrases more often than they identified phrases that were the same as or similar to the initial phrase.