A Follow-Up of an Experimental Teaching Method in Music at the Fourth and Fifth Grade Levels

Abstract

IN THE MARCH, 1955, issue of the Journal of Experimental Educationl* the author report ed the results of an experiment he conducted in 1952-53 at the Concord School, Edina, Minne sota. The purpose of that study was to deter mine what effects might be observed when i n strumental training is introduced into the con ventional music curriculum. A compar i s o n was made between two types of music programs: instrumental-vocal and vocal alone. In order that main effects of experimental treatment and grade level could be measu red simultaneously the writer set up a 2 x 2 factor ial design. Thus a control and experim ental group were selected at the fourth grade and the same procedure followed at the fifth grade lev el, making a total of four subclasses. The con trol subgroups were taught primarily by the singing approach while the experimental class es had equal amounts of instruction time in vo cal and instrumental performance. Both the control and experimental subgroups had music class daily for the entire school year of 1952-53. Each class period was thirty min utes in duration. In order to minimize the ef fect of the instructor, the investigator taught all four classes. However, due to c i r c urn stances beyond the control of the author, the treatment differences could be extended only over a period of twenty-five consecutive weeks, rather than the entire school year. The tests used to measure the gains over the period of the experiment were selected to measure criteria of knowledge of musical nota tion, audio-visual discrimination, and music preference. The latter criterion was tested by means of the Keston Music Preference Test* and the former criteria by two tests the author constructed for this purpose. Test 1 measured knowledge of musical notation and Test 2 was designed to measure the discrimination pow er of the subjects with respect to musical audio visual stimuli. All the tests were administered before and after the experimental treatment. The technique of analysis of variance and co variance served as the main tool in the anal ysis of the data thus compiled. This device was useful not only because it yielded an exact test of the effects but also because it took into account the subjects' inequalities in initial abili ties and achievements.