THE EFFECT OF INSTRUCTION ON EIGHTH GRADE BAND STUDENTS’ UNDERSTANDING OF PRACTICE
by
STACEY C. KOLTHAMMER
Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements
For the degree of Master of Arts in Music Education
Thesis Adviser: Dr. William I. Bauer
Department of Music
CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY
May 2009
CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY
SCHOOL OF GRADUATE STUDIES
We hereby approve the thesis/dissertation of
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candidate for the ______degree *.
(signed)______(chair of the committee)
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*We also certify that written approval has been obtained for any proprietary material contained therein.
1 TABLE OF CONTENTS
LIST OF TABLES …………………………………….……………...... 4
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS …………………………………………………… 6
ABSTRACT …………………………………………………………………… 7
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION ………………………………………….. 9
Definition of Practice ……………………………………………..... 9 The Complex Nature of Practice ………………………………….... 10 Developing the Practice Skills of Students ……………………….... 12 Need for the Study ………………………………………………..... 13 Purpose of the Study ……………………………………………….. 14 Research Questions ……………………………………………….... 14 Definitions of Terms …..………………………………………….... 15 Delimitations ……………………………………………………….. 16
CHAPTER TWO: REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE …………………. 17
Developmental Stages of Practice …………………………………... 17 Practice Skills of Professional Musicians …………………………... 18 Practice Skills of Young Musicians ………………………………… 19 Leon-Guerrero (2004) ………………………………………………. 20 Intrinsic Motivation and Self-Efficacy ……………………………… 21 Goal Setting …………………………………………………………. 23 Planning and Organization ………………………………………….. 24 The Role of Teachers ……………………………………………….. 25 Summary ……………………………………………………………. 28
CHAPTER THREE: METHODOLOGY ………………………………………. 29
Preliminary Study I ………………………………………………… 30 Preliminary Study II ………………………………………………... 31 Participants …………………………………………………………. 32 Measurement Instruments ………………………………………….. 32 Questionnaire …………………………………………………… 32 Music Excerpts …………………………………………………. 34 Practice Lab Treatment …………………………………………. 35 Verbal Protocol Analysis …………………………………………… 36 Procedures …………………………………………………………... 37 Session One - Questionnaire A …………………………………. 40 Session Two – Practice Observation A …………………………. 41 Session Three – Treatment, Experimental Group Only ………… 42 Session Four – Questionnaire B & Practice Session B …………. 43
2 Data Analysis ……………………………………………………….. 43 Quantitative Data ……………………………………………….. 44 Qualitative Data ………………………………………………… 45
CHAPTER FOUR: RESULTS ………………………………………………….. 49
Demographic Data …………………………………………………... 49 Comparison of Pre-test Questionnaire Data by Group ……………… 53 Research Question 1: Students’ Understanding of Practice ………… 55 Research Question 2: Differences in Practice Perceptions Based on Gender ………………………………………………… 61 Research Question 3: Differences in Practice Perceptions Based on Private Lesson Experience ……………………………. 62 Research Question 4: Differences in Practice Perceptions Based on Instrument Family ……………………………………………. 64 Research Question 5: Observed Practice Strategies ………………… 65 Research Question 6: Reported Practice Strategies …………………. 69 Research Question 7: Comparison of Observed and Reported Practice Strategies ……………………………………... 73
CHAPTER FIVE: DISCUSSION ……………………………………………….. 81
Limitations of the Study ……………………………………………... 81 Administration of the Treatment …………………………………….. 82 The Role of Private Lesson Experience ……………………………... 85 Effect of Treatment on Practice Questionnaire Responses ………….. 86 Students’ General Understanding of Practice ……………………….. 89 Significant Differences in Participant Response by Gender ……….... 91 Significant Differences in Participant Response by Private Lessons ...... 93 Significant Differences in Participant Response by Instrument Family ……………………………………………….. 95 Observed Practice Behaviors ………………………………………... 97 Retrospective Verbal Report Data …………………………………... 102 Differences between Reported and Observed Practice Behaviors ….. 104 Developmental Stages of Practice …………………………………... 105 Conclusions …………………………………………………………. 107
APPENDICES …………………………………………………………………... 110
A: Questionnaire ……………………………………………………. 110 B: Music Excerpts ………………………………………………….. 115 C: Treatment ……………………………………………………….. 121 D: Letter to School Administrators ………………………………… 129 E: Letter to Band Directors ………………………………………… 131 F: Letter to Parents/Guardians …………………………...... 134
3 G: Student Assent Form ……………………………………………. 136 H: Diagram of Practice Room …………………………………… 139 I: List of Codes with Transcript Examples …………………………. 140
REFERENCES …………………………………………………………………... 147
4 LIST OF TABLES
Table 3.1 Proportionally Stratified Sampling for Practice Session Observations……………………………………………………… 37
Table 4.1 Demographics of the Experimental and Control Groups………… 50
Table 4.2 Distribution of Instruments in Experimental and Control Groups……………………………………………………………. 51
Table 4.3 Experimental and Control Groups by Private Lesson Experience………………………………………………………... 52
Table 4.4 Significant Differences by Group in Pre-test Questionnaire Responses………………………………………………………… 54
Table 4.5 Post-Test Practice Strategies That Differed Significantly Between Groups...... ……………………….… 56
Table 4.6 Eighth Grade Band Students’ Understanding of Practice………... 58
Table 4.7 Usefulness of Suggested Practice Strategies………….………….. 59
Table 4.8 Student Perceptions of Practice……………….………………….. 60
Table 4.9 Ranked Strategies for Practice Problem Scenarios……………...... 61
Table 4.10 Significant Differences in Practice Strategy Responses Based on Gender………………………………………………………… 62
Table 4.11 Significant Differences in Responses Based on Private Lesson Experience……………………………………………………….. 63
Table 4.12 Pre-Treatment Significant Video Observation Frequencies……… 66
Table 4.13 Non-significant Observed Video Frequencies by Group………… 67
Table 4.14 Post-Treatment Significant Retrospective Verbal Report Frequencies………………………………………………………. 70
Table 4.15 Non-significant Reported Audio Frequencies by Group………… 71
Table 4.16 Codes Removed from Comparison of Reported and Observed Practice Behaviors…………………………………………...... 75
5 Table 4.17 Control Group Significant Differences in Observed and Reported Practice Behaviors………………………...... 76
Table 4.18 Experimental Group Significant Differences in Observed and Reported Practice Behaviors…………………...... 77
Table 4.19 Observed and Reported Practice Behaviors by Group…………... 78
6 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I offer my sincerest gratitude to the people that provided support as this document was written. None of this work would have been possible without the students and band directors who volunteered to participate in this study. Next, the Case Western Reserve
University Department of Music offered years of educational and professional guidance.
I am grateful to Dr. Gary M. Ciepluch who served as a mentor and fostered my growth as a music educator. In addition, I’d like to thank my thesis committee members, Dr.
Kathleen A. Horvath and Dr. Lisa Huisman Koops, for their input and contribution to this study. I am especially appreciative of the immense amount of inspiration provided by my thesis advisor, Dr. William I. Bauer. Without his tremendous teaching abilities, commitment to innovative music education research, and great attention to detail, this document would not have been possible. Finally, I’d like to thank my family and friends for their everlasting support and encouragement.
7 The Effect of Instruction on Eighth Grade Band Students’ Understanding of Practice
Abstract
by
STACEY C. KOLTHAMMER
The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of a practice strategy treatment on eighth grade band students’ practice habits. Participants were eighth grade band students (N = 56) from two middle schools within the same Northeast Ohio school district. The students were split by the school they attended into experimental (n = 26) and control (n = 30) groups. A pre-test/treatment/post-test research design took place over a 10 week period during normal band rehearsals. The pre- and post-tests included a researcher-designed questionnaire on practice perceptions and video/audio recorded practice sessions of a smaller group of participants (n = 12), chosen using random proportionally stratified sampling. The practice observations used a retrospective verbal protocol analysis technique (see Ericsson & Simon, 1993) to provide a rich description of how intermediate musicians practice a given exercise. The treatment was designed by the researcher and consisted of a four week series of lesson plans on a series of practice techniques (mental rehearsal, goal setting, a clap and count method, and a repetition method) that were taught by the cooperating director of the experimental group.
Significant differences were found among questionnaire items based on gender, private lesson experience, and instrument family. Within the audio and video practice observation footage, participants were more likely to address notes and rhythms in the piece than expressive elements such as dynamics. There was a low prevalence of goal
8 setting, and the goals that were reported tended to be broad and unspecific. Finally, the data indicated that the eighth graders often used lower level practice techniques such as simple repetition and correcting single notes, indicating a need for consistent exposure to a wide variety of effective practice strategies in the band classroom.
9 Chapter 1
It is essential for music educators to understand how musicians practice. Music practice is a complicated process involving advanced levels of metacognition and self- regulation. If young musicians are expected to go home and effectively practice, they require specific and thorough training in their music classrooms. Researchers have approached the topic of music practice from a variety of angles, including the comparison of quantity and quality of practice (Ericsson, Krampe, & Tesch-Römer, 1993; Sloboda,
Davidson, Howe, & Moore, 1996; Hallam, 2001a). There seems to be a consensus that musicians must practice in order to reach a more professional level of musical proficiency; however, educators and researchers still question what is actually happening in the practice rooms of young musicians. Students are encouraged to practice, but they may not understand how to effectively set goals, strategize, and evaluate their playing.
Another variable is whether or not beginner and intermediate musicians have the cognitive maturity to self-regulate their music practice (Hallam 2001a). It seems important to examine the practice behaviors of students in this age group, especially in consideration of attrition between organized music at the middle school and high school levels. This chapter will introduce the following aspects of music practice: (a) a definition of practice for the purposes of this study, (b) the complex nature of music practice, and (c) developing the music practice skills of students.
Definition of Practice
Since the word “practice” can have different connotations, a clear definition of music practice must be established. Ericsson, Krampe, & Tesch-Römer (1993) identify practice as being separate from work and play, labeling it as deliberate practice. They
10 define deliberate practice as involving specific activities that are purposefully designed to advance a student's ability to perform. Lehmann, Sloboda, and Woody (2007) discuss the difference between formal and informal practice, classifying formal practice as having
“specific goals that lie somewhat outside of [one's] current level of performance” which are gained through “bouts of great concentration” (p. 65). Another aspect of practice that tends to be more appropriately addressed in athletics is the difference between practice and training. The term practice implies a problem solving process which is classified by deliberate intentions made by a performer to modify their memory, cognition, and perceptions about a given activity whereas training involves repetitive movements which affect the body in a more physical manner (Hoffman and Harris, 2000). Barry and
Hallam (2002) describe that practicing allows a performer to “enable complex physical, cognitive, and musical skills to be performed fluently with relatively little conscious control, freeing cognitive processing capacity for higher order processing” (p. 155).
Considering the definitions, it is clear that music practice is a complex activity that involves physical, cognitive, and emotional components. For the purposes of this study, the definition of deliberate practice provided by Ericsson, Krampe, & Tesch-Römer was used.
The complex nature of practice
To address the complexities of practice, Lehmann, Sloboda, and Woody (2007) divide the topic into macro and micro categories. They classify the macro perspective as the everyday aspects of practice that teachers, parents, and students face, such as: (a) the amount of time spent practicing, (b) distractions that students may encounter, (c) deciding what types of activities may be regarded as practice, and (d) the frustration associated
11 with practicing. A micro perspective of practice centers on deliberate/formal practice, emphasizing: (a) goal setting, (b) feedback, and (c) the high level of concentration required to effectively practice.
Metacognition and self-regulation seem to play key roles in the development of practice skills among young musicians (Hallam, 2001a; Leon-Guerrero, 2004; Pitts &
Davidson, 2000). Metacognition is defined by Hacker (1998) as, "Knowledge of one’s knowledge, processes and cognitive and affective states; and the ability to consciously and deliberately monitor and regulate one’s knowledge, processes, and cognitive and affective states” (p. 6). It is through the development of a student's metacognitive abilities that s/he can learn to self-regulate behaviors such as practicing. Based on social cognitive theory, children begin to classify behaviors as acceptable and unacceptable based on the reinforcement and punishment they receive. Once they develop their own ideas on what is considered acceptable, students start to self-regulate via goal setting, monitoring their behavior, and reflecting on their actions (Ormrod, 2004). Students demonstrate self-regulation of music practice when they (a) decide whether or not to practice, (b) schedule time for practice, (c) maintain a reasonable practice environment,
(d) plan sessions using practice strategies, (e) monitor their individual performance, and
(f) find sources to aid them with their practicing (McPherson & Renwick, 2001).
Even if students have the ability to use metacognitive and self-regulatory skills, they must have the motivation to practice. Researchers have found that children have a tendency to think of practicing as unpleasant, especially in terms of the amount of effort and concentration that it requires. McPherson and Davidson (2002) state that young children tend to view practice as a boring chore. Young musicians also have a tendency
12 to get frustrated with their lack of progress as they practice and simply give up (Pitts &
Davidson, 2000). Beginner and intermediate musicians may not possess the metacognitive and self-regulatory skills that are needed to develop their own progressive practice routine, which could contribute to a lack of motivation to practice. As researchers continue to observe the differences between novice and professional level musicians, music educators must bridge the gap in between.
Developing the Practice Skills of Students
Teachers use a variety of strategies to encourage young musicians to practice, including practice charts and external rewards. Parental involvement also seems to have a large role in a child’s musical development in terms of practice (Pitts & Davidson,
2000). However, teacher and parent encouragement alone does not necessarily help music educators understand what is actually happening in the home practice room.
Students are often not provided with teacher guidance on their individual practice techniques, which may limit their ability to succeed and reach their potential (Leon-
Guerrero, 2004). Young musicians are best served by models of good practice technique, strategies to use for trouble-shooting, and examples of appropriate goal-setting if they are to flourish as self-regulated learners. If teachers model the use of effective practice strategies frequently in lessons, students will have a practice routine and therefore may not need to consciously adopt the strategies on their own (Hallam, 2001a). In other words, if music educators model and reinforce a practice routine framework for their students they should have a better sense of what their students understand about practicing when they leave the classroom.
13 Researchers have studied the practice techniques of beginner, intermediate, and conservatory level musicians (Geiersbach, 2000; Hallam, 2001a & b; Jørgensen, 2004;
Leon-Guerrero, 2004; McPherson & Renwick, 2001; and Nielsen, 2001). There seems to be a great variety of practice strategies among musicians of different skill levels.
Considering the work of these researchers, a general pattern emerges which shows that young musicians have a tendency to train rather than practice. As students mature and gain experience both in terms of self-regulatory skills and through the guidance of music educators, they develop the abilities to plan, monitor, and reflect on their playing. It is at this point that they finally learn how to practice effectively.
Need for the Study
Students may not know how to approach their individual practicing when they enter the home practice room, especially at the beginner and intermediate levels. While simple training and drilling exercises may have a place in young musicians’ routines, the related research indicates that advanced performers approach practice in a more cognitive manner. It is the responsibility of music educators to foster the metacognition, self- regulation, and motivation of their students to steer them towards deliberate/formal practice. Practice planning, monitoring, and strategies must be presented to students in a way that can easily be transferred to their home practice environment. In addition, music educators need to understand how students perceive these techniques and whether or not they implement them when they aren’t being monitored.
The body of research on the topic of practice is immense; however, much of it focuses on analyzing what musicians are doing in the practice room rather than how music educators may affect what their students understand about practicing. Suggestions
14 for teachers are often given in discussion of the research, but there is a lack of work with specific treatments to train beginner and intermediate musicians how to practice. Also, there are few practice studies that focus on middle school aged musician, which may be a crucial age for developing self-regulatory skills (see Hallam 2001a). Another limitation of the current literature concerns the observation of students in authentic practice environments. If music educators are provided with evidence of how a practice lab treatment may influence the practice habits of young musicians in an authentic environment, they may have a better chance of fostering successful practice abilities in their students.
Purpose of the Study
The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of a practice strategy treatment on eighth grade band students’ practice habits.
Research Questions
1. Does a practice strategy treatment affect participants’ understanding of music
practice in terms of (a) ideal amount of practice, (b) planning and organization
of practice sessions, (c) activities that constitute practice, and (d) usefulness of
practice strategies?
2. Are there significant differences in the perceptions of the participants by
gender?
3. Are there significant differences in the perceptions of the participants by their
involvement with private lessons?
4. Are there significant differences among the perceptions of the participants by
instrument family?
15 5. Does a practice strategy treatment affect participants’ observed practice
strategies?
6. Does a practice strategy treatment affect participants’ retrospective verbal
reports of their practice strategies?
7. Is there a difference between participants’ observed practice strategies and
their retrospective verbal reports?
Definitions of Terms
Chunking – Ormrod (2004) labels chunking as a process of combining two or more pieces of information in an attempt to organize them. Chunking helps learners increase the amount of information that the working memory holds (see Miller, 1956). In this study, the pieces of information may have been a group of notes within an exercise that were combined and repeated to aid the learner.
Deliberate Practice – Ericsson et al. (1993) define deliberate practice as,
“activities that have been specially designed to improve the current level of performance”
(p. 368).
Mental Rehearsal – Lehmann, Sloboda, & Woody (2007) describe mental rehearsal as the time when a musician thinks through the sound or movement of a piece of music, which essentially uses the same parts of the brain that are used when listening or performing. They also state that mental rehearsal may be more effective combined with some form of physical practice.
Metacognition – Hacker (1998) defines metacognition as, “Knowledge of one’s knowledge, processes and cognitive and affective states; and the ability to consciously
16 and deliberately monitor and regulate one’s knowledge, processes, and cognitive and affective states” (p. 6).
Self-Regulation – Ormrod (2004) lists the following components of self- regulation: (a) goal setting, (b) awareness of current ability, (c) self-evaluation and (d) the ability to use self-praise and self-criticism. Students demonstrate self-regulation of music practice when they (a) decide whether or not to practice, (b) schedule time for practice,
(c) maintain a reasonable practice environment, (d) plan sessions using practice strategies, (e) monitor their individual performance, and (f) find sources to aid them with their practicing (McPherson & Renwick, 2001).
Retrospective Verbal Report – A retrospective verbal report encourages students to think aloud about an activity that was previously performed (Ericsson & Simon, 1993).
Delimitations
This study provides a glimpse of what eighth grade band students understand about practicing. The participating schools were selected to represent two music programs with common curricula and similar teaching techniques, but some variation was likely to exist between the experimental and control groups. Although the practice observation group was selected by random stratified sampling, the sample was small in comparison to the size needed to draw broader conclusions on the practice habits of eighth grade band students. The practice treatment was designed to have structure and content which can be duplicated in future studies; however, the researcher could not ultimately control every action the participating teacher contributed to these lesson plans.
17 Chapter 2
Review of Related Literature
Researchers have looked at various aspects of practice that are pertinent to student musicians. This review of the related literature will focus on (a) the developmental stages of practice, (b) differences in the ways that professional and young musicians practice, (c) the effects of intrinsic motivation and self-efficacy on practice, (d) the importance of goal setting, (e) the stages of planning and their potential effects on practice, and (f) the role that teachers play in developing student practice abilities.
Developmental Stages of Practice
Researchers have investigated developmental practice stages that children demonstrate as they age and progress on an instrument. Jørgensen (2004) identified three self-teaching phases that students utilize within effective practice: (a) planning the practice session, (b) executing individual strategies, and (c) reflecting on and evaluating what was practiced. Hallam (2001b) offered a three-tiered sequence exhibited by young musicians. The lowest level of the sequence involved playing the music from beginning to end, which most educators recognize as a common method used by beginning students.
In the second tier, students were able to monitor their mistakes by recognizing, analyzing, and fixing them. Finally, students reached a level similar to that of professional musicians during which they used higher levels of thinking in their practice routines.
Higher levels of thinking were labeled in a study by Geiersbach (2000), including: (a) musically expressive playing, (b) focusing on the aural rather than the technical, (c) keeping an audience in mind for self-evaluation, (d) self-questioning on methods and performance, and (e) using creative means to visualize the music. The author added that the development of higher level strategies in practice routines may lead to continual
18 improvement for the musician, regardless of their current performance achievement.
Musicians at this higher level were able to “analyze their playing in a detailed, multi- faceted way, instead of simply observing where errors have been made” (p. 157).
Practice Skills of Professional Musicians
Many researchers have agreed that conservatory and professional musicians demonstrate high levels of self-regulation and cognitive processing when they practice.
A study of professional musicians indicated that performers placed a great emphasis on cognitive analysis and an ability to approach practice in a slow and meticulous manner when practicing a new piece of music (Hallam, 2001a). Geiersbach (2000) found that graduate student musicians who practiced at an interpretive and metacognitive level created higher level goals and used immediate reflection to evaluate their playing. These musicians also practiced with more periods of uninterrupted playing, which may be defined as staying on task to reach goals within a practice session. Nielsen (2001) discovered similar results with advanced conservatory musicians. These musicians demonstrated self-regulation by using goal-setting, strategically planning their practice, using self-teaching, developing strategies, and reflecting on their playing while practicing. Kong (2001) labeled specific qualities that may denote effective practice: (a) the ability to be goal-oriented, (b) understanding of personal learning style, (c) use of appropriate strategies, (d) the ability to concentrate, (e) having an appropriate practice environment, (f) the ability to manage time, and (g) the actual amount of practice that is undertaken. Regarding amount of practice, in a study of college brass players by Miksza
(2006) it was suggested that the amount of practice minutes undertaken did not affect
19 performance achievement as much as the type of activities that constituted the practice sessions.
Practice Skills of Young Musicians
Unlike professional musicians, it seems that young music students do not have a tendency to show the same self-regulation abilities in terms of practice. In a study by
Pitts & Davidson (2000), some young children did not have a good concept of why they practiced, even if they could all easily recite the practice homework assigned by their teacher. McPherson & Renwick (2001) explained that young instrumentalists used self- regulation in some way with varying degree, but differences in levels of achievement in this area appeared in the very first practice sessions and dictated the future success of each child. In the same study, it was found that young students “possessed the will to learn their instrument, but not necessarily the level of skill required to ensure efficient and effective practice” (p. 184). Hallam (2001b) discovered that a majority (60%, N=55) of beginning students left errors uncorrected in their practice sessions and that those errors were then practiced into the song or exercise. Of the students that noticed errors, over half would correct the single wrong note, rather than adopting a more advanced cognitive strategy to fix an entire section of the music. Pitts & Davidson (2000) seemed to support this concept, stating that young musicians may “ignore the auditory feedback from their playing, persisting despite unrewarding results,” (p. 54) or simply get frustrated with their lack of results and give up. This type of practicing behavior, where students fail to notice errors or leave mistakes uncorrected when practicing individually, may potentially contribute to a lower level of performance overall (Barry, 1992). Leon-
Guerrero (2004) stated that the most common forms of practice strategy for young
20 musicians were repeating a segment and going back to the beginning of the song. Other strategies such as count/clap, marking the music, and working on a group of notes accounted for less than ten percent of their practice activities.
McPherson and Davidson (2002) stated that young children tended to view practice as a boring chore. Their practice showed little focus on the actual quality of their playing, and instead centered on the mechanics of playing through their assignments with
“little regard to how they might improve their performance or develop their own skills as a musicians” (p. 152). A positive outlook was found by Pitts & Davidson (2000), who described that those children who started off with very basic practice, focusing solely on proper notes, became more skilled as they gained experience and comfort with their instrument, achieving more fluency and ability to process longer phrases of music in chunks. Hallam (2001a) found that longer sections of music were repeated and rehearsed by fifth through eighth grade students more often than first grade students, indicating a developmental difference between those ages.
Leon-Guerrero (2004)
In a 2004 qualitative study, Leon-Guerrero examined the self-regulating practice strategies that adolescent musicians demonstrated and reported. Band students in grades seven and eight (N = 16) were conveniently selected to participate in 12 minute individual practice sessions on a given piece of music. The design of this study included video recorded practice sessions. Students were asked to think aloud as they practiced
(concurrent verbal protocol analysis), noting what they were doing and thinking throughout the session. After the practice session, students were also asked to retrospectively talk about the practice session with the researcher (retrospective verbal
21 protocol analysis). Leon-Guerrero applied the practice category codes of Nielsen (2001):
(a) problem recognition, (b) strategy selection, and (c) evaluation of performance, adding an additional code for other statements entitled (d) general comment. Additionally, four practice strategy categories were labeled: (a) repetition, (b) musical elements, (c) non- specific task, and (d) non-playing. Results indicated that the most common practice strategies reported by students in the concurrent report were in the repetition category
(52.7% of total comments). More specifically, students were most likely to comment about repeating a segment of the music (28.2%) and starting back at the beginning
(20.2%). In the observed practice video data, 41.1% of the total practice strategies consisted of students restarting a measure. When retrospectively reporting their practice behaviors, students were more likely to comment on playing the correct notes (f = 21) than other musical elements such as articulation (f = 9), rhythm (f = 7), and dynamics (f =
5). In addition, the strategy Go back to the beginning was most commonly reported by participants (f = 27, 15.5% of total retrospective comments). The researcher did not find any differences between the observed and reported practice behaviors of the students based on gender, years of experience, or instrument family.
Intrinsic Motivation and Self-Efficacy
There has been evidence that a child’s intrinsic value of an activity may be related to his or her persistence and use of cognitive strategies in practice sessions. In a study of motivation McPherson (2001) determined that children as young as ages seven through nine are able to describe their interest level for learning an instrument, decide how accomplished they want to become, state whether or not their experience in music will contribute to future goals, and label how much effort will be needed to continue
22 improving. A young musician’s level of commitment at the beginning of the learning process, which is based on future goals, may ultimately determine their eventual level of achievement. McPherson further discussed that students who achieved lower results on their instrument were more likely to report extrinsic reasons for starting an instrument, such as joining because their friends were involved whereas high achievers were more likely to describe intrinsic motivations. Ericsson, Krampe, & Tesch-Römer (1993) stated that in order to effectively practice, students must be motivated to approach their practice time with a willingness to work. They said that, “perceived talent and enjoyment of the activities of a domain are ideal preconditions for initiating the effortful but valuable activity of deliberate practice” (p. 398).
There appears to be a relationship between student motivation and self-selected rather than teacher-selected repertoire. Results of a long-term study by Renwick &
McPherson (2002) suggested that a student who was practicing a self-selected piece was more likely to use advanced cognitive strategies such as, “humming, silent fingering, silent analysis, adjustment of tempo, and repetition of larger sections” (p. 185).
Additionally, students may practice for a longer time period and demonstrate more persistence when frustrated while working on self-selected repertoire. Pintrich & De
Groot (1990) described similar results, noting that students’ intrinsic values of school work were very strongly related to their use of cognitive strategies and demonstration of self-regulation during academic tasks. The “practice is good for you” concept that teachers and parents have encouraged does not necessarily tap into a child’s intrinsic motivation to learn. Pitts & Davidson (2000) explained that “Practising for other people is not a sustainable motivation, as it encourages performance behaviour rather than the
23 concentrated and disciplined work needed to foster musical development” (p. 53).
Teachers must be careful to emphasize each musician’s personal development of goals, practice strategies, and reflection habits so that students are not simply doing what they are told to do with no idea of their individual role as a practicing musician.
Another potential factor influencing the choices made by students when they practice is their level of self-efficacy, or self-confidence. Pintrich & De Groot (1990) found that middle school science and english students with higher self-efficacy were more likely to demonstrate self-regulatory qualities, such as the use of metacognitive strategies and additional persistence during difficult or undesirable tasks. In a study by
McPherson and Davidson (2002) children who quit playing their instrument in the first year had unreasonably high expectations for how much they would practice right before they started instruction. Hewitt (2001) offered another perspective in a study involving private lessons and practice. He warned that students who don’t have an appropriate model for comparison may have an inflated sense of their proficiency, which could alter their goals in a negative fashion. In other words, an incorrect assessment of successful performance may lead a student to believe that s/he does not need to practice.
Goal Setting
Goal setting appeared in many studies as an important part of effective and deliberate practice; however, caution should be exercised when encouraging goal setting without providing an education on how to use goals. When young musicians are not provided with proper instruction on goal setting, they may see progress on the instrument as their main goal. Pitts & Davidson (2000) warned that a general goal like that may not be enough on its own. They said, “understanding and cognitive processing must also be
24 allowed to develop, so that learning can be independent and ongoing” (p. 55). The authors further stated that it is important for young musicians to acquire a sense of purpose in their practice, understanding short and long term goals. To clarify this topic,
Geiersbach (2000) divided goal-setting into two categories. High level goals are (a) specific and detailed plans of action, (b) original, (c) intended for interpretation, and (d) emotionally involving. Low level goals are (a) not specific or detailed, (b) fixated on repetition of only technical aspects, and (c) do not lead to interpretation. An emphasis should be placed on the higher level goals, just as higher level thinking is encouraged by a body of research mentioned earlier. Geiersbach argued that the creation of short and long term goals alone is not as important as the active choice of goals throughout the practice session. In other words, the author believed that the planning component of the session significantly affects practice quality.
Planning and Organization
The planning of practice sessions has been an important component of other research studies. Jørgensen (1997) warned that students may plan practice in a way that he labeled, “the-homework-does-the-planning” (p. 174). For example, students may focus solely on completing the songs they know their teachers have assigned, working only as long as needed to complete the time required by their practice charts.
Conversely, Miksza (2006) reported that the performance achievement of college-level brass musicians was best predicted by their selection of practice strategies related to strategic planning. Jørgensen emphasized the importance for music educators to gain a better understanding of how students plan their practice. This may allow teachers to help young musicians learn about proper planning which may lead to more efficient
25 practicing. Similar to the aforementioned research on high or low levels of thinking and goal setting, Hallam (2001a) labeled planning in three steps. A low level planner may leave tasks uncompleted, focus on only the beginning of a piece of music, and spend a large amount of practice time off-task. Moderate planning may include the completion of required tasks, repeating large sections without focusing on the most difficult tasks, relatively on-task behavior, and lack of driving practice to performance. The most advanced planners may complete required tasks, quickly identify difficulties with an emphasis placed on solving these problems, and integrate each of the sections into an end product with a goal of performance. Hallam also noted that there may be a relationship between a student’s ability to organize their practicing and their level of concentration in practice sessions. Jørgensen (2004) labeled the planning involved with a practice session as a thought strategy and the implementation of the plan, or changing the musical material while practicing, as a behavior strategy. It seems that some researchers agree that there should be more emphasis placed on the thought strategies behind practice.
Although the initial development of the intellectual side of practice may need to be based on conscious effort, the use of strategies may become more automatic for students over time. Age and cognitive development may also be in question as Hallam (2001a) reported “qualitative changes in the nature of expertise” concerning practice at advanced levels, labeled as eighth grade and higher (p. 29).
The Role of Teachers
Teachers can play a large role in helping students to develop practice strategies and self-regulation. Although teachers tend to encourage regularly scheduled practice, it is less common for teachers to agree on how to actually teach students to practice (Barry
26 & McArthur, 1994). Students should be given specific instructions on ideal learning methods and supervised by a teacher in order to assure that learning will occur (Ericsson,
Krampe, & Tesch-Römer, 1993). Teachers may then monitor progress and decide when a student is ready to move on to more challenging tasks. Students seem to be more successful when working with a teacher than what they are able to achieve without aid.
There may be a relationship between level of expertise and ability to sustain learning on one’s own (Hallam, 2001b).
McPherson (2001) said that teachers should be aware that children bring different levels of expectations and values to the music classroom from a very early age. In addition to students’ individual expectations and values, Hallam (2001a) stated that different students progressed at varying speeds, with individual strategies. The author also suggested that teachers can use this information to further identify the difficulties of large group instruction, which may encourage educators to group learners according to their learning speed and style. For example, even college level students tended to understand that practice consisted of both a physical and a mental portion, but did not seem to understand what the mental portion included (Kong, 2001). Music educators may decide to group their students based on their level of maturity regarding the mental side of practice. Kong also suggested that teachers include the mental aspects of practice in lessons that address practice technique.
Geiersbach (2000) listed the following ways that teachers may adapt their lesson plans: (a) question the presence of high level thinking in their own practice methods, (b) model the practice techniques that best demonstrate those skills, (c) introduce students to self-teaching through the use of open-ended questions, and (d) vary their usual forms of
27 assessment to stimulate higher-order thinking for practice (i.e. performance rubric which includes student planning and reflection). However, teachers should not assume that the practice skills they are teaching are being used at home. Barry (2007) discussed a low consistency between reported student practice behaviors, labeled by university students and their applied music teachers in a questionnaire, and observed practice techniques during lessons and practice sessions. Consistent modeling of effective practice may make the transfer from lesson to home more automatic (Hallam, 2001b). Barry suggested that teachers should reinforce their practice advice to students “through repeated student experiences paired with teacher evaluation and feedback throughout the music lesson” (p.
63). Kong (2001) simply summarized that there is value in making part of each student’s private lesson time into a “practice laboratory” (p. 102). Similarly, McPherson and
Davidson (2002) asked teachers to (a) model practicing for students, (b) help students set manageable goals, and (c) aid students in monitoring the successes and failures of the various practice strategies that they choose to employ.
A study by Hamann & Frost (2000) suggested that the presence of a private lesson teacher may greatly affect the practice and achievement of young musicians. They stated that, “Students who study privately tend to practice longer, “smarter,” and more efficiently as they establish practice objectives, maximize time and concentration through shorter but generally more productive practice segments” (p. 89). The authors explained that private lesson students were more likely to: (a) set goals, (b) distribute practice over multiple sessions, and (c) set a practice schedule. However, private lesson students were also more apt to feel “anxiety, depression, guilt or irritation when they were not able to
28 practice as compared to students not studying privately” (p. 84), which may have related to their motivation to practice.
A qualitative study of university students and their applied teachers by Barry
(2007) supported the notion of private teacher influence on student practice. Barry noted that specific practice strategies such as (a) warm-up routines, (b) singing, and (c) use of a metronome were more commonly observed in the practice sessions of those students that had teachers who “employed those techniques repeatedly and vividly throughout the lesson” (p. 58). The researcher also found that the teaching style of the applied music teacher seemed to have an effect on student practice behaviors. Students were more likely to use practice techniques that were actually used in lessons than techniques that were only discussed. In other words, interactive teachers that Barry labeled as “The
Coach” had students that were more likely to attempt the private lesson practice strategies in their individual practice sessions (p. 59).
Summary
The literature suggests that a large gap exists between the practice habits of professional or conservatory level musicians and younger students. Beginner and intermediate musicians may not have the necessary skills to develop effective practice habits on their own. Students of this age need music educators to guide them using techniques and tools to foster practicing abilities through metacognition, self-regulation, and motivation. Further research may be able to provide music educators with a better understanding of middle school students’ perceptions of practice and what actually takes place in the private practice room.
29 Chapter 3
Methodology
The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of a practice strategy treatment on eighth grade band students’ practice habits. The potential effects were measured through a survey of the participants’ understanding of practice and observations of practice sessions using a retrospective protocol analysis technique. The research questions that influenced this study were:
1. Does a practice strategy treatment affect participants’ understanding of music
practice in terms of (a) ideal amount of practice, (b) planning and organization
of practice sessions, (c) activities that constitute practice, and (d) usefulness of
practice strategies?
2. Are there significant differences in the perceptions of the participants by
gender?
3. Are there significant differences in the perceptions of the participants by their
involvement with private lessons?
4. Are there significant differences among the perceptions of the participants by
instrument family?
5. Does a practice strategy treatment affect participants’ observed practice
strategies?
6. Does a practice strategy treatment affect participants’ retrospective verbal
reports of their practice strategies?
7. Is there a difference between participants’ observed practice strategies and
their retrospective verbal reports?
30 This chapter will explain the two preliminary studies that lead to the development of this study. It will also describe the methodology utilized in this study, including: (a) participants, (b) measurement instruments, (c) the practice lab treatment, (d) procedures, and (e) data analysis.
Preliminary Study 1
Kolthammer (2005) surveyed seventh and eighth grade band students (N=147) on their perceptions of practice, their practice habits, and the strategies they used when practicing. The questionnaire for this study was developed by the researcher and was based on the related literature and personal experience teaching middle school band. In addition to the demographic information that was collected, the instrument included questions that used a four point Likert-type scale (1=Never, 2=Sometimes, 3=Usually,
4=Always).
Results indicated that a majority of the participants thought they knew what to practice (M = 2.99) and how to practice (M = 2.81). Fifty-four percent of the middle school students admitted that an average week of practice was zero or one day per week.
Commonly used practice strategies included repetition (M = 2.88) and playing a song from beginning to end (M = 2.76). The least common were changing the articulation (M
= 1.65), changing the rhythm (M = 1.56), and singing a part (M = 1.38). A series of t- tests determined that there were no significant differences (p >.05) between the participants’ involvement with private lessons at some time in their musical development and the various practice strategies they used. However, two significant differences were found in practice strategies by gender. Females used repetition (M = 3.09) significantly
(p = .005) more often than males (M = 2.70). Conversely, males (M = 2.30) used
31 memorization significantly more (p = .047) than females (M = 2.03) in the practice room.
One significant difference was found when comparing the answers of seventh and eighth grade participants. Students in eighth grade (M = 2.31) broke songs into smaller sections, practicing those sections significantly (p = .023) more than students in seventh grade (M
= 1.99).
Preliminary Study 2
Kolthammer (2006) used retrospective protocol analysis to describe the cognitive processes of eighth grade band students while practicing individually. Eighth grade band students (N = 8) were video recorded individually practicing a piece of music provided by the researcher during a fifteen minute practice session. The participants were asked to practice the exercise in any way they desired, emulating the way they would choose to practice at home. Immediately following the video recorded session, the student and researcher watched the video of the practice session. While the video was playing, the researcher asked each participant to narrate, or think aloud, about what s/he was thinking and doing during the practice session. This portion of the study was audio recorded.
Finally, students were asked to complete a brief music practice questionnaire, inquiring about their practice habits and perceptions.
The audio recorded data was coded for frequencies. The codes were divided into two general categories (a) musical concepts and (b) practice strategies. The most common music concepts discussed were (a) notes (f = 23), tempo (f = 16), and rhythm (f
= 15). The participants were less likely to report on (a) tone (f = 7), (b) dynamics (f = 6), and (c) phrasing (f = 1). In terms of practice strategies, mention of strategies like (a) starting at the beginning of the exercise (f = 14), (b) marking the music with a pencil (f =
32 10), and (c) repetition (f = 9) were more prevalent than reports of (a) singing (f = 3), (b) clap and count (f = 2), and (c) mental rehearsal (f = 2). While watching the video recorded practice sessions, the participants often laughed at themselves (f = 17) and made negative comments about their performance (f = 17).
Participants
Participants for the present study consisted of eighth grade band students (N =
56). Eighth grade students were chosen as an appropriate age for this study based on literature by Hallam (2001a) who reported qualitative changes in the metacognitive expertise of participants at grade eight and above. Participants were members of two
Northeast Ohio middle schools within the same school district in spring of 2008. The selection of middle schools from the same public school district helped to ensure that the two groups were as similar as possible in terms of music department attributes, size, and socio-economic status. The researcher attempted to choose schools that had a balanced number of students with and without private lesson experience.
Measurement Instruments
Questionnaire
This study used a practice questionnaire designed by the researcher based on the related literature on practice and the aforementioned preliminary studies (see Appendix
A). A panel of three music education professors examined the measurement instrument prior to its use to establish validity. Earlier versions of this questionnaire were tested in two preliminary studies (Kolthammer, 2005; Kolthammer, 2006), contributing to the reliability of the instrument. In the practice questionnaire, all questions besides those that dealt with demographic information were phrased in third-person. Participants were
33 instructed to report what they thought a student musician should do when practicing, which may or may not have represented what they personally did in the practice room.
This was changed from the preliminary questionnaire to encourage the participants to answer based on what they believed rather than what they may have thought the researcher would like to hear.
The demographic section of the questionnaire (Section I) asked participants to answer yes/no and short answer questions on basic demographic information such as age, instrument, and whether or not private lessons had been a part of their training. In
Section II of the questionnaire students were asked, “How many days per week do you think students should practice?” and “On average, how many minutes should each practice session last?” Participants were asked to select the number of days per week (1-
7) and the range of minutes for each session (1=0-15minutes, 2=15-30, 3=30-45, 4=45-
60, 5= over 60).
Section III of the questionnaire used five point Likert-type scale statements
(1=Strongly Disagree, 2=Disagree, 3=Not Sure, 4=Agree, 5=Strongly Agree) to provide a general understanding of what students understood about practice sessions. For example, participants were asked to judge the following statements: (a) It is better to practice for a long time a couple days per week than to practice every day for a short time, (b) Students will practice more if they are reminded by parents and teachers, and (c)
Students need to be taught how to set long and short term goals for practicing.
Section IV of the questionnaire used a five point Likert-type scale (1=Not Useful,
2=Somewhat Useful, 3=Not Sure, 4=Useful, 5=Very Useful) to allow students to rank a
34 variety of practice strategies in effectiveness such as: (a) breaking a song into smaller sections, (b) repetition, (c) clap/count, (d) mental rehearsal, and (e) goal setting.
In section V participants were presented with two practice scenarios, one rhythm based and the other technique based. Five practice strategies were presented for each scenario and participants were asked to rank the strategies from one to five, with one being the most useful strategy for solving the problem.
The final section of the questionnaire presented more five point Likert-type questions in the style of Section III regarding general perceptions about practicing. For example, (a) “It is difficult for students to know how to practice when they are alone” and
(b) “If students learn how to practice better, it may be easier for them to improve.”
Finally, students were given a chance at the end of the questionnaire to write any other comments or statements about practicing.
Music Excerpts
Four music excerpts were chosen by the researcher from intermediate-advanced level instrumental method books (see Appendix B). The chosen books had not been collectively used by either of the participating schools. Prior to their use, the researcher confirmed with the cooperating band directors that the music was at an appropriately challenging level for the eighth graders in the selected ensembles. The exercises were in unison, transposed for each instrument accordingly. The percussion exercises were performed on mallet percussion, snare drum, and bass drum. It would have been preferred to use only mallet percussion instruments for this study, but there were not enough mallet instruments available and not all of the percussionists had the appropriate experience level with mallets to participate in this manner. Since this study was focused
35 on the methods that students use to practice, the lack of melodic content of the snare drum and bass drum parts did not prevent percussionists from participating. The researcher transcribed the exercises into Finale (2003) music notation software and printed copies that were only used for research purposes and destroyed upon completion of the study. This step prevented students from visually recognizing the exercises, in the event that they had previously worked in the same method books. The first of two exercises chosen for use in the practice lab treatment was picked to be an appropriate length and nature to fit in with the mental rehearsal/sight-reading treatment lesson. The second exercise was chosen based on rhythmic and technical difficulty for use with the
(a) goal setting, (b) clap/count and (c) repetition treatment lessons. The remaining two exercises were chosen for the individual practice observations and contained musical elements such as: a) tone, b) phrasing, c) technique, d) rhythm, e) dynamics, and f) articulation.
Practice Lab Treatment
The practice lab treatment was designed by the researcher as four lesson plans to be presented by the cooperating band teacher of the experimental group within normal band class periods (see Appendix C) over a four week period. The treatment was designed to develop the participants’ understanding of the planning, monitoring, and evaluation stages of practice (Hallam, 2001b; Jørgensen, 2004). The four lesson plans introduced students to the following practice strategies: (a) mental rehearsal (Barry &
Hallam 2002; Lehmann, Sloboda, & Woody, 2007), (b) goal setting (Geiersbach, 2000;
Kong, 2001; Nielsen, 2001), (c) chunking (Miller, 1956), (d) clap/count, and (e) repetition/“five times correct” method (Hallam, 2001a; Leon-Guerrero, 2004). Practice
36 Lab 1 used music excerpt 1. Practice Labs 2, 3, and 4 used music excerpt 2. The use of two different pieces of music in the practice labs helped the participants understand that the introduced practice techniques may be used with any piece of music that they would like to practice. The cooperating band teacher of the experimental group also taught one review lesson of each practice lab treatment technique each week which was based on any music s/he chose, including current band repertoire.
Verbal Protocol Analysis
A verbal protocol analysis technique was used to collect data for the practice session portion of this study. This technique allowed participants to verbally express their cognitive activities. Ericsson and Simon (1993) divided verbal protocols into (a) concurrent and (b) retrospective categories. In concurrent verbal reports participants are asked to think aloud, or verbalize their thoughts, as they are working on a particular task.
One issue concerning the validity of this technique centers on the idea that it requires complex multi-tasking on the part of the participant to perform a task and explain it aloud concurrently, which may affect the performance. Another challenge is that participants may unintentionally omit comments regarding their thought processes during the verbal report which could change the data (Ericsson & Simon, 1993). An additional concern for this particular study is that students would have to stop playing their wind instruments to verbally address their thoughts, which may have affected the flow of the practice session.
Retrospective verbal reports involve similar challenges in terms of validity but remove the multi-tasking component of concurrent verbal protocol analysis. Since the participants in this study were eighth grade musicians, the researcher decided that it was important to use the retrospective technique due to fears that students would struggle with
37 a concurrent technique. Ericsson and Simon (1993) encouraged researchers to employ the retrospective verbal report as soon as possible after the completion of the cognitive task. In this study, verbal reports were collected immediately following the practice sessions to ensure that participants would be more likely to recall their thoughts from the practice sessions.
Procedures
The participants were divided into two groups based on the school that they attended. One school was assigned as the control group and the other was named the experimental group. Proportional stratified random sampling was used to select one group of students from the control group and another from the experimental group for practice session observations (n = 12). These groups were labeled as practice group C
(control group) and practice group E (experimental group). Gender, instrument family, and private lesson experience were equally represented in the practice session sample
(see Table 3.1). The researcher attempted to have an equal representation of all three instrument families in this study (woodwind, brass, and percussion) but was unable to include percussionists in the practice session observations due to a lack of interested percussion participants in the control group.
Table 3.1
Proportionally Stratified Sampling for Practice Session Observations
Gender Instrument Family Private Lessons Group N Male Female Woodwind Brass Yes No
Practice 6 3 3 3 3 3 3 Group C
Practice 6 3 3 3 3 3 3 Group E
38 After choosing the two schools, the researcher obtained confirmation from three
Case Western Reserve University music education professors on the appropriateness of the selected schools for the purposes of this research study. After obtaining permission from Case Western Reserve University’s Institutional Review Board, the participating schools’ administration (see Appendix D), and the two band directors of the participating middle schools (see Appendix E), and two weeks prior to the commencement of data collection, the researcher dispersed informational letters to all families of the eighth grade band students via U.S. mail (see Appendix F). The parents/guardians of the potential participants were given one week from the postmarked date of the letters to contact the researcher if they did not want their child to be approached about this study; however, it was made clear in the parent letter that the actual collection of data would not commence until two weeks after the postmark date of the letter. Parents were told that they should contact the researcher throughout those two weeks, or any time during the study, if they chose to dissent.
One week after the parent letters were mailed, the researcher visited each of the two schools for presentations during normally scheduled band lessons. During those two presentations, the researcher introduced the study to all eighth grade band students in the control and experimental groups. The researcher used a script to explain the basic timeline of the study, ensure anonymity, emphasize the exploratory nature of the research, and be sure that students understood that the study would not affect their grades.
Students were introduced to the questionnaires that all potential participants would submit and the researcher explained how a select group of students (6 from each school) would be asked to participate in the practice sessions. The treatment portion of the study
39 was not explained at this time. The researcher explained to the students that she would return during the next band class to distribute assent documents to all students that were willing to participate.
Since the control and experimental groups met for band class every other day, the researcher returned to collect student assent forms during the next time that the classes met (for example, if the control group was visited on Monday, the researcher returned on
Wednesday). During this meeting, the two participating band directors provided the researcher with class lists in seating order. These lists were used as master lists to record who was willing to participate. The students who were present at the last meeting were given a blank envelope containing a student assent form (see Appendix G). The researcher asked students to sign the assent forms only if they were willing to participate.
Students who did not wish to participate left the forms blank. All forms were refolded, placed in the blank envelope, and returned to the researcher before they left class.
The students that were absent during the first visit were provided with the information in the introduction script. The researcher returned during the next class period to administer the same assent procedures to those students, as noted in the previous paragraph. If a student was present on the day that the study was introduced but was absent on the day that assent forms are collected, the researcher returned during a later class to provide assent documents in the same manner as described above, always allowing the same two day waiting period between introduction and collection of assent forms.
The students who submitted assent forms were assigned random identification numbers. All other students were crossed out on the master list. The master list was kept
40 during the administration of the study to ensure that the researcher was able to pass out questionnaires throughout the study, avoiding those students that were not participating.
Participants who submitted assent forms but later decided they did not want to participate were permitted to drop out of the study at any time.
Session One – Questionnaire A
All participants in the experimental and control groups (N = 56) completed
Questionnaire A (Appendix A). Random identification numbers were assigned to each student on an alphabetical class list. The questionnaires were passed out in that order, skipping any students who were absent. This ensured that the researcher was able to match future data with the same student. The researcher read the instructions from the questionnaire aloud. The researcher was available during the administration of the questionnaire to answer any questions that the participants may have had. A small number of participants (n < 5) needed help determining their responses to the questions which asked about their involvement with private lessons. For example, one student was being taught by his/her mother who was a professional musician, and wasn’t sure if that counted as private lessons. Additionally, in Section V of the questionnaire, some students did not understand what was meant by ranking the choices from 1-5. When this confusion became apparent, the researcher clarified the meaning of these instructions to the entire group of students. Questionnaires were collected and resorted by identification number. Students who were absent on the first day of data collection were allowed to complete future questionnaires, but their data was not used.
41 Session Two – Practice Observation A
Students in practice groups E and C (n = 12) were asked to participate in 10 minute individual practice sessions. The length of this practice session was shortened from 15 minutes in preliminary study two (Kolthammer, 2006) because some participants in the preliminary study had a difficult time remembering the entire session for the verbal report.
The researcher provided each student with the same method book exercise, as described in the measurement instruments section of this document. Students practiced the exercise alone, in a room containing the following items: (a) a Wenger posture chair,
(b) a music stand, and (c) a pencil, which was placed on the music stand. Additionally, the following equipment was in the room for video/audio recording purposes: (a) a Dell
Latitude C640 laptop computer, (b) a Logitech webcam, which was clipped to another music stand facing the student, and (c) an Olympus VN-960PC digital audio recorder.
The laptop and webcam were used to video record each student and the digital audio recorder was used to collect the audio data. See Appendix H for a diagram of the room set-up.
The researcher explained the purpose and format of the study to each participant before proceeding, ensuring anonymity of the participants. Students were reminded that their playing ability would not be judged or graded. Each student was instructed to practice the exercise using any methods they may have used at home to learn a new song.
Students were told that they were allowed to write on the music if desired. The researcher asked the participants if they had any questions and mentioned that they would
42 not be interrupted for the ten minute session. Each practice session was videotaped in its entirety.
Immediately following the 10 minute session, the researcher returned to the room and watched the video recording with the student. Students were asked to verbally express, or narrate, what they were thinking as they watched themselves practice. The researcher provided the following example of “thinking aloud”:
Imagine you are grocery shopping. As you walk through the
produce section, you narrate what you are doing aloud. You
may say, “I am walking past the apples. Now I am trying to
decide if I want to buy Granny Smith or Red Delicious apples. I
decided to choose the Red Delicious apples because they taste
better.
This portion of the session was audio recorded in its entirety. Open-ended prompt questions such as, “What were you thinking here?” were used when students stopped verbalizing their thoughts. When there was a long period where the student had nothing new to report, such as when s/he was marking on the music for multiple minutes, the researcher would ask interview questions about related aspects of the practice session such as, “How did the difficulty of the exercise seem to you?”
Session Three - Treatment, Experimental Group Only
The practice lab treatment portion of this study took place in four lessons and four review lessons over a four week period. All participants in the experimental group of participants (n = 26) were taught the practice lab treatment by their band director during normal class time. The researcher was unable to find a source that gave an ideal amount
43 of time that a lesson needs to be introduced to students of this age. Sources on memory and retrieval were consulted (see Ormrod, 2004). During this four week period, the band director of the control group was asked to avoid teaching any lessons on practicing.
Session Four – Questionnaire B & Practice Session B
In this final session, sessions one and two were repeated with both the experimental and control group.
In the repetition of session one, Questionnaire B was administered to all experimental group participants. Questionnaire B included the same questions as
Questionnaire A, but in a different order. This step served the purpose of encouraging students to think about each question again rather than repeating previous answers by default. Questionnaire B had the same student identification numbers and was passed out the same way as Questionnaire A to ensure that data from the two questionnaires was linked to the same students. The researcher followed all questionnaire administration procedures as noted in session two. In the repetition of session two, the same participants were used for the practice sessions (n = 12).
At the conclusion of the study, the researcher offered the practice lab treatment lesson plans to the director of the control group. This allowed all students to potentially benefit from the practice training.
Data Analysis
In order to answer the proposed research questions a mixed methods design was undertaken; therefore, both quantitative and qualitative forms of data analysis were used.
The data from Practice Questionnaires A and B were statistically analyzed using Minitab
44 15 (2006). The data from the video and audio recorded practice observations were coded for frequencies using Transana 2.21 (2008).
Quantitative Data
For Practice Questionnaires A and B, the Chi-Square test statistic was used to establish equivalence among the nominal demographic information of the control and experimental groups. Once equivalence was established, the demographic data of all participants were reported using Descriptive statistics.
In Section I of the questionnaire, a new practice variable was created by multiplying the reported number of days of practice per week and the corresponding category that represented the range of minutes of each practice session. This data was compared using the t-test statistic to look for significant differences by group (control, experimental) in the pre-test. After equivalence was established, the data were reported using Descriptive statistics.
The Likert-type questions were addressed using t-tests to determine equivalence among the responses of the control and experimental groups in the pre-test.
Questionnaire responses that differed significantly by group were removed from further study and analysis. The remaining post-test responses of both groups were compared using the t-test statistic to look for significant differences following the treatment period.
All questionnaire items that did not change significantly from pre- to post-test were averaged by adding the pre- and post-test means and standard deviations and dividing by two. Those average means and standard deviations were analyzed with Descriptive statistics.
45 The rank-order questions in Section V of the questionnaire were analyzed with the
Mann-Whitney U statistic to determine if the control and experimental groups were equal in the pre-test, then Descriptive statistics were used to interpret the data. Finally, open ended, short answer questions were transcribed in full and coded to look for additional participant comments that could potentially enhance the statistical data.
In order to address research questions two and three, t-tests for independent means were used to identify any potential significant differences in the participants’ responses in the pre- and post-tests to the Likert-type questions by gender and by involvement in private lessons. For research question three, an Analysis of Variance
(ANOVA) was calculated to determine if any differences existed between participants’ responses in the pre- and post-tests to the Likert-type questions and instrument family.
Qualitative Data
Both the video data and digitally recorded audio data from the practice observations were transcribed in full. The resulting text transcriptions were coded for frequencies. Code frequencies from the video data were used to address research question five (observed practice strategies) and audio data codes were used to answer research question six (reported practice strategies). Both the video and audio data code frequencies were analyzed using the Chi-Square statistic to look for: (a) equivalence among the experimental and control groups in the pre-test, (b) significant differences between groups in the post-test, and (c) potential differences between the observed
(video) and reported (audio) data. In post-hoc analyses, complete lists of all codes and frequencies were used to determine general trends in the practice observations.
46 Predetermined codes were based on the literature (See Geiersbach, 2000; Hallam,
2001a, b; and Jørgensen, 1997), the preliminary studies, and the strategies taught in the practice lab treatment. Additional codes were added as needed after the collection of data, determined by student actions and comments within the transcribed video/audio files. A complete list of codes with transcript examples may be found in Appendix I.
The codes were initially divided into four general categories: (a) higher level thinking, (b) lower level thinking, (c) musical concepts, and (d) practice strategies. The researcher considered the related literature on student practice to place student actions and comments into one of these categories. Higher level thinking codes included evidence of self-regulation, metacognition, and self-evaluation. The higher level thinking codes were grouped into the following sub-categories: (a) problem recognition, (b) strategy selection, and (c) evaluation of performance (Nielsen, 2001). The sub-category goal setting was added to the higher level thinking code group based on its importance as indicated by the related literature (Pitts & Davidson, 2000; Geiersbach, 2000) for a total of four higher level thinking sub-categories.
The lower level thinking codes were chosen to be contradictory to the higher level thinking category and occurred when participants made practicing choices that did not demonstrate effective use of self-regulation, metacognition, and self-evaluation strategies. Originally, the lower level thinking codes included the following sub- categories: (a) leaving task requirements incomplete, (b) playing through the music with no corrections, and (c) playing through material, correcting single notes (Hallam, 2001a).
After reviewing the transcripts, it was determined by the researcher to be too difficult to objectively label the codes (a) leaving task requirements incomplete and (b) playing
47 through the music with no corrections for the purposes of this study. Instead, the following lower level thinking sub-categories were created to contrast the higher level thinking codes: (a) broad, unspecific goal setting, (b) lack of self-evaluation, and (c) simple repetition with no strategy selection, for a total of four lower level thinking sub- categories.
Musical concept codes referred to students talking about topics such as notes, tone, and tempo in their playing. These codes were most likely to appear in the audio data when students would mention a specific music concept as they spoke of their practicing. A general list of musical concept codes was devised prior to data collection and the researcher added to this category as instances appeared in the transcript data.
These codes were included to give the researcher a sense of where each student’s focus was directed during the practice sessions.
The practice strategies category included all techniques from the questionnaire including: (a) repetition, (b) mental rehearsal, (c) chunking, and (d) clap and count. Like the musical concept codes, as new examples of practice strategies appeared in the data, the researcher added an appropriate code to this category (e.g. whistling the part). It is important to clarify the definitions of the practice strategy codes that have been mentioned. For the purposes of this study, the code “repetition” was applied anytime a participant repeated a measure or segment of the music two or more times successively.
It was difficult to differentiate real mental rehearsal from simply staring at the music, so the code for mental rehearsal was used when students spoke specifically of the process in the audio data or when students sat and looked over the music in the video footage. The chunking code involved participants breaking the exercise down into smaller pieces, such
48 as a measure or a line of the music. Finally, clap and count was labeled when students (a) clapped and counted together, (b) just clapped or tapped out rhythms, or (c) counted aloud.
Observed behaviors and comments that did not fit into the original four coding categories were coded using the following additional categories: (a) starting point, (b) self-evaluation specific, (c) miscellaneous practice behaviors, (d) planning and organization, and (e) teacher comment. Only the (a) starting point and (b) self-evaluation specific categories were included in the final results. The starting point codes were: (a) starts at beginning of exercise, (b) starts within exercise, and (c) restarts in same measure as error. It should be noted that for analysis purposes, the codes “starts within exercise” and “restarts in same measure” were often combined to contrast the code “starts at beginning of exercise”. The self-evaluation specific codes were: (a) aware of habit, (b) positive comment, (c) negative comment, (d) frustration, and (e) boredom.
In consideration of reliability, the coding data were triangulated by two independent coders who were experienced researchers with music degrees. Each of the audio and video practice sessions (N = 48) was divided into two five minute segments
(Approximately minutes 0-5 and minutes 5-10). The researcher randomly selected six of these five minute segments for each of the independent coders (n = 12). After clarification of code definitions were discussed, each researcher coded his/her six segments. Interrater reliability was assessed by using Pearson’s product-moment correlation to compare the code frequencies of the researcher to independent coder A (r =
.98) and independent coder B (r = .97).
49 Chapter 4
Results
This study resulted in both quantitative and qualitative data. The quantitative data was analyzed through various statistical processes. The qualitative data was coded and the resulting observed frequencies of codes analyzed statistically. This chapter will describe: (a) the demographic data depicting the participants, (b) the comparison of the pre-test quantitative and qualitative data for the experimental and control participants to determine equivalence of the groups, and (c) the results of the analysis of the data for each of the seven research questions.
Demographic Data
The 56 participants were assigned to experimental (n = 26) and control (n = 30) groups by the school they attended. The demographic variables of the two groups were similar (see Table 4.1).
50 Table 4.1
Demographics of the Experimental and Control Groups
Experimental Group Control Group Total
Number of Males 10 19 29
Number of Females 16 11 27
Number of Woodwinds 13 20 33
Number of Brass 10 7 17
Number of Percussion 3 3 6
Number with Private Lesson 12 22 34
Experience
Mean Age 13.81 13.77
Mean Band Starting Grade 4.88 5.11
It should be noted once again that this study was voluntary and not all musicians from the two participating schools chose to participate. The experimental group had slightly more female participants and brass musicians than the control group. The control group had a slightly higher percentage of male participants and woodwinds. The number of participating percussionists in each group was equal. Of the participants in this study,
75% were 14 years old (n = 42) and 77% started band in the fifth grade (n = 43). With the exception of bassoon and bass clarinet, all general band instruments were represented in the sample (See Table 4.2).
51 Table 4.2
Distribution of Instruments in Experimental and Control Groups
Instrument Control Experimental Total
Flute 3 9 12
Oboe 1 1 2
Bassoon 0 0 0
Clarinet 7 2 9
Bass Clarinet 0 0 0
Alto Saxophone 6 1 7
Tenor Saxophone 2 0 2
Baritone Saxophone 1 0 1
French Horn 0 1 1
Trumpet 3 5 8
Trombone 3 3 6
Baritone 1 0 1
Tuba 0 1 1
Percussion 3 3 6
In this study, private lesson experience referred to one or more of the following:
(a) current lessons on band instrument, (b) previous private lessons on band instrument, and (c) private lessons on another instrument, such as piano (see Table 4.3).
52 Table 4.3
Experimental and Control Groups by Private Lesson Experience
Control Experimental
Private Lesson Experience a 22 (73%) 12 (46%)
No Private Lesson Experience a 8 (27%) 14 (54%)
Current Private Lessons on Band 5 (17%) 4 (15%)
Instrument
Previous Private Lessons on Band 17 (57%) 10 (38%)
Instrument
Experience a with Lessons on Another 13 (43%) 8 (31%)
Instrument
a Private Lesson Experience refers to current or prior participation on any instrument.
Within the control group, 73% of students had private lesson experience while
only 46% of the experimental group had been involved with private lessons. This was
due to a high number of students in the control group that had previously taken private
lessons on their band instrument (57%) or another instrument (43%). However, of the
total participants in both the experimental and control groups, only 9 students (16%)
reported that they were currently taking private lessons on their respective band
instruments. Nearly half of all participants (n = 24) reported that they played another
instrument (including voice) as well or better than their current band instrument, and 37%
(n = 21) of all participants stated that they had taken private lessons on an instrument
53 other than their current band instrument. Piano (n = 10) and voice (n = 9) were the most commonly named secondary instruments among all participants.
Comparison of Pre-test Questionnaire Data by Group
In order to determine whether the experimental and control groups were equivalent on the pre-test, t-tests for independent means were calculated between the two groups for all interval data questionnaire items. This analysis included the data from sections three, four, and six of the practice questionnaire (Appendix A). Significant differences (p < .05) were found between the two groups on four questionnaire items: (a)
Students should plan their practice sessions using a practice chart [t (54) = 2.98, p =
0.004], (b) Band directors need to teach students how to practice their instruments [t (54)
= 3.06, p = 0.003], (c) Practice Strategy: Breaking the song into smaller sections (or chunks) and then practicing those smaller sections [t (54) = - 2.04, p = 0.046], and (d) If
students learn how to practice better, it may be easier for them to improve [t (54) = 2.14,
p = 0.037] (see Table 4.4 for the group means and standard deviations for each item).
Since these factors were not initially equivalent, they were eliminated from further
analysis. All other t-tests calculated were non-significant.
54
Table 4.4
Significant Differences (p < .05) by Group in Pre-test Questionnaire Responses
Control Experimental
M SD M SD
Students should plan their practice sessions using a 2.60 0.85 3.35 1.02
practice chart a
Band directors need to teach students how to 2.93 1.14 3.88 1.18
practice their instruments a
Practice Strategy: Breaking the song into smaller 4.57 0.50 4.15 0.97
sections (or chunks) and then practicing
those smaller sections b
If students learn how to practice better, it may be 3.73 0.98 4.27 0.87
easier for them to improve a
a Questions used a five-point Likert type scale: 1=Strongly Disagree, 2=Disagree, 3=Not
Sure, 4=Agree, 5=Strongly Agree
b Questions used a five-point Likert type scale: 1=Not Useful, 2=Somewhat Useful,
3=Not Sure, 4=Useful, 5=Very Useful
In section II of the practice questionnaire, participants were asked to identify the
amount of practice that should be undertaken in one week. Data from this section were combined by multiplying the days per week in question 10 by the minutes per session category (1-5) in question 11, creating a new practice time variable. In order to test for
equivalence among groups in the pre-test, a t-test for independent samples was computed.
55 There was no significant difference between the experimental and control groups in the pre-test for this variable [t (54) = 0.65, p = 0.516].
Two questionnaire items in section V asked participants to rank practice strategies
according to their appropriateness for a given task. Question 43 asked participants to
rank five provided strategies for a rhythm problem and question 44 addressed a technique
issue. The Mann-Whitney U test was used to examine these items from the pre-test of
the experimental and control groups. The groups did not differ significantly in the pre- test on question 43 (Mann-Whitney U = 332, p = .271) or question 44 (Mann-Whitney U
= 311.5, p = .124). It should be noted that there was some confusion regarding the instructions for this section among the control group in the pre-test. The instructions asked participants to rank the items, but some of the students interpreted this as rating each strategy from 1-5 in effectiveness; they didn’t rank them in relation to the other choices. The responses from students that did not properly complete this section were
not included in the results, making the sample size smaller for these two questions (n =
39).
Research Question 1: Students’ Understanding of Practice
The first research question was, “Does a practice strategy treatment affect
participants’ understanding of music practice in terms of (a) ideal amount of practice, (b)
planning and organization of practice sessions, (c) activities that constitute practice, and
(d) usefulness of practice strategies?” To answer this question the post-test Likert-type
survey results of the experimental and control groups were compared using t-tests for
independent means, excluding the factors that were not equivalent in the pre-test. Three
items were significantly different between the groups: (a) Students should set goals for
56 each practice session [t (53) = 2.04, p = 0.047], (b) Practice Strategy: Counting and clapping the rhythms [t (54) = 4.09, p = 0.000], and (c) Practice Strategy: Singing through the part [t (54) = 3.49, p = 0.001]. The means and standard deviations for these factors
are listed in Table 4.5.
Table 4.5
Post-test Practice Strategies That Differed Significantly Between Groups
Control Experimental
M SD M SD
Students should set goals for each practice 3.55 0.74 4.00 0.89
session a
Counting and clapping the rhythms b 3.17 1.18 4.23 0.65
Singing through the part b 2.00 1.05 3.12 1.34
a Questions used a five-point Likert type scale: 1=Strongly Disagree, 2=Disagree, 3=Not
Sure, 4=Agree, 5=Strongly Agree
b Questions used a five-point Likert type scale: 1=Not Useful, 2=Somewhat Useful,
3=Not Sure, 4=Useful, 5=Very Useful
In Section II of the questionnaire, the post-test practice time variable data were investigated using the t-test statistic to look for differences by group following the
treatment. No significant difference was found among the groups [t (54) = 0.77, p =
0.444]. In a post-hoc analysis, practice time variable responses in Section II of the
practice questionnaire showed that the eighth grade students thought that practice
57 sessions should occur an average of four days per week, for approximately thirty minutes in each session (M = 10.09, SD = 4.37).
The two items from Section V of the questionnaire that asked students to rank a list of strategies related to rhythmic and technical musical problems were examined with the Mann-Whitney U test to look for differences between the groups in the post-test. No significant differences were found between the experimental and control groups in their ranking of the practice strategies for the rhythm-based scenario (Mann-Whitney U =
373.5, p = .764) in question 43 or the technique-based scenario (Mann-Whitney U =
304.5, p = .120) in question 44.
As a post-hoc analysis, descriptive statistics were calculated for all non- significant interval data questionnaire items by summing the pre-test and post-test means and dividing them by 2, and summing the pre-test and post-test standard deviations and dividing them by two. Tables 4.6 - 4.8 present the means and standard deviations for all non-significant interval data questionnaire items. In Section III of the practice questionnaire, participants provided information on their understanding of practice (see
Table 4.6). Section IV of the practice questionnaire dealt with various practice strategies that may have been considered useful in the practice room (see Table 4.7). Finally,
Section VI of the survey asked participants to report on general perceptions of practicing
(see Table 4.8).
58 Table 4.6
Eighth Grade Band Students’ Understanding of Practice, Questionnaire Section III
Question M SD
Marking the music with a pencil during practice is okay. 4.52 0.53
Students should do a warm-up at the beginning of every practice session. 4.14 0.80
Sight-reading new music can count as part of a practice session. 4.10 0.74
Activities such as mentally running through a song, singing a part, and
counting rhythms should count as part of the practice time. 4.05 0.80
It is better to practice most days of the week, even if the sessions are short. 3.82 0.93
It is okay for students to take breaks during practice sessions when tired. 3.69 1.00
Playing through old music for fun should count as practicing. 3.64 1.05
Students will practice more if they are reminded by parents and teachers. 3.44 1.15
Band directors should keep track of how often students are practicing. 3.43 1.04
Students need to be taught how to set long and short term goals for
practicing. 3.29 1.03
Parents should keep track of how often their children are practicing. 3.07 1.13
The warm-up routine should be the same every time. 2.56 0.91
Activities such as setting up a music stand, putting together an instrument,
and instrument maintenance should count as practice time. 2.51 1.18
It is better to practice for a long time a couple days per week than to
practice every day for a short time. 2.49 1.07
Note. Questions used a five-point Likert type scale: 1=Strongly Disagree, 2=Disagree,
3=Not Sure, 4=Agree, 5=Strongly Agree
59 Table 4.7
Usefulness of Suggested Practice Strategies, Questionnaire Section IV
Practice Strategy M SD
Repeating a measure or section of the song until it is right 4.11 0.91
Using dynamics (louder, softer, < , > , etc.) to play the music louder or
softer 3.87 1.01
Playing a measure or section of the song slowly 3.86 1.04
Playing the song from beginning to end 3.76 1.00
Practicing the fingers/hands alone (without producing sound on the
instrument) 3.46 1.14
Setting short and long term goals for practice sessions 3.30 1.21
Silently looking at the music, thinking about and hearing the part in one’s
head (mental rehearsal) 3.22 1.23
Memorizing the music 3.04 1.24
Playing a measure or section of the song quickly 2.11 1.06
Changing the articulation (accents, tonguing, slurring, etc.) in a measure
or section of the song 1.86 1.12
Changing the rhythm of a measure or section of the song 1.63 1.05
Note. Questions used a five-point Likert type scale: 1=Not Useful, 2=Somewhat Useful,
3=Not Sure, 4=Useful, 5=Very Useful.
60 Table 4.8
Student Perceptions of Practice, Questionnaire Section VI
Question M SD
Students don’t like to practice because it takes too much time. 3.94 0.94
Practicing can be enjoyable for students. 3.60 1.05
Students don’t like to practice because they get frustrated. 3.46 1.04
Students will not improve on their band instruments if they don’t
practice regularly. 3.16 1.32
It is difficult for students to know how to practice when they are alone. 2.78 1.07
Note. Questions used a five-point Likert type scale: 1=Strongly Disagree, 2=Disagree,
3=Not Sure, 4=Agree, 5=Strongly Agree.
The final post-hoc analysis explored the post-test data from the rank-order
questions in Section V of the practice questionnaire. For these items, participants were
given two practice scenarios and were asked to rank five provided strategies in terms of
usefulness for each scenario. Results may be found in Table. 4.9.
61 Table 4.9
Ranked Strategies for Practice Problem Scenarios
Rhythm-Based Scenario Mdn Mode
Clap and count the rhythm that is difficult 2.00 1.00
Break the song into pieces, focusing on the part where the 2.00 1.00
rhythm is difficult.
Repeat the rhythm over and over until it is fixed. 2.00 2.00
Write in the counting for the rhythm that is difficult. 4.00 4.00
Start over and try the song again until the rhythm is better. 5.00 5.00
Technique-Based Scenario Mdn Mode
Play the fast section slower. 1.00 1.00
Break the fast section into smaller pieces. 2.00 2.00
Practice the fingers/hands only, without making the instrument 3.00 2.00 sound. Repeat the fast section over and over until the notes are right. 3.00 3.00
Start over and try the song again until the notes are right. 4.00 5.00
Note. Each Strategy was Ranked from 1-5, with “1” being the most effective way to
approach the problem.
Research Question 2: Differences in Practice Perceptions Based on Gender
The second research question related to potential gender differences in participants’ responses to the practice questionnaire. Utilizing t-tests for independent samples, significant differences were found for three questionnaire items. Two pre-test practice strategy statements: (a) Playing a measure or section of the song quickly [t (54) =
62
2.65, p = 0.010] and (b) Counting and clapping the rhythms [t(54) = - 2.05, p = 0.045] and
one post-test item, “Practicing the fingers/hands alone (without producing sound on the
instrument)” [t(54) = - 3.15, p = 0.003] were significantly different by gender. The means
and standard deviations for these factors are listed in Table 4.10. No significant
differences by gender were found for other questionnaire items.
Table 4.10
Significant Differences in Practice Strategy Responses Based on Gender
Male Female
Practice Strategy M SD M SD
Pre-test: Playing quickly 2.34 1.14 1.63 0.84
Pre-test: Counting and clapping 3.45 1.18 4.04 0.94
Post-test: Fingers/hands alone 3.07 1.25 3.96 0.81
Note. Questions used a five-point Likert type scale: 1=Not Useful, 2=Somewhat Useful,
3=Not Sure, 4=Useful, 5=Very Useful
Research Question 3: Differences in Practice Perceptions Based on Private Lesson
Experience
The third research question related to potential differences in responses to the
practice questionnaire due to private lesson experience. For the purposes of this study
private lesson involvement was defined as a participant’s experience with private lessons,
either currently or in the past, on any instrument. Utilizing t-tests for independent
samples, significant differences were found for four questionnaire items. Two pre-test
practice strategies: (a) Using dynamics to play the music louder or softer [t(54) = 2.94, p =
63
0.005] and (b) Counting and clapping the rhythms [t(54) = - 2.87, p = 0.006] and two post-
test items, (c) It is okay for students to take breaks during practice sessions if they are
tired. [t(54) = - 2.07, p = 0.043] and (d) Practicing the fingers/hands alone (without
producing sound on the instrument) [t(54) = - 2.50, p = 0.015] were significantly different
by private lesson experience. The means and standard deviations for these factors are
listed in Table 4.11. No significant differences by private lesson experience were found
for other questionnaire items.
Table 4.11
Significant Differences in Responses Based on Private Lesson Experience (PL)
PL No PL
M SD M SD
Pre-test: Using dynamics a 4.29 0.72 3.64 0.95
Pre-test: Counting and clapping a 3.41 1.18 4.23 0.75
Post-test: Practicing the fingers/hands
alone a 3.21 1.23 3.95 0.84
Post-test: It is okay to take breaks
when tired b 3.35 1.18 3.95 0.84
a Questions used a five-point Likert type scale: 1=Not Useful, 2=Somewhat Useful,
3=Not Sure, 4=Useful, 5=Very Useful
b Questions used a five-point Likert type scale: 1=Strongly Disagree, 2=Disagree, 3=Not
Sure, 4=Agree, 5=Strongly Agree
64 Research Question 4: Differences in Practice Perceptions Based on Instrument Family
For the fourth research question, each questionnaire response was analyzed using a one-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) to determine the effect of instrument family
(woodwind, brass, or percussion) on participant responses. In order to interpret the significant differences between group means revealed by the ANOVA, Tukey a post-hoc tests were calculated (p = .05). A total of four questions were identified as significantly different (p < .05) due to instrument family. In the pre-test data, the practice perception statement, “Activities such as mentally running through a song, singing a part, and counting rhythms should count as part of the practice time” was affected by instrument family [F (2, 55) = 4.22, p = 0.020]. The Tukey a results indicated significant differences between: (a) woodwinds (M = 4.09, SD = 0.68) and percussion (M = 3.33, SD
= 0.82) and (b) brass (M = 4.12, SD = 0.33) and percussion. No significant differences were found between woodwinds and brass. Another pre-test response that was affected by instrument family was the practice strategy, “Playing a measure or section of the song quickly” [F (2, 55) = 3.30, p = 0.044]. For this item, the Tukey a post-hoc revealed a significant difference between the woodwinds (M = 1.76, SD = 0.90) and brass (M =2.53,
SD = 1.12) families. No significant differences were found between woodwinds and percussion or brass and percussion.
Within the post-test the practice statement, “It is better to practice for a long time a couple days per week than to practice every day for a short time” was significantly different by instrument family [F (2, 55) = 5.34, p = 0.008]. Tukey a test results showed significant differences between: (a) the woodwind family (M = 2.61, SD = 1.00) and the brass family (M = 1.88, SD = 0.70) and (b) brass and percussion (M = 3.17, SD = 1.17).
65 No significant differences were found between woodwinds and percussion. Finally, the responses for “Playing through old music for fun should count as practicing” were significantly different by instrument family [F (2, 55) = 4.07, p = 0.023]. The Tukey a test reported significant differences between the woodwind (M = 3.39, SD = 1.09) and brass (M = 4.18, SD = 0.34) families. No significant differences were found among woodwinds and percussion or brass and percussion.
Research Question 5: Observed Practice Strategies
The data collected to answer the remaining research questions was generated by a proportionally stratified random sample of participants (n = 12; 6 = experimental group, 6
= control group) that were selected from the original group (N = 56). These participants engaged in practice sessions that were videotaped. They also provided retrospective verbal reports on their practice behaviors. For research question five, “Does a practice strategy treatment affect participants’ observed practice strategies?”, chi-square statistics were computed comparing the experimental and control group participants’ observed practice behavior frequencies. In the pre-treatment video data, five of forty-six total codes (Appendix I) were significantly different between the two groups: (a) Higher Level
Thinking: Evaluation [χ2 (5, N = 12) = 1.20, p = .035], (b) Lower Level Thinking:
Correcting Single Notes [χ2 (4, N = 12) = 1.20, p = .017], (c) Musical Concept: Rhythm
[χ2 (4, N = 12) = 1.00, p = .040], (d) Practice Strategy: Mental Rehearsal [χ2 (5, N = 12) =
1.20, p = .035], and (e) Self-Evaluation: Positive Comment [χ2 (3, N = 12) = 8.57, p =
.036]. The pre- and post-test frequencies of these items are listed in Table 4.12. There
were no significant differences found in the post-treatment chi-square analysis of the
66 video data of the experimental and control groups for any of the variables, including the items that were significant prior to the treatment.
Table 4.12
Pre-Treatment Significant Video Observation Frequencies
Pre-treatment Post-treatment
Code Experimental Control Experimental Control
f f f f
HLT: Evaluation 4 24 0 7
LLT: Correcting Single Notes 17 1 14 16
MC: Rhythm 1 21 0 0
PS: Mental Rehearsal 31 3 25 27
SE: Positive Comment 0 12 0 0
Note. Coded frequencies in the pre-treatment observations were significantly different (p
< .05), while none of the post-treatment observations differed significantly.
HLT = Higher Level Thinking, LLT = Lower Level Thinking, MC = Musical Concepts,
PS = Practice Strategy, and SE = Self-Evaluation
As a post-hoc analysis, a mean frequency variable was created for all items except
those listed in Table 4.11 by combining the experimental and control group data, adding
the pre- and post-test frequencies, and dividing by two. A complete list of these video
code frequencies are provided in Table 4.13. It should be noted that the video transcripts
were coded based on what the students were individually doing in the practice room,
therefore codes that were related to a thought process or conversation between the
67 participant and the researcher did not appear in the video data (e.g., goal setting), although they were utilized in the analysis of the verbal reports that follow.
Table 4.13
Non-significant Observed Video Frequencies by Group
Code Mean f *
HLT: Evaluation 17.5
HLT: Goal Setting 2
HLT: Problem Recognition 17
HLT: Total Strategy Selection 150.5
LLT: Unspecific Goals 3.5
LLT: Lack of Evaluation 0.5
LLT: Correcting Single Notes 24
LLT: Simple Repetition 110.5
MC: Articulation 4
MC: Dynamics 3
MC: Intonation 1
MC: Meter 1
MC: Notes 11.5
MC: Phrasing 0
MC: Pitch Accuracy 0.5
MC: Posture 0
MC: Range 2.5
MC: Rhythm 11
68 MC: Sight-Reading 0
MC: Tempo 0.5
MC: Tone 0.5
PS: Address dynamics 6
PS: Change Articulation 0
PS: Change Range of Music 0.5
PS: Chunking 50
PS: Clap & Count 14.5
PS: Fingers/Hands Alone 5
PS: Marking music 39
PS: Memorization 0
PS: Mental Rehearsal 43
PS: Play Faster 5.5
PS: Play Slower 6.5
PS: Repetition 29
PS: Repetition/Five Times Correct 2
PS: Sight-reading 5
PS: Singing 7.5
PS: Whistling 4
PS: Works to desired pitch 11
SE: Aware of habit 5.5
SE: Boredom 2.5
SE: Frustration 17
69 SE: Negative 3.5
SE: Positive 6
SP: Restarting same as error 64
SP: Start at beginning 102.5
SP: Starts within 57.5
Note. HLT = Higher Level Thinking, LLT = Lower Level Thinking, MC = Musical
Concepts, PS = Practice Strategies, SE = Self-Evaluation, and SP = Starting Points
*Mean f was calculated by adding the pre- and post-test observation frequencies and
dividing that value by two.
Research Question 6: Reported Practice Strategies
The sixth research question was very similar to question five, except that it dealt
with the participants’ retrospective verbal reports of their practice behaviors. There were
no significant differences (p > .05) in the pre-test verbal report data between the experimental and control groups. However, when examining the post-test data, five of the forty-six total codes were found to be significantly different by group. The codes that were statistically significant were: (a) Lower Level Thinking: Broad, Unspecific Goals
[χ2 (3, N = 12) = 8.57, p = .036], (b) Musical Concepts: Rhythm [χ2 (3, N = 12) = 1.20, p
= .007], (c) Self-Evaluation: Aware of habit [χ2 (3, N = 12) = 1.20, p = .007], (d) Self-
Evaluation: Positive Comment [χ2 (3, N = 12) = 8.57, p = .036], and (e) Starting Point:
Restarting in same measure as error [χ2 (3, N = 12) = 8.57, p = .036]. The pre- and post- test frequencies for these items are listed in Table 4.14.
70 Table 4.14
Post-Treatment Significant Retrospective Verbal Report Frequencies
Pre-treatment Post-treatment
Code Experimental Control Experimental Control
f f f f
LLT: Broad, Unspecific Goals 14 10 9 0
MC: Rhythm 18 14 20 0
SE: Aware of Habit 7 12 12 0
SE: Positive 11 11 11 0
SP: Restarting in same
measure as error 1 0 0 24
Note. Coded frequencies in the post-treatment observations were significantly different
(p < .05), while the pre-treatment observations of these items were non-significant.
LLT = Lower Level Thinking, MC = Musical Concepts, SE = Self-Evaluation, and SP =
Starting Point
As a post-hoc analysis, a mean frequency variable was created for all items except
those listed in Table 4.11 by combining the experimental and control group data, adding
the pre- and post-test frequencies, and dividing by two. A complete list of these video
code frequencies are provided in Table 4.15. It should be noted that codes were only
applied in the audio data for statements that the participants made about their playing
during the retrospective verbal report. The video playback could be heard in the
background, but it was only used to understand the context of the participants’ comments
71 when statements were unclear. Hence, the occurrence of a code such as “Starts within exercise” was not as common in the audio data as it was in the video data since it was more likely for a student to demonstrate the code rather than speak of it retrospectively.
Table 4.15
Non-significant Reported Audio Frequencies by Group
Code Mean f *
HLT: Evaluation 45
HLT: Goal Setting 4.5
HLT: Problem Recognition 59.5
HLT: Total Strategy Selection 124.5
LLT: Unspecific Goals 16.5
LLT: Lack of Evaluation 5.5
LLT: Correcting Single Notes 11
LLT: Simple Repetition 56
MC: Articulation 13
MC: Dynamics 15
MC: Intonation 0.5
MC: Meter 3.5
MC: Notes 36.5
MC: Phrasing 0.5
MC: Pitch Accuracy 2
MC: Posture 1.5
MC: Range 9
72 MC: Rhythm 26
MC: Sight-Reading 0.5
MC: Tempo 8.5
MC: Tone 0
PS: Address dynamics 7
PS: Change Articulation 2
PS: Change Range of Music 0.5
PS: Chunking 29
PS: Clap & Count 5
PS: Fingers/Hands Alone 4.5
PS: Marking music 38
PS: Memorization 1.5
PS: Mental Rehearsal 22
PS: Play Faster 9.5
PS: Play Slower 10.5
PS: Repetition 20.5
PS: Repetition/Five Times Correct 0
PS: Sight-reading 5
PS: Singing 4.5
PS: Whistling 3
PS: Works to desired pitch 3.5
SE: Aware of habit 15.5
SE: Boredom 0.5
73 SE: Frustration 7.5
SE: Negative 6
SE: Positive 16.5
SP: Restarting same as error 12.5
SP: Start at beginning 58
SP: Starts within 21.5
Note. HLT = Higher Level Thinking, LLT = Lower Level Thinking, MC = Musical
Concepts, PS = Practice Strategies, SE = Self-Evaluation, and SP = Starting Points
*Mean f was calculated by adding the pre- and post-test observation frequencies and
dividing that value by two.
Research Question 7: Comparison of Observed and Reported Practice Strategies
Research question seven asked, “How did the observational data of participants’ practicing and the data from their retrospective verbal reports compare?” The Chi-Square test was used to answer this question. It was difficult to examine pre- and post-test frequencies separately for this question due to low frequency values. Therefore, it was decided to combine the pre- and post-test data and only analyze the differences between the observed and reported practice behaviors for each group. It became clear that a number of codes dealt with behaviors that would have been difficult to identify in the video data. For example, the codes: (a) Higher Level Thinking: Goal Setting, and (b)
Lower Level Thinking: Lack of Evaluation referred to internal processes that the researcher could not have coded from the video data without participants making a comment to themselves aloud about one of these topics. Similarly the code, “Higher
74 Level Thinking: Problem Recognition” and all codes in the Musical Concepts category
(e.g. Notes, Articulation) were difficult to label objectively in the video footage. For example, it was possible for a participant to be focused on the articulation of a measure without it being outwardly apparent to an observer watching the video recording. Codes that fell into this category were removed from this portion of analysis (see Table 4.16).
75 Table 4.16
Codes Removed from Comparison of Reported and Observed Practice Behaviors
Control Experimental
Code Observed f Reported f Observed f Reported f
HLT: Goal Setting 3 4 1 5
HLT: Problem Recognition 29 39 5 80
LLT: Unspecific Goals 5 10 2 23
LLT: Lack of Evaluation 1 3 0 8
MC: Articulation 8 12 0 14
MC: Dynamics 6 14 0 16
MC: Intonation 2 0 0 1
MC: Meter 2 6 0 1
MC: Notes 22 23 1 50
MC: Phrasing 0 1 0 0
MC: Pitch Accuracy 1 2 0 2
MC: Posture 0 3 0 0
MC: Range 3 9 2 9
MC: Sight-Reading 0 1 0 0
MC: Tempo 1 11 0 6
MC: Tone 1 0 0 0
SE: Aware of habit 11 12 0 19
76 The Chi-Square test results indicated three codes that were significantly different by observed and reported practice behaviors in the control group (see Table 4.17). In the control group, the three codes were: (a) Practice Strategies: Play Faster, (b) Self-
Evaluation: Boredom, and (c) Starting Point: Restarting in the same measure as error.
Table 4.17
Control Group Significant Differences in Observed and Reported Practice Behaviors
Code χ2 N p Observed Reported
(df = 1) f f
PS: Play Faster 5.52 15 .019 2 13
SE: Boredom 3.91 3* .048 3* 0*
SP: Restarting in Same
Measure as Error 4.87 57 .027 33 24
Note. PS = Practice Strategies, SE = Self-Evaluation, and SP = Starting Point
* Frequency values < 5 were likely to have affected this result
For the experimental group, significant differences were found between observed and reported behaviors for six codes (see Table 4.18): (a) Lower Level Thinking: Simple
Repetition, (b) Practice Strategies: Change Articulation, (c) Practice Strategies:
Chunking, (d) Starting Point: Restarting in same measure as error, (e) Starting Point:
Start at Beginning, and (f) Starting Point: Start within exercise. Finally, a complete list of the observed and reported code frequencies for this study may be found in Table 4.19.
77 Table 4.18
Experimental Group Significant Differences in Observed and Reported Practice
Behaviors
Code χ2 N p Observed Reported
(df = 1) f f
LLT: Simple Repetition with
no Strategy Selection 34.33 186 .000 159 27
PS: Change Articulation 5.57 3* .018 0* 3*
PS: Chunking 12.32 72 .000 61 11
SP: Restarting in same
measure as error 48.68 96 .000 95 1*
SP: Start at Beginning 37.44 151 .000 134 17
SP: Start Within Exercise 41.15 82 .000 81 1*
Note. LLT = Lower Level Thinking, PS = Practice Strategies, and SP = Starting Point
* Frequency values < 5 were likely to have affected this result
78 Table 4.19
Observed and Reported Practice Behaviors by Group
Control Control Experimental Experimental
Pre-Test Post-Test Pre-Test Post-Test
Code V f A f V f A f V f A f V f A f
HLT: Evaluation 24 33 7 1 4 33 0 23
HLT: Goal Setting 3 4 0 0 1 4 0 1
HLT: Problem
Recognition 23 30 6 9 4 41 1 39
HLT: Total Strategy
Selection 42 59 75 92 95 58 89 40
LLT: Unspecific Goals 5 10 0 0 2 14 0 9
LLT: Lack of Evaluation 1 3 0 0 0 6 0 2
LLT: Correcting Single
Notes 1 2 16 18 17 1 14 1
LLT: Simple Repetition 5 19 57 66 76 21 83 6
MC: Articulation 7 11 1 1 0 7 0 7
MC: Dynamics 5 9 1 5 0 12 0 4
MC: Intonation 1 0 1 0 0 1 0 0
MC: Meter 2 6 0 0 0 1 0 0
MC: Notes 20 22 2 1 1 28 0 22
MC: Phrasing 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0
MC: Pitch Accuracy 1 2 0 0 0 2 0 0
79 MC: Posture 0 3 0 0 0 0 0 0
MC: Range 3 9 0 0 2 8 0 1
MC: Rhythm 21 14 0 0 1 18 0 20
MC: Sight Reading 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0
MC: Tempo 1 7 0 4 0 5 0 1
MC: Tone 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
PS: Address dynamics 1 3 1 5 5 4 5 2
PS: Change Articulation 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 2
PS: Change Range of
Music 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 0
PS: Chunking 7 10 32 37 33 8 28 3
PS: Clap & Count 4 3 5 1 3 2 17 4
PS: Fingers/Hands
Alone 0 1 1 3 5 3 4 2
PS: Marking music 16 18 23 26 22 19 17 13
PS: Memorization 0 2 0 1 0 0 0 0
PS: Mental Rehearsal 3 7 27 22 31 6 25 9
PS: Play Faster 1 3 1 10 4 4 5 2
PS: Play Slower 2 5 1 5 6 6 4 5
PS: Repetition 5 6 15 20 17 10 21 5
PS: Repetition/Five
Times Correct 0 0 0 0 0 0 4 0
PS: Sight-reading 6 4 2 2 1 3 1 1
80 PS: Singing 1 3 8 6 1 0 5 0
PS: Whistling 3 3 5 3 0 0 0 0
PS: Works to desired
pitch 1 0 7 4 10 3 4 0
SE: Aware of habit 11 12 0 0 0 7 0 12
SE: Boredom 2 0 1 0 1 0 1 1
SE: Frustration 4 4 6 5 19 3 5 3
SE: Negative Comment 3 6 0 0 4 5 0 1
SE: Positive Comment 12 11 0 0 0 11 0 11
SP: Restarting in same
measure as error 2 0 31 24 43 1 52 0
SP: Start at beginning 4 13 67 86 63 9 71 8
SP: Starts within 3 3 31 39 43 0 38 1
Note. V = Video (Observed), A = Audio (Reported), HLT = Higher Level Thinking,
LLT = Lower Level Thinking, MC = Musical Concepts, PS = Practice Strategies, SE =
Self-Evaluation, SP = Starting Point
81 Chapter 5
Discussion
In this chapter, results will be discussed in relation to the: (a) limitations of the study, (b) administration of the treatment, (c) role of private lesson experience in this study, (d) seven research questions that guided the study, (e) developmental stages of practice, (f) role of music educators, and (g) implications for future research. In addition to the discussion of the data analysis from chapter four of this document, qualitative data from the audio transcripts of the practice observation students (n = 12) will be provided to enrich the description of the data.
Limitations of the Study
The design of this study provided a snapshot of how eighth grade band students practice and how a music educator may affect practice behaviors through practice lab lessons in a normal classroom setting. There were limitations to this study that should be considered when interpreting the results. The participating school district in this study was chosen to represent a typical music department with a wide range of socioeconomic status among participants, but no conclusions were drawn based on these factors. The practice questionnaire items were phrased in third-person to encourage participants to answer freely; however, survey responses (N = 56) must be interpreted through the lens of data that is grounded in participants’ stated preferences rather than observed behavior.
The inclusion of the observed practice sessions in the study design helped to counteract this bias by providing the researcher with video footage and audio commentary of eighth grade band students engaged in practice sessions. Attempts were made to make the practice sessions feel authentic for the participants, but the unique nature of the practice
82 environment and the small sample size (n = 12) for the practice observations prevent the results from being generalized on a large scale. Furthermore, the lack of percussionists in the practice observations, due to a lack of interest in participation, presented another limitation to this study.
Individual personalities may have influenced the way that each participant reacted to the retrospective verbal protocol analysis technique used in the practice observations.
For example, general differences in student personality and demeanor affected how verbal each participant was in the audio data. There were times in all of the practice observations when the researcher had to alter the retrospective protocol analysis technique into more of an interview-style due to either a lack of thinking-aloud on the part of the participant, or time in the video footage when nothing new was occurring.
Attempts were made to make each verbal protocol analysis session as similar as possible, but the individuality of the participants was likely to have affected the results of this study in some way. Future research is needed to further examine the potential effects of a treatment such as the one used in this study on the practice behaviors of intermediate- level musicians.
Administration of the Treatment
Since the practice lab treatment lessons were designed to address the primary research questions that guided this study, it is important to discuss the implementation and administration of the treatment period. Four lesson plans were provided for the experimental group cooperating band director (see Appendix C). The practice techniques addressed in the lessons were (a) mental rehearsal, (b) goal setting, (c) chunking, (d) clap and count, and (e) repetition/five times correct method. The director was asked to teach
83 one lesson per week, for a total of four weeks. In addition, each lesson was to be followed up by a review lesson on the same topics, later in the same week. Musical excerpts were provided and a shortened, bulleted version of each lesson was provided as a cheat sheet for the director’s use during class. The lessons were designed to last approximately 10-15 minutes each. The review lessons were likely to be shorter and also gave the director a chance to relate the lesson to a different piece of repertoire, such as a current band song. For reliability purposes, each lesson was audio-recorded in full. The audio-recordings were not coded or analyzed specifically; they were used as a reference for the researcher as evidence of how the treatment was implemented.
The obvious danger in the design of the treatment was that the band director of the experimental group had control of a major part of the study. However, it was necessary to administer the treatment in this way to ensure that participants wouldn’t directly connect the practice lesson plans to the researcher and therefore “perform” for the researcher in the post-test, saying and doing things differently than they would in a more authentic situation. This also gave the cooperating band director a chance to insert his own style into the lesson, making the lesson more natural overall. The treatment was likely successful in this regard, based on the reaction of the participants at the debriefing session. When they were told that the practice lessons had been designed by the researcher they seemed surprised, indicating that they didn’t realize the connection between the practice lessons and the research study. There were; however, some issues with the implementation of the treatment that should be noted prior to interpreting the results.
84 In the pre-study observations of the experimental group’s regular band rehearsals, it seemed that daily lesson plans were created informally as problems occurred while reading the concert repertoire. In other words, the director went into class with ideas of what should be accomplished and then altered the plan as necessary to maintain a performance flow. Upon review of the audio recordings of the treatment lesson plans it was apparent that the cooperating band director was not accustomed to teaching formal lesson plans, such as those designed for the treatment, in the eighth grade band setting.
The treatment lesson plans were more closely related to traditional classroom teaching than a performance-driven, on demand band rehearsal method. The plans were intended to be administered step by step, with an emphasis on specific explanations of each practice technique. In the administration, some steps were presented without explicit details or accidentally skipped which was likely to have affected the way in which the participants received the lessons.
Despite some omitted information, the cooperating director felt that the lessons were successful overall. In a post-study interview the director stated that the lesson plans were more detailed than what was usually undertaken in the band rehearsals, but that they were well-received. In fact, he noted that it was likely that he would try these lesson plans and similarly formatted lessons to start the next school year. In his words, “I think we do a lot of assuming and we do a lot of this kind of teaching in the fifth grade and then we don't revisit it enough. I think this is something that will help that, if they know how to practice [and] know what they're going to practice.” In future related research, it may be useful to provide more training for the cooperating band director who is
85 responsible for administering the treatment to ensure that the lesson plans will be executed exactly as required.
The Role of Private Lesson Experience
The demographic data revealed a relatively even balance of gender, instrument, age, and grade in which band was started between the experimental (n = 26) and control
(n = 30) groups. The private lesson experience variable was not as well-distributed due to a high number of students in the control group that had previous experience with private lessons, including lessons on other instruments (n = 22). The experimental group had 27% fewer participants with private lesson experience (n = 12). This difference could have skewed the results of the treatment, specifically in regards to research question three which asked if any significant differences existed among participants by their involvement with private lessons. It is presumable that the students with private lesson experience were more likely to have exposure to the practice techniques that were addressed in the treatment. Since a greater number of control group students had this potential advantage, any affects that the treatment may have had on the experimental group may have been less apparent in terms of statistical significance. This aspect of the sample was surprising to the cooperating band directors, who were under the impression that very few of the students in the middle schools had private lesson experience. The participating school district had recently undergone a redistricting, with students changing middle schools between seventh and eighth grade. This was likely to have contributed to the balance of the demographic data and to the cooperating band directors’ previous knowledge of their students. If this study had only looked at students in both groups who were currently enrolled in private lessons (n = 9), the data would have been
86 very different. It seemed that many of the students had started off with lessons and then discontinued them prior to eighth grade, or had been taking lessons on another instrument, such as piano. The fact that only 16% of eighth grade band students in the participating school districts were enrolled in private lessons at the time of this study emphasizes the importance of teaching students how to practice as part of the school band curriculum. Researchers have discussed the positive links between the presence of a private lesson teacher and student practice (Hamann & Frost, 2000; Hewitt, 2001; Barry,
2007). Music educators should continue to encourage their students to participate in private lessons with qualified teachers; however, educators should also realize that they are likely to be the sole provider of music practice information for a majority of their students. If the amount of effective practice undertaken directly relates to student achievement (Ericsson, Krampe, & Tesch-Römer, 1993), then music educators should focus on developing the self-regulatory practice skills of their intermediate musicians to potentially combat attrition between middle and high school.
Effect of Treatment on Practice Questionnaire Responses
Three questionnaire responses were found to be significantly different from pre- to post-test: (a) Students should set goals for each practice session, (b) Practice Strategy:
Counting and clapping the rhythms, and (c) Practice Strategy: Singing through the part.
Further examination of the means and standard deviations of all three of these items revealed that the experimental group’s mean response increased in the post-test and the control group response decreased slightly. Since the experimental and control groups were equivalent on these three items in the pre-test, the treatment may have affected the experimental group responses in a positive manner. Goal setting techniques and a clap
87 and count method were presented in the practice lab treatment that was offered to the experimental group (see Appendix C). Experience with these concepts may have contributed to participants’ perceptions about these particular practice strategies when surveyed post-treatment. For example, the experimental group participants had been trained to use goal setting for three of the four weeks prior to the post-test administration of the questionnaire. It was understandable that they were more likely to agree that
“Students should set goals for each practice session”.
The increase in perceived usefulness of the practice strategy “Singing through the part” may not specifically be explained by the treatment lesson plans since it was not one of the addressed concepts. It is difficult to understand this change since the researcher was not present in the experimental group band class every day during this study. It is possible that the cooperating teacher used this technique on a regular basis during rehearsals. Singing through a part internally could be part of mental rehearsal, but there is no way to link this concept to the data. Further research may be useful in examining the effect of singing through a part on the practice techniques of instrumental musicians.
All other questionnaire responses showed no significant changes from pre- to post-test. These items can be grouped into three categories: (a) Unrelated to treatment,
(b) Fairly strong agreement in pre-test, and (c) Potential to change. For the first category, statements such as, “It is better to practice most days of the week, even if each practice sessions are very short” and practice strategies like, “Changing the rhythm of a measure or section of the song” were not addressed as part of the treatment; therefore, it was not surprising that the post-test responses to these items did not differ significantly.
Statements such as these were included in the questionnaire to better understand
88 participants’ perceptions of music practice even though they were unlikely to be affected by the treatment.
For the second category of participant responses, some questionnaire items had fairly strong agreement or disagreement in the pre-test. These items did not change significantly in the post-test, which made sense since the participants felt strongly about them to begin with. For example, the statement, “Marking the music with a pencil during practice is okay” had a mean response of 4.52, indicating a strong agreement among participants. Both the control and experimental group directors were proponents of using pencils to mark the music during rehearsal and also supported using a pencil as a sight- reading tool to prevent errors. It was unlikely that the treatment would have affected this statement because of its naturally high agreement.
Finally, a majority of the questionnaire items that were found to be non- significant from pre- to post-test fell into the third category, Potential to Change. These questions had responses that fell towards the middle of the Likert-type scale and were related to topics that had the potential to be affected by the treatment. Examples in the
Potential to Change category were (a) Students need to be taught how to set long and short term goals for practicing; and the practice strategies (b) Silently looking at the music, thinking about and hearing the part in one’s head (mental rehearsal), and (c)
Practicing the fingers/hands alone (without producing sound on the instrument). Perhaps an improved treatment would have produced a greater effect on the questionnaire responses, as discussed earlier in this chapter. Also, the questionnaire could have been improved and adapted to be more related to the treatment overall. Other questionnaire items that could be included in the Potential to Change category were (a) Students will
89 not improve on their band instruments if they don’t practice regularly and (b) It is difficult for students to know how to practice when they are alone. For these statements, it is possible that participants felt like they could demonstrate some improvement without practice or felt an overall confidence about their practice proficiency. Further research may be able to address middle school musicians’ perceptions of the importance of practicing and the learning process involved with practicing.
Students’ General Understanding of Practice
The post-hoc analysis of the questionnaire items that were not statistically significant may be used to describe the participants’ general understanding of practice.
The participants in this study seemed to understand that multiple practice sessions of approximately 30 minutes each per week may be more beneficial than longer, less frequent sessions. Varied repertoires of warm-up routines were viewed as important. In the observed practice sessions, warm-up routines were not always used; however, that seemed to be related to whether the student started class with the practice session, or completed the session half-way through band class.
Participant responses to questions related to their general understanding of practice fell towards the middle of the five-point Likert-type scale (1=Strongly Disagree,
2 = Disagree, 3 = Not Sure, 4 = Agree, 5 = Strongly Agree) in combination with the existence of some high standard deviations, indicating a broad range of responses.
Participants responded moderately when asked whether band directors need to teach students how to practice (M = 3.37, SD = 1.24) and set goals (M = 3.25, SD = 0.93).
Perhaps these findings suggest that the students in this study felt fairly confident about the practicing abilities of eighth graders when asked to respond to the questionnaire
90 statements in third person. In other words, one would expect the average of the responses to reflect an “agree” to “strongly agree” weight if the students felt they urgently needed someone to show them how to practice and set goals. When asked to respond to the statement If students learn how to practice better, it may be easier for them to improve, students tended to agree (M = 3.98, SD = 0.96) that the development of practice skills improves performance; however, they were more likely to disagree that It is difficult for students to know how to practice when they are alone (M = 2.79, SD = 1.04). The combination of these results suggests that the students reported that they felt that eighth grade musicians were generally able to practice when alone but recognized that more effective practice may lead to performance improvement. It is unclear where they thought they should be learning how to practice more efficiently, since there wasn’t a stronger agreement that their band director was responsible for such an education.
Finally, there was a neutral response to the statement Students will not improve on their band instruments if they don’t practice regularly (M = 3.20, SD = 1.39). The high standard deviation signals a wide range of responses to this statement, but the overall mean suggests that the participants did not directly link practicing to performance improvement. Perhaps these questions would be addressed more thoroughly through direct conversation with the participants, such as in an interview format in future research.
In terms of practice strategies, participants tended to rate the practice strategies (a)
Repeating a measure or section of the song until it is right (“I messed up in measure four again so I kept playing it.”) and (b) Playing the song from beginning to end (“I've played through, looking over the music. What do I do now? All right, I guess I'll just play it
91 again.”; “So I just kept playing through the song as many times as I could.”) as more useful overall than more complex strategies that altered the music to make it more approachable such as changing the articulation or rhythm. This finding is supported by other researchers who have observed adolescent musicians while practicing (Hallam,
2001b; Leon-Guerrero, 2004). It is possible that the participants did not understand the use of strategies like altering the rhythm due to a lack of exposure. It is also possible that the wording of the questionnaire affected the results. In other words, students of this age may have a tendency to think that they should not change the music in any way, even if it’s temporary and only for practicing purposes (R: “Did you ever think about changing the last line so that you could play it in any way?” S: “I figured you were supposed to stick to what it said.”) Further research would be necessary to look into these issues in greater detail. The post-hoc results of the rank-order questionnaire items (questions 43 and 44) were promising in the respect that participants were more likely to highly rank specific practice strategies to address the rhythmic and technical problem scenarios. In both scenarios, the strategy Start over and try the song again was ranked lowest and strategies such as (a) clap and count the rhythm and (b) play the fast section slower were ranked as more useful for addressing the problems.
Significant Differences in Participant Response by Gender
Upon examining participants’ responses by gender, three questionnaire items
differed significantly between male and female participants. Two strategies were
significantly different in the pre-test “Playing a measure or section of the song quickly”
and “Counting and clapping the rhythms.” However both became non-significant in the
post-test. In the pre-test, males were more likely to label Playing quickly as a useful
92 practice strategy than females (S: “I just was trying to play it a little faster.” R: “OK.
Any reason?” S: “No, just really just to see if I could do it.”) For this statement the
male mean response was identical in the pre- and post-test. The female response
increased in the post-test, resulting in non-significance. It is difficult to draw
conclusions concerning the potential effect of the treatment for this item, since the
treatment lesson plans did not specifically address the strategy playing quickly. Future
research may be used to further examine this issue.
A slightly different scenario occurred for the strategy Counting and clapping.
Female participants found counting and clapping more useful overall than males. The
male response remained fairly consistent (pre-test M = 3.45, post-test M = 3.41)
between the pre- and post-tests, and the female mean decreased from 4.04 to 3.93 from
pre- to post-test. It is possible that the treatment mitigated the gender difference in this
question in some way, but why this would be is unclear. Further research will be
necessary to examine this issue in greater detail.
The third practice strategy affected by gender was only significantly different in the post-test, “Practicing the fingers/hands alone (without producing sound on the instrument).” The mean response of males decreased from pre- to post-test and the female response did the opposite, increasing from pre- to post-test. This item was non- significant in the pre-test which provides evidence that the treatment may have affected the responses by gender for this practice strategy. The experimental group participants had specific exposure to this practice strategy in treatment lesson plan three (see
Appendix C). A portion of the clap and count method that was introduced involved using fingers/hands alone as a part of the process. If it was indeed the treatment that
93 contributed to this change in male/female responses, then it implies that male participants found the fingers/hands alone part of the treatment lesson plan less useful overall than the female group.
Significant Differences in Participant Response by Private Lessons
Results of t-tests showed significant differences by private lesson experience for four questionnaire items. These differences lend support to the previous work of researchers who suggested the effect of a private lesson teacher on student practice and achievement (see Barry, 2007; Barry & McArthur, 1994; Hamann & Frost, 2000). The first two of the items that were significantly different by private lesson experience differed in the pre-test but not in the post-test. The practice strategy “Using dynamics” was rated more useful by those participants with private lesson experience in the pre-test, but the responses of this group dropped from the pre- (M = 4.29) to the post-test (M =
3.71). If the mean response had remained significantly different in the post-test, an argument could have been made that there was some difference in the way that students with private lesson experience view dynamic usage versus those musicians without private lesson experience. It is unclear how to interpret this particular result within the confines of this study.
The second pre-test difference by private lesson experience was for the practice strategy “Counting and clapping the rhythms”. Participants with no private lesson experience were more likely to label this strategy as useful in the pre-test (M = 4.23); however, the mean response for the non-private lesson group lowered in the post-test (M
= 3.82). Conversely, the mean response of the private lesson experience group rose slightly from pre- (M = 3.41) to post-test (M = 3.56) for this item. Perhaps the
94 participants without private lesson involvement were more likely to view clap and count as useful in the pre-test due to the limited number of practice techniques that they had exposure to as students without one-on-one time with a music educator. The treatment introduced the experimental group participants to a clap and count technique along with three others that could be used in the home practice room. It is possible that exposure to the treatment caused the participants with private lesson experience to reevaluate the effectiveness of the clap and count technique as a practice strategy. Another possibility is that students without private lesson experience may have lowered their value of clap and count since they were introduced to a number of practice techniques in the treatment that they had not considered for personal use.
The remaining two questionnaire items that were affected by private lesson experience were non-significant in the pre-test but significantly different in the post-test.
The first of these survey responses was the practice strategy “Practicing the fingers/hands alone (without producing sound on the instrument)”. The mean response of the participants in the group with private lesson experience was virtually unchanged between the pre- and post-tests. However, the group with no private lesson experience showed an increase in mean response between the pre- (M = 3.73) and post- (M = 3.95) tests. This result suggests that the responses of students without private lesson experience may have been positively affected by the treatment, which included this particular practice technique. The second questionnaire item that was significantly different only in the post-test was the statement “It is okay for students to take breaks during practice sessions if they are tired.” Responses of the private lesson group lowered from pre- to post-test.
Conversely, those of the group without private lesson experience were higher in the post-
95 test than the pre-test. It is unclear how to interpret this particular result within this study since this idea was not specifically included in the treatment. Perhaps the responses of the non-private lesson group were positively affected by external factors within their regular band class between the tests. Future research is necessary to further examine the effect of private lesson experience on student opinions of fatigue and resting during practice.
Significant Differences in Participant Response by Instrument Family
There were two questionnaire items that showed significant differences based on instrument family in the pre-test. The first item indicated that both woodwind and brass participants were more likely than percussion to agree that mental rehearsal, singing, and counting rhythms should count as practice activities. It is possible that the percussionists in this study were not accustomed to these types of practice activities due to a difference in the way that they perceived practice. The analysis of the questionnaire data did not attempt to determine differences in the ways that woodwinds, brass, and percussion actually practice, and further research would be necessary to draw more conclusions on this result. The second item that resulted in a difference by instrument family in the pre- test was that brass players in this study were more likely than woodwinds to find the strategy Playing a measure or section of the song quickly as useful. This finding is another one that is difficult to explain within the confines of this study; however, it is interesting that this strategy also came up as significantly different by gender. Males were more likely to label this strategy as more useful in the pre-test than females. There may be a relationship between these items due to the number of brass player participants that were male.
96 Both of the items reported in this section became non-significant in the post-test.
The presence of mental rehearsal and clap and count techniques in the treatment may have helped to mitigate the difference among woodwinds and percussion, and brass and percussion, for the statement, Activities such as mentally running through a song, singing a part, and counting rhythms should count as part of the practice time. Since the playing quickly practice strategy was not addressed in the treatment, it is unclear why this item became non-significant by instrument family in the post-test. Perhaps the introduction of a number of new practice strategies and an increase in attention to what qualifies as effective practice led the participants to reevaluate the importance of playing quickly as a practice strategy.
In the post-test, two questionnaire responses were significantly different by instrument family. Both woodwinds and percussion were more likely than brass participants to agree that it is better to practice a couple days per week for a long period than it is to practice every day for a shorter period. This result may be related to embouchure fatigue associated with playing a brass instrument, especially at the middle school level. Considering this concept, it makes sense that woodwinds and percussionists would be more likely to view long practice sessions as more important than getting in a daily practice routine, regardless of how short the session may be. It is unclear though, why this result would not then present itself in the pre-test as well. This response points out that students may have different ideas of what makes up an ideal weekly practice schedule. If a music educator values distributed practice over massed practice, as the education literature supports (see Ormrod, 2004; Rubin-Rabson, 1940), then this point should be regularly conveyed to students.
97 The final questionnaire item that was significantly different by instrument family was the statement, Playing through old music for fun should count as practicing. The brass participants were more likely to agree with this statement than the woodwinds. It is unclear why both of the above mentioned responses were non-significant in the pre-test.
Researchers have studied the effect of music repertoire choice on intrinsic motivation for students (Renwick & McPherson, 2002; Pintrich & DeGroot, 1990), but future research would be necessary to better understand this particular finding in relation to instrument family.
Observed Practice Behaviors
Pre-treatment, significant differences were found by group (control, experimental) for five video observations codes (Evaluation, Correcting Single Notes, Rhythm, Mental
Rehearsal, and Positive Comment). These items became non-significant in the post- treatment observations; however, no major conclusions may be drawn from these results within the confines of this study. In all cases, the differences between the experimental and control groups pre-treatment showed a lack of equivalence among groups at the beginning of the study. Upon viewing the frequency data from pre- to post-treatment for these items, it seems unlikely that the treatment mitigated the differences.
There are a variety of possible explanations for the results of the observed practice behaviors. One factor that potentially affected these specific results was the use of different practice exercises for the pre- and post-treatment practice observations. The exercises were chosen to be similar, but it was impossible to choose identical exercises and expect participants to approach them like unfamiliar pieces of music. It is possible that slight differences in the exercises accounted for the different ways that students
98 approached their practice. In the case of mental rehearsal, it seemed that the experimental group was more likely to use that strategy at the commencement of the study. This may have presented a sort of limit on how much more this particular strategy would appear in the post-treatment data. Perhaps there was a difference in how mental rehearsal was used from pre- to post-treatment, but that was not measurable in this study since the mental rehearsal code was simply defined as taking place when a student would stop and look over the music. For example, it was not possible to determine how the participant was mentally analyzing the music or if s/he was actively thinking or simply taking a break. A final possible scenario for these results was that the treatment was not effective because of the lack of transfer between teaching and doing. Other researchers
(Hallam, 2001a; Byo, 2008) have warned that the presence of lessons on practice techniques alone does not ensure that students will undertake the provided techniques in individual practice. More repetitions of the treatment lessons over a longer time frame may help to alleviate this effect. For future research designs of this nature, attention should be given to attempting to control for these variables.
It appears that the treatment did not have a large impact on the students’ practice behaviors in this study, possibly due to the issues with the treatment administration discussed earlier in this chapter. However, some interesting results from the video observations were found in the mean frequencies of video codes, which summarized the mean responses of the combined pre- and post-treatment observation frequencies for all participants. In general, participants were more likely to address the notes and rhythm of the given exercises than more expressive musical concepts like articulation, dynamics, and phrasing (“And I didn't pay much attention to dynamics. That usually comes like
99 after I get the song done.”) For the video data, these codes were noted when students chose strategies that were directly related to a musical concept. In other words, participants were more likely to direct their practice to correct notes and rhythms. It is not surprising that eighth grade band students were still focused mainly on achieving the proper notes and rhythms more than performing the piece as an expressive whole; however, it should be noted that it was more difficult to label the codes for expressive elements objectively. This issue is addressed further in the audio data that follows in the next section.
Other video results included high frequencies of the lower level thinking codes
Simple Repetition (f = 110.5) and Correcting Single Notes (f = 24). In fact, the occurrence of these codes combined (f = 134.5) was only slightly lower than the prevalence of strategy selection (f = 150.5) in the practice sessions. The code for simple repetition was chosen anytime that a participant played a part or the whole piece without obviously choosing any of the listed practice strategies. This sometimes led to participants repeatedly practicing errors into the piece (“Uh there I, I kept getting this wrong and I kept getting it wrong uh each time I went through so eventually I'll fix that.”), similar to the findings of other researchers (Hallam, 2001a). For the code correcting single notes, students would encounter an error within the piece and then immediately start on the note(s) that were missed before continuing on in the exercise.
Similarly to the simple repetition code, the presence of the correcting single notes code implied a general lack of practice strategy selection to address a given problem (“And I messed up on a note there so I just kind of picked it back up in that spot.”).
100 There were a relatively high number of practice strategy selection codes, indicating that the participants were indeed choosing practice strategies in the observed practice footage. The eighth grade students were likely to use the strategies chunking (“I messed up in measure four again so I kept playing it.”), marking the music (“I started marking it um, cause uh, you know I started marking accidentals and some rhythms that I was pretty sure were going to be hard.”), mental rehearsal (S: “Um, I think I was just looking it over.” R: “What does that do for you?” S: “Um, cause then I can like picture it in my mind better, so I can, it's easier to play.”), and repetition (R: “So when you have a measure like that that you find difficult, is there a normal routine you go through?” S:
“I just get frustrated so I just keep going over and over.”) However, it became clear that the high number of strategies selected were due to the repeated use of these particular strategies. For example, one participant used the strategy marking the music eight times in the pre-treatment video practice observation. Increased exposure to a variety of practice strategies with explicit instructions on how to use them may help to alleviate the participant’s reliance on a limited number of strategies. The most commonly observed strategies may be useful tools, but it seemed that the students were running into situations where they didn’t know of any other way to approach their practicing problems (“Like usually I just like play through the song and then just the parts that I like didn't do as good on I go through and fix those and then just play it one time through again and then go onto another song.”)
Of the practice strategies observed in the video footage, the strategy Repetition /
Five Times Correct Method only appeared in the experimental group post-treatment data.
This code was chosen to describe incidences where participants repeated a chunk of the
101 exercise five times in a row successively. In other words, prior to the post-treatment observations, the participants never used this many repetitions to approach a problem.
The mean frequency of this item (f = 2) was an average of the actual frequency (f = 4) that occurred in the practice sessions of two of the six experimental group participants.
This finding suggests that although this result was not large enough to be statistically significant, some experimental group practice observations participants were introduced to a specific repetition method that they decided to try in the post-treatment session.
Future research could analyze this idea further by using a practice lab treatment that occurs for a longer period of time, with more reviews of each practice technique and a larger sample size.
Finally, in terms of starting points in the practice sessions, participants frequently
(f = 102.5) chose to start at the beginning of the exercise. To put this number in perspective, each practice session was 10 minutes long for a total of 120 minutes of recorded practicing. That means that on average this code occurred roughly one time per minute of practice. The exercises used in this study were short, but starting over at the beginning at least once every minute seems to indicate either a lot of attention to the beginning of the exercise (“I wanted to get the beginning like done and then I was gonna work on the end.”), or an emphasis on playing the song from start to finish (“Um, I figure if running through it again I'll see if I can get it all together.”) Students need to learn to start in areas of the music that present the most challenges, rather than always starting at the beginning of the song when they practice.
102 Retrospective Verbal Report Data
There were no significant pre-treatment differences by group in the reported practice behaviors of the participants in the retrospective verbal protocol analysis.
However, five codes became significant by group post-treatment: (a) Broad, Unspecific
Goals (“There I was just trying to play it.”), (b) Rhythm (“I held that note way too long.
Huh! I noticed that.”), (c) Aware of Habit (R: “Do you ever have certain songs that you like to spend more time on than others?” S: “Um, well I like to play the songs that I like more.”), (d) Positive Comment (“That sounded way wrong (laughs). And as it progresses it'll get a lot better.”), and (e) Restarting in Same Measure as Error (S: “If I ever mess up like in a song like in halfway through it instead of going back to the beginning I'll just pick it up in that spot again.” R: “From the exact spot you made the mistake?” S: “Mmm hmm.”) For the first four codes, the difference was marked by the control group frequencies dropping to zero post-treatment. It is unclear why this occurred since the control group was not exposed to the treatment lesson plans during the treatment period.
It is possible that these changes were due to external variables such as (a) differences in the pre- and post-treatment exercises, (b) differences in the moods of the students on the day of the practice observations, or (c) exposure to various concepts in the control group’s normal band class. The final item in this category, Restarting in Same Measure as Error, was almost non-existent in the pre-treatment audio of the experimental (f = 1) and control (f = 0) groups and dramatically increased in the control group, post-treatment
(f = 20). Once again, it is not possible to explain a significant change in the control group reported practice behaviors within the design of this study. The difference among the groups must have been due to unaccounted for extraneous variables. It should be noted
103 that this particular code only occurred for the reported (audio) practice behaviors in the retrospective verbal analysis when a participant stated that s/he restarted in the same spot as an error. In other words, this code was more likely to occur in the video data than the audio data.
Even though the experimental group’s verbal reports weren’t affected by the treatment, the reported practice behaviors in the categories of (a) Higher Level Thinking,
(b) Lower Level Thinking, and (c) Musical Concepts yielded some interesting results.
Participants frequently reported their problem spots in the exercises (Problem
Recognition f = 59.5, “And then this part gave me a lot of trouble and but I knew the basic rhythm so I was able to figure it out after a while.”) and then mentioned going back to repeat that particular note or section (Simple Repetition, f = 56). It was more likely for participants to label unspecific, broad goals (f = 16.5; R: “Did you have a plan or a goal?”
S: “Uh, no I just wanted to see like how it played.”) than specific, attainable goals (f =
4.5). In general, it was unlikely for the participants to mention any goals at all without a prompt from the researcher. Similarly to the observed practice behaviors in the last research question, the participants were more likely to address the musical concepts (a)
Notes (f = 36.5) and (b) Rhythm (f = 26) than more expressive concepts such as (c)
Articulation (f = 13), (d) Dynamics (f = 15), and (e) Phrasing (f = 0.5).
The reported practice behavior frequencies in the Practice Strategies and Starting
Points categories were equally intriguing. The mean frequency of the code Higher Level
Thinking: Strategy Selection was 124.5, indicating that the participants were thinking about the use of practice strategies to address difficulties in the provided exercises. The majority of the strategies that participants reported were related to (a) Marking the music
104 (f = 38), (b) Chunking (f = 29), (c) Mental Rehearsal (f = 22) and (d) Repetition (f =
20.5). Practice strategies that may be viewed as more advanced, such as Singing, Clap and Count, and Memorization were reported less often. In terms of starting points, participants were more likely to report starting at the beginning of the exercise (f = 58) than starting within the exercise (f = 21.5) or restarting in the same measure as an error (f
= 12.5).
Differences between Reported and Observed Practice Behaviors
There were a number of differences between the reported and observed practice behaviors of participants in both the experimental and control groups. Some possible explanations include differences in the way that participants reacted to the retrospective verbal analysis technique and a lack of awareness of strategy selection. Many of these results may be attributed to differences in the way that participants reacted to the retrospective verbal protocol analysis technique. For example, participants in the experimental group were not likely to report restarting in the same measure as an error (f
= 1) but were quite likely to be observed in this activity (f = 95). This result may simply be attributed to participants omitting this detail in their retrospective verbal report.
Another possibility, when interpreting the results of the experimental group in particular, is that the students were implementing practice techniques in an automatic fashion and were unaware of choosing a particular technique. This may be related to the metacognitive developmental level of the eighth grade participants, including their ability to plan, use, and monitor effective learning strategies. As they develop their self- regulation skills, the practice strategies may become less automatic and more deliberate
(Ormrod, 2004). For example, participants were much less likely to report that they were
105 not choosing a practice strategy and were therefore using simple repetition (f = 27) than what was observed in the video data (f = 159). Finally, it should be noted that it is difficult to know the exact mental process of any individual strictly through observation.
It is possible that some cognitive strategies, such as chunking, were being used but were not overt, and thus apparent to coders. Perhaps this potential discrepancy could be corrected in future research by exposing the participants to more practice observation sessions. This would familiarize the students with the process and would be more likely to produce authentic practice session results. It would also give the researchers more instances to code to produce a richer description of student practice habits.
Developmental Stages of Practice
The results of this study indicate that the participants were developmentally closest to the second tier of Hallam’s (2001a) practice development sequence. Students were able to monitor their mistakes using problem recognition (reported f = 135) and attempt to fix their errors by choosing practice strategies (reported f = 199), even though their repertoire of strategies was somewhat limited. The frequent use of the problem recognition code shows that the adolescent musicians were likely to report where errors were made in the retrospective verbal report, but a comparison of the code Higher Level
Thinking: Strategy Selection in the reported (f = 237) and observed (f = 527) data demonstrated a limited analysis and evaluation on the part of the participants as they retrospectively described their practicing. The quality of the reports often improved with encouragement from the researcher (e.g. “Why did you do that?”), but a majority of the practice observation group spent their verbal analysis time simply pointing out their errors (R: “What happened there?” S: “Uh, I would just play too high or too low.”).
106 According to the examples of higher level thinking provided by Geiersbach
(2000), participants demonstrated varying levels of involvement with (a) expressive playing (S: “I gave up on that.” R: “Gave up on playing dynamics?” S: “Well, yeah cause like I was thinking like um if you pay more attention to a certain part all the other parts fall through. I'd rather get through the song first.”), (b) self-questioning, without a prompt from the researcher (“Right now um I know my horn's low, but when I'm in concert band and stuff it's usually a lot higher.”), and (c) creatively visualizing the music
(“Uh I'm actually whistling the tune cause it's a little like habit I have, like it helps me get it and figure it out.”). However, the high frequency of the code Lower Level Thinking:
Simple Repetition with no Strategy Selection (f = 333) also suggests that these students are not quite able to “analyze their playing in a detailed, multi-faceted way” as
Geiersbach suggested (p. 157).
The high evidence of repetition in this study aligns with the work of Leon-
Guerrero (2004), Hallam (2001b), and Pitts and Davidson (2000). It should be noted that the coding categories (a) Lower Level Thinking: Simple Repetition without Strategy
Selection and (b) Practice Strategies: Repetition represented repetition in its basic form, in the style of training that Hoffman and Harris (2000) discussed. Although there is likely to be some value to this form of repetition, a more concretely structured method of repetition, such as the Five Times Correct Method that was introduced in the practice treatment, may be preferable for students who are at an age where they may just be learning to self-regulate (see Hallam 2001a).
107 Conclusions
This study lends support to the concept that music educators have a great responsibility to teach musicians how to become more proficient and efficient at practicing. It is unfair to assume that students, especially at younger ages, will have the ability to learn this difficult skill on their own. The participants in this study showed that they understood some fundamentals of music practice; such as, (a) a reasonable amount of practice is expected per week, (b) practice should involve self-evaluation, (c) practice strategies do exist as a useful way to approach problems, and (d) it can be difficult to know how to fix problems. In addition, it was pleasantly surprising to see some eighth grade students using advanced strategies like singing/whistling their part (“And now I'm just kind of like humming it out to make sure I've got the melody right and stuff.”), mental rehearsal (“I was just uh, going through the whole song like trying to visualize how it sounded.”), and isolating their fingers/hands to address technical issues (“It helps me like get like how I'm supposed to play it like, like usually when I finger something then like I know what comes next like as I go along in the song.”) However, there was certainly room for improvement in the practice skills of all the practice observation participants (n = 12), even among the students that seemed to have a fairly advanced grasp of practicing skills. In fact, there were some participants that had very little idea of how to approach musical problems with anything more complex than simple repetition and a pencil.
Data from this study suggest that middle school musicians need more exposure to the following concepts: (a) expressive elements of music require as much, if not more, attention in practice as the notes and rhythms, (b) the importance of effective goal-
108 setting, and (c) the usefulness of a variety of practice strategies that go beyond simple repetition and lower level thinking. There was an imbalance among participants between the focus on notes and rhythms and expressive elements such as dynamics, articulation, and phrasing. This finding reflects a general perception that notes and rhythms are more important to master than elements of expression (“That's really the important parts - hitting the right notes and keeping the rhythm going.”) Changes in the way that music educators approach note and rhythm errors at the beginner and intermediate musician levels may help to counteract this issue. Participants in this study were also unlikely to label goals during their practice sessions without a prompt from the researcher, and the goals that were reported tended to be broad and unspecific. Students must be taught how to set effective and attainable long and short term goals in order to develop their self- regulation and metacognitive skills. Finally, the participants in this study were likely to use lower level thinking strategies such as simple repetition and correcting single notes to approach practice problems. An increase in exposure to a wider variety of effective practice strategies, including those that encourage higher level thinking, in music rehearsals may lower the selection rate of the lower level thinking strategies.
Further research on this topic is essential to provide educators with more information on the potential effects of instruction on the practice habits of middle school musicians. Suggestions for future research include: (a) a similarly designed study with an extended and more controlled treatment, (b) a refined practice questionnaire that delves further into students’ understanding of music practice, (c) a qualitative analysis of practice observations that examines the potential changes in practice habits due to instruction on a micro level, comparing each individual participant’s pre- and post-
109 treatment practicing, and (d) a study that looks in more detail at some of the significant findings in this study; including the way gender, instrument family, and private lessons may affect music practice.
Despite the lack of hard evidence in this particular study, it is possible that band directors can influence the practice behaviors with short lesson plans aimed at turning a portion of their band rehearsals into a “practice lab” (Kong, 2000). The participants in this study seemed to receive the treatment lessons well, despite their lack of experience with that sort of teaching style in band. However, as the experimental group band director stated in the post-study interview, “just doing the presentation of [the practice lessons] and then one review of [them] isn't enough for middle school kids. They need to have it like every day”. With an “every day” approach to teaching practice skills, music educators will have a much better chance of combating poor practice habits in young musicians, potentially saving them from additional frustration which may contribute to an overall lack of motivation to practice. Without an explicit and consistent classroom focus on how to practice effectively, music educators may be less likely to access their students’ full performance potential.
110 Appendix A
111
112
113
114
115 Appendix B
Music Excerpt #1, for use in Practice Lab 1
116
Music Excerpt # 2, for use in Practice Labs 2, 3, and 4
117
118
119 Music Excerpt #3, for use in Practice Observation 1(Pre-Test)
120 Music Excerpt #4, for use in Practice Observation 2(Post-Test)
121 Appendix C
Practice Lab Treatment
Practice Lab #1 – Mental Rehearsal
I. Objectives
A. Increase student understanding of the planning, monitoring, and evaluation stages of practice sessions in a group or individual setting. B. Introduce students to the following practice strategies: Mental rehearsal
II. Materials
A. This lesson plan will use an excerpt of music that is at an appropriate performance level for average eighth grade band students. It will be chosen from a method book and entered and printed with Finale music notation software to prevent students from recognizing the exercise. The excerpt will be chosen to be well suited for use with the practice strategy introduced in this lesson. Copies of the exercise will only be used for the purpose of this lesson plan and will be collected and destroyed afterwards.
III. Preparation
A. Place the new music face-down on stands or chairs prior to class. B. Place the digital audio recorder on your stand or somewhere where it will be easy to access.
IV. Anticipatory Set (The wording of this anticipatory set does not have to be exact, but should alert students to the purpose of the practice lab.)
A. Start the audio recorder (or start it prior to students entering the room, if easier) B. Take attendance C. Alert students that they are not allowed to look at the music until you give them further instructions. D. Explain to students that you have been thinking about practice techniques lately due to the research study that has been taking place. Let them know that the band is going to have a few quick practice labs where they will learn some tricks for preparing a piece of music for performance. E. Tell them something to the effect of, “The strategies we use today in class can be used when you practice individually at home. Hopefully, they will help prevent the frustration of having to relearn things that you have already spent time practicing.”
V. Mental Rehearsal (Once again, the overall content is more important than word for word accuracy.)
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A. Introduce mental rehearsal by explaining that it may sometimes be useful to run through a song in one’s head, silently thinking through the music. Sometimes this may mean silently singing through your part in your head as you look at the music. Mental rehearsal may also include looking over the music part and thinking about aspects like notes, rhythms, style, etc. Another way to practice mentally is to look at the music and silently finger through the notes to practice the technique and rhythm. Explain that mental rehearsal can count as part of practice time, provided that they are truly playing through the music in their heads. It may also be worth mentioning that mental rehearsal is an excellent tool to use when sight-reading a new piece of music. B. Check for understanding of mental rehearsal, allowing questions. C. Ask your students to flip over their music and take 2 minutes to look it over silently, mentally rehearsing the entire thing or sections that they think will require extra work. Keep an eye on the clock and watch for visual signs that they are focusing on their music. D. Sight read the exercise. E. Ask students to shut their eyes and hold up their fingers to rate their personal performance on a scale of “1” to “5” with “5” being the best they could have played the exercise. F. Ask students to think about what they would do differently if they were going to play the exercise another time.
VI. Summary A. To help students understand the process they just went through, remind them of the following steps that were used today in the practice lab:
Mentally Rehearse the music to decide what the practice session will entail.
Practice Lab #2 (Week 2) – Goal Setting
I. Objectives A. Increase student understanding of the planning, monitoring, and evaluation stages of practice sessions in a group or individual setting. B. Introduce students to the following practice strategies: Goal Setting
II. Materials B. This lesson plan will use an excerpt of music that is at an appropriate performance level for average eighth grade band students. It will be chosen from a method book and entered and printed with Finale music notation software to prevent students from recognizing the exercise. The excerpt will be chosen to be well suited for use with the practice strategy introduced in this lesson. Copies of the exercise will be used for the purposes of these lesson plans and will be collected and destroyed at a later date.
III. Preparation
123 A. Place the music face-down on stands or chairs prior to class, if desired. B. Note – only the snare drum and mallet percussion parts are being offered for this lesson plan. When it comes up, tell percussionists to play the rhythm of the snare part on any instrument (including their legs, if you want less noise).
IV. Anticipatory Set A. Start the audio recorder B. Take attendance C. Introduce this lesson as a continuation of their training to join the high school band next year. Alternatively, you may introduce this lesson in an effort to use goal setting to prepare for your spring concert. Example: “Today we’re going to talk about setting musical goals. This is something I think about every day when I plan what we’ll work on in class as a group, but this is also a useful tool for your personal use when you practice.”
V. Goal Setting A. Introduce goal setting by explaining that goals represent what each of us wants to achieve. Give the example that the band might have a goal to have a successful spring concert. This could be considered a long term goal because it is a broad goal that will take a lot of time and effort to achieve. Short term goals are easier to achieve in a shorter time period, and tend to lead to long term goals. Mention that practice sessions can include long term goals and short term goals. Well written goals should be specific and achievable by the person creating the goal. Give the following examples of short and long term goals for a practice session: LT Goal = I would like to be able to play this new song from start to finish by the end of this week. ST Goal = I am going to practice measures 1-10 of the new song for fifteen minutes today to try and work on the dotted rhythms. B. Check for understanding, allowing for questions about goal setting. C. Pass out the music excerpt “Celebration Song” if you haven’t already done so. D. Have the students use mental rehearsal to look over the excerpt for 1-2 minutes (watch for cues that they are finished to gauge how much time to use). Remind them that there should be no playing or talking during this time. Students should not write on the music at this point. E. State something to the effect of, “Now that you’ve had a chance to look over this new music, pretend that you’re about to practice this piece of music for a concert.” Ask students to think of an overall goal for learning the song. Example: “What do you want to achieve with this new song by the concert?” Have some volunteers give you answers. If necessary, help them to form specific, attainable long-term goals. F. Based on the mental rehearsal session, ask the students to make up one rhythmic goal for this practice session. Wait for a moment to allow them time to think. Ask how many of them came up with a goal based on the rhythmic pattern that occurs in measures 3 & 4 (it repeats in other places).
124 G. Ask students to make up one technique based goal for this practice session. Give them a moment to think. Once again, ask how many of them picked a goal based on the last four measures of the song. H. Explain that the three goals that were just created could help to shape a practice session, if they were actually going to start working on the piece now. Tell them to keep these three goals in mind because you will work on them as a group at a future date.
VI. Summary A. To help students understand the process they just went through, remind them of the following steps that were used so far in the practice labs. They can remember the steps : 1. Mentally Rehearse the music to decide what the practice session will entail. 2. Set Goals for the session.
Practice Lab #3 (Week 3), Clap and Count
I. Objectives A. Increase student understanding of the planning, monitoring, and evaluation stages of practice sessions in a group or individual setting. B. Introduce students to the following practice strategies: Clap and Count (specifically to its use in practice sessions at home, since it is likely that they have some experience with this technique in band)
II. Materials C. This lesson plan will use an excerpt of music (“Celebration Song”) that is at an appropriate performance level for average eighth grade band students. It will be chosen from a method book and entered and printed with Finale music notation software to prevent students from recognizing the exercise. The excerpt will be chosen to be well suited for use with the practice strategy introduced in this lesson. Copies of the exercise will be used for the purposes of these lesson plans and will be collected and destroyed at a later date.
III. Preparation C. Write the rhythmic goal from last week’s lesson on the board (goal #2). Alternatively, have that rhythmic goal written down in front of you so that you can read it to the class as needed. It is important that the goal refers to the rhythmic pattern that occurs in measures 3 and 4 (and repeats later in the song). It is equally important that the goal is worded to sound like a well- thought out goal.
IV. Anticipatory Set D. Start the audio recorder
125 E. Take attendance F. Introduce this lesson as a continuation of the last two lessons on practicing techniques. Example, “Last week we talked about goal setting. Today we’re going to address the rhythmic goal that we created using a practice strategy that you all have some experience with. We have used the clap and count technique in class before (obviously only say this if you have used it), but I want to make sure you know how to use it when you’re practicing on your own.” G. Ask the students to take out the music excerpt “Celebration Song”. Check to make sure that enough copies are available for the students to read.
V. Mental Rehearsal and Goal Setting I. Have the students use mental rehearsal to look over the excerpt for approximately 30 seconds (watch for cues that they are finished to gauge how much time to use). Ask them to focus specifically on the rhythm in the exercise. Remind them that there should be no playing, talking, or noise (such as clapping) during this time. Students should not write on the music at this point. This time is used for mental rehearsal only, which should be internal. J. Read the rhythmic goal from the last lesson to the students. Tell them that you will now try to address that goal by using the clap and count practicing method.
VI. Clap and Count A. Introduce clap and count by explaining that it may be easier to address rhythmic problems in a piece of music if you focus solely on the rhythm rather than trying to put it all together by playing the excerpt over and over again. Clapping and counting the rhythm is one way to do that. You may want to use the phrase, “If you can say the rhythm, you can play the rhythm.” You are going to a) isolate the rhythm, then b) add the fingers/hands, then c) try to put it all together and play the measures as written. B. Check for understanding, allowing for questions about clap and count. C. Work on the rhythm in measures 3 and 4 using clapping and counting until the group seems to be able to stay together. If it seems useful to have a couple students demonstrate, go ahead and take some volunteers. Use whatever counting system your students are accustomed to hearing. D. Have the band try to play the rhythm in measures 3-4 on a concert Bb pitch. E. Next, have them use their instruments to "finger" the notes while they say the counting aloud (percussionists can play in the air or on their leg). *note – if it easier for percussionists to omit the rolls, have them simply play the base rhythm* F. Finally, have them try to play measures 3 and 4 as a group. G. Explain to students that they could spend as much or as little time as they need on each of these steps if they are practicing individually. H. Make sure that the students notice that the same pattern repeats in measures 7 and 8.
126
VII. Evaluation A. Have students rate their personal performance on the measures that were just practiced on a scale of 1-5.
VIII. Summary B. To help students understand the process they just went through, remind them of the following steps that were used so far in the practice labs. They can remember the steps : 3. Mentally Rehearse the music to decide what the practice session will entail. 4. Set Goals for the session. 5. Use Strategies like clap & count to address your goals. 6. Play through the section that you were working on. 7. Evaluate your playing, possibly setting goals for the next practice session.
Practice Lab #4 (Week 4) – Repetition Technique (Five Times Correct)
I. Objectives A. Increase student understanding of the planning, monitoring, and evaluation stages of practice sessions in a group or individual setting. B. Introduce students to the following practice strategies: Appropriate Use of Repetition / “Five Times Correct Method”
II. Materials D. This lesson plan will use an excerpt of music (“Celebration Song”) that is at an appropriate performance level for average eighth grade band students. It will be chosen from a method book and entered and printed with Finale music notation software to prevent students from recognizing the exercise. The excerpt will be chosen to be well suited for use with the practice strategy introduced in this lesson. Copies of the exercise will be used for the purposes of these lesson plans and will be collected and destroyed at a later date.
III. Preparation D. Write the technical goal from last week’s lesson on the board (goal #3). Alternatively, have that technical goal written down in front of you so that you can read it to the class as needed. It is important that the goal refers to the technique pattern that occurs in the last line of the song (measures 9-12). It is equally important that the goal is worded to sound like a well-thought out goal.
IV. Anticipatory Set I. Start the audio recorder J. Take attendance
127 K. Introduce this lesson as a continuation of the last three lessons on practicing techniques. Example, “So far in our practice “labs”, we’ve talked about mental rehearsal, goal setting, and the clap and count method for approaching rhythmic problems. Today we’re going to address the technical goal that we created using a repetition practice strategy called the “Five Times Correct” method. I’m spending this time introducing these techniques to you so you have more practicing tools to use when you go home and work on your music.” L. Ask the students to take out the music excerpt “Celebration Song”. Check to make sure that enough copies are available for the students to read.
V. Mental Rehearsal and Goal Setting K. Have the students use mental rehearsal to look over the excerpt for approximately 30 seconds (watch for cues that they are finished to gauge how much time to use). Ask them to focus specifically on the technique in the last line of the exercise. Remind them that there should be no playing, talking, or noise (such as clapping) during this time. Students should not write on the music at this point. This time is used for mental rehearsal only, which should be internal. L. Read the rhythmic goal from the last lesson to the students. Tell them that you will now try to address that goal by using a method of repetition called the “Five Times Correct” practicing method.
VI. Five Times Correct F. Introduce the five times correct method by explaining that it may be easier to address technical problems in a piece of music if you focus solely on the technique rather than trying to put it all together by playing the excerpt over and over again. The “five times correct” method of repetition is one way to do that. G. Have the band try to play measures 9-12 (second line) slowly, focusing on the notes. H. Have them try it with fingers/hands only (keep it slow if needed). I. Ask for one volunteer or a group of volunteers (it will be easier than using the whole band). Tell them that they will be required to play the section five times through with no note errors. If doing this at home, they should have five objects to work with on the left side of their music stand (e.g. coins, pencils, paperclips, etc. – for the classroom setting here, you could also use check marks on the board). For each time they get the notes all correct, they move one object to the other side of the music stand. Have the students play measures 9-12 one time. Keep track of how many times they play it with no errors until they hit the fifth complete time. If they mess up, the count goes back to zero and they start again. J. Ask students to guess why it may be important to try and play the technical section five times properly before they move on to something else. It will be helpful to explain that if a student practices something the wrong way fifteen times in a row and then practices it right once and says, “OH! I got it now!”,
128 only to move on the next thing, it is very likely that s/he just taught her/himself to play the section incorrectly. K. Ask if this will always be attainable in one practice session or if it may sometimes take more than one practice session to learn a technical section. L. Have the band try to play the excerpt straight through. It will certainly not be perfect, but hopefully they will play the difficult rhythmic and technical sections a little better than they would have if they hadn’t effectively practiced them first. Talk about this with them. M. Check for understanding, allowing for questions about the five times correct method.
VII. Evaluation B. Have students rate their personal performance on this exercise on a scale of 1- 5.
VIII. Summary C. To help students understand the process they just went through, remind them of the following steps that were used so far in the practice labs. They can remember the steps : 8. Mentally Rehearse the music to decide what the practice session will entail. 9. Set Goals for the session. 10. Use Strategies like clap & count to address your goals. 11. Play through the section that you were working on. 12. Evaluate your playing, possibly setting goals for the next practice session.
VII. Mnemonic devices to help students remember these steps: MR. Gershwin Shakes Pepper Everywhere Most Ringing Gongs Scare Percussionists Eventually
(Students may also invent their own mnemonic device! They will be more creative, I’m sure.)
129 Appendix D
February 13, 2008 Dear Administrator:
I am writing to seek your permission to perform a research study with the eighth grade band students at ______Middle Schools. I am a current graduate student in Case Western Reserve University’s department of music education and a former middle school band director. My thesis is entitled The Effect of Instruction on Middle School Band Students’ Understanding of Practice. If granted permission, the study will entail: (a) a survey of______’s eighth grade band students about their perceptions of music practice, (b) observations of twelve students as they practice individually, and (c) the application of practice lab lesson plans to see if students’ individual practice techniques are affected by teacher intervention. If I am permitted to start this study, all eighth grade band parents will receive a detailed letter via U.S. mail which describes the study in full. After time has passed for parents to contact me with questions and concerns, I will visit the students during band class to explain the study and the student assent forms. I will not approach any students whose parents have dissented. Students will only be permitted to participate in this study after submitting student assent forms. Both students and parents will be assured of the confidentiality practices in this study and that this study will not affect students’ grades or status in the band in any way. The observation portion of the study includes video and audio recording of twelve students; however, only I and my research advisor will have access to the video and audio data, which will be destroyed three years after completion of the study. During the three years of storage, all recordings will be kept in a locked file that only I may access. The completed thesis document will not identify the ______City Schools as the participating district, nor will it include any demographic or personal information that could be linked to______’s students. I will be happy to send you the final document, if desired. I have enclosed a chart that lays out the basic steps involved in this research study. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact me at (***) ***-**** or [email protected]. In addition, if you would like to see the questionnaire or practice lab lesson plans, I can send those to you via email at your request. If you are
130 willing to grant permission for this study, please draft a letter stating that you have read a description of the study and are willing to grant consent for the study to take place in your schools this semester. This letter is a requirement of Case Western Reserve University’s Institutional Review Board in order for me to proceed with this study in your school district. The letter may be given to ______upon completion. Thank you very much for your time and consideration.
Sincerely, Stacey Kolthammer, Case Western Reserve University Encl: Parent letter, Student assent form, Outline of study
131 Appendix E BAND DIRECTOR INFORMED CONSENT DOCUMENT
The Effect of Instruction on Middle School Band Students’ Understanding of Practice Stacey Kolthammer, Case Western Reserve University (***) ***-****, [email protected]
You have been asked to participate in a research study about middle school students’ understanding of practice as an eighth grade band director in the Lakewood City Schools. Please read this form and ask any questions that you may have before granting permission to be used in the research.
A researcher at Case Western Reserve University is conducting this study.
Purpose: The purpose of this research study is to (a) survey eighth grade band students on their understanding of music practice, (b) observe eighth grade students as they individually practice, and (c) determine the effect of a practice strategy lesson plans on their practice habits. It is important for music teachers to have a better understanding of how intermediate musicians practice so that they can help students develop the skills they need to monitor their own learning.
Procedures: The study will take place at the middle school where you teach. Each research session will take place during the eighth grade band’s regularly scheduled rehearsal time and will last between 20 and 40 minutes. The entire study will be completed within an eight to ten week period.
Part 1: If you agree to take part in this research, you will be observed by the researcher three times prior to the commencement of the research study. These observations will be used by the researcher to obtain base knowledge of your classroom atmosphere, your teaching style, and the current musical level of your eighth grade band students. Part 2: Once permission has been granted by your students and their parents/legal guardians, you will be asked to provide class time for the researcher to administer a practice questionnaire two times during the study. This questionnaire will take between 20 and 40 minutes each time it is administered (once at the beginning and once at the end). In addition, six of your students will be asked to participate in individual practice observations. These observations will take approximately 25 minutes each and will be conducted two times per each student for a total of twelve observations. Part 3: If your band ends up as the experimental group, you will be asked to administer practice lab lesson plans. Each lesson plan will last approximately 15-20 minutes. Over a three- four week period, you will teach one lesson plan and one review of the same lesson plan
132 each week. These lessons will be audio recorded with a handheld digital audio recorder which you will be asked to submit to the researcher at the end of each week. The audio data will be monitored only by the researcher and her thesis advisor to ensure that the practice treatment is progressing as planned. Part 4: Following the conclusion of the research study, you will be asked to answer some questions in an exit interview about the research process.
Risks and Benefits to Being in the Study: There are no perceived risks to you if you decide to participate in this study. Your name and any other personally identifiable information will not be used in the study. The audio recorded lesson plans will be kept completely confidential.
There are no direct benefits to you for participating in this study. Potential indirect benefits of participation include: (a) your students may gain knowledge about their understanding of music practice, (b) your students can see themselves practicing on video, which may offer additional insight into the way they approach learning on their instrument, and (c) your students may be provided with additional tools that they can use to improve their abilities on their instruments.
Confidentiality: The records of this research will be kept private. In any sort of report that may be published, information that will make it possible to identify a participant will not be used. Research records will be kept in a locked file, and access will be limited to the researchers, the University review board responsible for protecting human participants, and regulatory agencies.
Voluntary Nature of the Study: Your participation is voluntary. If you choose not to participate it will not affect your current or future relations with the University, or your school. There is no penalty or loss of benefits for not participating or for discontinuing participation at any time. Results of this study will provided upon your request.
Contacts and Questions: If you have any questions about the research now or during the study contact: Stacey Kolthammer at (***) ***-**** or [email protected]. You are also welcome to contact Dr. Lisa Koops from Case Western Reserve University at (***) ***-**** or [email protected].
If the researchers cannot be reached, or if you would like to talk to someone other than the researcher(s) about; (1) questions, concerns or complaints regarding this study, (2) research participant rights, (3) research-related injuries, or (4) other human subjects issues, please contact Case Western Reserve University's Institutional Review Board at (216) 368-6925 or write: Case Western Reserve University; Institutional Review Board; 10900 Euclid Ave.; Cleveland, OH 44106-7230.
133 You will be given a copy of this form for your records.
Subject's Statement of Consent: I have read the above description of this research study. I have been informed of the procedure involved, and all my questions have been answered to my satisfaction. Furthermore, I have been assured that any future questions I may have will also be answered by the researcher. I voluntarily agree to take part in this study. I understand that I will not be audio recorded without my explicit permission below. I understand I will receive a copy of this consent form. Please check one of the following and print/sign below:
YES, I grant permission to be a participant in this study. I understand that I reserve the right to change my mind.
YES, I grant permission to be audio recorded during Part 3 of this study as described above.
Printed Name of Subject
______Signature of Subject Date
134 Appendix F Parent Letter February 25, 2008 Dear Parents,
As band parents, you are fully aware of the challenges that your children face as they learn how to play an instrument. Band directors and parents are always asking their young students, “Did you practice your instrument?” Although the answers to this question vary greatly, most students will admit that they need to practice to improve. However, how does a student go about practicing? In approximately two weeks your child will be given an opportunity to participate in a research study on eighth grade band students and practice. This research study will serve as part of the requirements towards my master’s degree in music education at Case Western Reserve University. As a former middle school band director, I designed this study to learn about eighth grade students’ understanding of practice and how teaching a series of practice lesson plans may alter their practice strategies. This research study will take place in four parts, as described below. All portions of the study will take place during normal class periods at your child’s school. As a teacher, I appreciate how valuable class time is and I designed this study to take as little time away from normal band rehearsal as possible. The data collected for this study will not be used to affect student grades or their standing in the band.
Part 1 – Practice Questionnaire In approximately two weeks, I will be visiting your child’s band class to explain this study. Following this visit, your child will be given two days to decide if s/he wishes to participate. During the next band class, I will collect student assent forms from all students who are willing to participate. All students who agree to participate in the research will be asked to complete a questionnaire about how students practice. The questionnaire will not identify your child by name and will not collect any personal information. Only the researcher and her thesis advisor will be permitted to view the completed questionnaires.
Part 2 – Practice Observation Only students who have given permission to be audio/video recorded will be considered for this portion of the study. Students who choose not to participate in part two may still decide to participate in parts one and three of the study. Six students will be asked to individually practice a piece of music for ten minutes. They will be allowed to use whatever techniques they want to practice the exercise and will be alone in the room for the ten minute period. This practice session will be video recorded. Following the ten minutes, I will reenter the room to watch the video with each student. While we watch, I will ask each student to verbally describe what they were doing in the practice video (which may also be described as “thinking aloud”). This part of the study will be audio recorded. The video and audio recordings will be analyzed to look for strategies used by middle school band students when they practice. The recordings will only be used for the purposes of this study and will be kept confidential. Only I and my research advisor will
135 have access to the recordings, which will be destroyed three years after the completion of the study.
Part 3 – Practice Lab Lesson Plans During the course of this research study, your child may be introduced to a series of lesson plans on practice techniques which will be taught by his/her normal band teacher. These plans were designed to introduce and review practice strategies with the students and should resemble any average lesson plan. I will not alert the students to the connection between these lesson plans and my research until the conclusion of the study. It is my hope that they see these lessons as a part of their daily band routine rather than something that is being introduced by a researcher.
Part 4 – Repetition of Questionnaire and Practice Observations After a three-four week period, all participating students will be asked to complete another practice questionnaire. The same six students who participated in the video and audio recorded practice sessions will be asked to complete another practice observation. The only thing that will differ is the piece of music that they are given to practice. After the completion of the second questionnaire and practice observations, I will return to explain how the practice lesson plans that they may have been exposed to may have affected the results of the study.
If you do not want your child to be introduced to this study in band class, please contact me via phone or email by *insert date here*(one week after postmark). I will be visiting your child’s band class during the week of *insert dates here*(one week after postmark) to explain the study to students. I will return later that week to ask him/her if they are willing to participate by signing a student assent form (an example of this form is attached). I will encourage him/her to discuss their participation with you prior to signing the student assent forms. The actual study will not start until *insert date here*(two weeks after postmark). You may contact me via phone or email at any time during the study with questions, concerns, or to remove your child from the study. This study is voluntary and no child will be allowed to participate unless a student assent form is obtained. Students who choose not to participate will be provided with alternate activities, provided by their band director, while students are working on various portions of this study. All participants’ identities will be kept confidential in this study. In future publications of this research, readers will not know any names, personal information, or the school district where the data was collected. Students will be permitted to drop out of the study at any time. Your child’s involvement in this research could help band directors gain a better understanding of how middle schools students practice. If we have a better idea of how children are thinking in the practice room, we may be more able to help them develop skills which will make practicing more successful and rewarding in the future. Please contact me if you have any additional questions or concerns. I will also be happy to provide you with the results of this study, upon request. Thank you very much for your time. Sincerely,
136 Appendix G
STUDENT ASSENT DOCUMENT
The Effect of Instruction on Middle School Band Students’ Understanding of Practice Stacey Kolthammer, Case Western Reserve University (***)***-****, [email protected]
Your have been asked to participate in a research study about middle school students’ understanding of practice. You were selected as a possible participant because you play in the eighth grade band program of the ______City Schools. A researcher at Case Western Reserve University is conducting this study.
A letter was mailed to your home explaining this study to your parents/guardians. Your parents are aware that you are being asked to participate in this research. They also understand that your participation is voluntary and that there is no penalty if you decide not to participate at any time during the research study.
Please read this form and ask any questions that you may have before you agree to participate.
Purpose: The purpose of this research study is to ask eighth grade band students questions about their opinions of ideal practicing and observe some eighth grade students as they individually practice.
Procedures: The study will take place in school. Each research session will take place during your eighth grade band’s regularly scheduled rehearsal time and will last between 20 and 40 minutes. The entire study will be completed within an eight to ten week period.
Part 1: If you agree to participate, you will be asked to complete two practice questionnaires. One will be at the beginning of the study and the other will take place at the conclusion. You will be given a random identification number that the researcher will use to identify you, rather than using your name. Nobody but the researcher will know which questionnaires belong to you.
Part 2: You may still participate in Part 1 of the study even if you do not wish to participate in Part 2. For this portion of the study, you may be asked to individually practice an exercise provided by the researcher for ten minutes. You will be encouraged to practice the song in whatever way is comfortable. This practice session will be videotaped, but the videotape will be kept confidential and will only be used for the purposes of this
137 study in the presence of the researcher and her graduate research advisors. You will be alone in a private room while practicing.
Following this practice session, you will be asked to watch the videotape with the researcher. While watching the videotape, you will be asked to explain what you were thinking/doing while practicing. This portion of the study will be audio-recorded. Once again, this recording will be kept confidential and will only be used for the purposes of this study. Only the researcher and her graduate research advisor will have access to the video and audio data.
Part 2 of the study will take place twice with the same group of students after each administration of the practice questionnaire. The audio and video data will be destroyed three years after the completion of the study.
Voluntary Nature and Confidentiality of the Study: Your participation is voluntary. If you choose to participate, it will not affect your status in the eighth grade band or your grades in any way. There is no penalty for not participating or for stopping participation at any time. Results of this study will provided upon your request.
Your parents and teachers will never be notified of your participation, refusal to participate, or withdrawal from the study. If you choose to participate in this study, your teachers and parents will never know your answers from the questionnaires. If you participate in the practice observations, the video/audio recordings will not be shared with your parents or teachers. Only the researcher and her advisor will be permitted to view and listen to the video/audio of the practice observations.
Contacts and Questions: If you have any questions about the research now or during the study contact: Stacey Kolthammer at (***)***-**** or [email protected]. You are also welcome to contact Dr. Lisa Koops from Case Western Reserve University at (***)***-**** or [email protected].
You will be given a copy of this form for your records.
Subject's Statement of Consent: I have read the above description of this research study. I have been informed of the procedure involved, and all my questions have been answered to my satisfaction. Furthermore, I have been assured that any future questions I may have will also be answered by the researcher. I agree to take part in this study. Please check one or both of the following and print/sign below: YES, I agree to participate in the questionnaire portion of this research study, as described in Part 1. I understand that I reserve the right to change my mind about my participation at any time.
138 YES, I am willing to be audio/video recorded while I practice for the purposes of this study, as described in Part 2. I understand that I reserve the right to change my mind about my participation at any time.
Printed Name of Subject
______Signature of Student Subject Date
139 Appendix H
Diagram of Practice Room Set-Up
140 Appendix I
Codes with Transcript Examples
Codes Audio Transcript Example Video Transcript Example Higher Level Thinking: Evaluation of “Uh, I got, I think I was Stops after third note of Performance getting the rhythms pretty measure 9, says, “Ah, I hold well.” that out too long, yeah I do” Goal Setting “…like measure four, I keep None available – going through it until I get Participants would have had like the notes right and make to talk aloud about their sure I have those right and goals in the videos. the rhythm too.” Problem Recognition “I held that note way too Stops at the end of measure long. Huh! I noticed that.” 4, says, “OK, that's got to be shorter” Strategy Selection “I like, clapped through it to “Tries to play first note and help with the rhythms in the misses pitch. Plays up from harder spots.” a few harmonics below to reach the right note.” Lower Level Thinking: Unspecific Goals “R: Did you have a plan or a None available – goal? Participants would have had S: Uh, no I just wanted to see to talk aloud about their like how it played.” goals in the videos. Lack of Evaluation “R: What are you doing None available – It would there? have been too subjective to S: Um, I don't know.” decide when students were not using self-evaluation in the videos.
141
Correcting Single Notes “Hesitation at second note of “Plays until the first note of m. 8, immediately repeats the last line (m. 13) when and continues to end” note doesn't speak. Tries note again and tries to keep going” Simple Repetition, no “Then I started over again.” “Goes back to play at the Strategy Selection beginning. Does another entire run-through.” Musical Concepts: Articulation “Yeah and then I had a little “Sings measure 9, with trouble with the slurs so I did specific emphasis on that over a little.” articulation ("ta ah ta ta tah")” Dynamics “Like here I'm working on “Starts at the beginning, uh getting the dynamics obvious attempt at dynamics down” on this run-through” Intonation “Uh, tuning myself cause I “Plays a concert B flat pitch, sounded really out of tune.” adjusts instrument” Meter “And then it was in 2/4 None available – Difficult to measure, so I wasn't quite observe in video footage sure how to count that.” Notes “I was um writing down, like “Went back to m. 9. Played cause I noticed I played the concert Bb scale again, wrong notes” up to the top note in the scale, and then tried to hit the desired note above that.” Phrasing “So it's not worth splitting it None available – difficult to up this way I get the entire assess in video phrase and I'm still working on that one part.”
142 Pitch Accuracy “R: How do you know if None available you're on the right partial, if you're on the right pitch? S: Um, I don't.” Posture “I don't really concern None available in this myself with posture when context. Evidence of I'm practicing like this.” posture in the videos generally related to the researcher noting a posture change, which may or may not have been an intentional practicing decision by the participant. Range “And I just tried to play this “looks at the music and for a little bit and um I analyzes (says, "this is decided it's too high and I go high")” back…” Rhythm “…and then there's a couple “Looked over the music and points where I hold too long. talked through (thinking Like right there.” aloud) about the dotted eighth/sixteenth rhythm. “ Sight-Reading “R: if your teacher gives you None available. See a new piece of band music, Practice Strategy: Sight- how do you listen to it first? Reading S: Um, usually we run through it. “ Tempo “R: What do you think you “Starts at the beginning, were feeling there? attempting a slightly faster S: That I needed to be tempo” faster.”
143
Tone “I should have got the None available – difficult to tone…” assess in video Practice Strategies: Address Dynamics “And then I also noticed the “Starts at beginning of crescendos so I tried working measure 3, continues with on those.” obvious attempt at dynamics” Change Articulation “S: Oh yeah and then here None available – too I'm also trying to get the difficult to address accents too. objectively when watching R: OK video. S: Uh, so I so and I thought that was cool cause it helped me get the rhythm too.” Change Range of Music “S: I was going to try and “Pauses briefly at unknown play it an octave lower high note and then plays it R: Oh, OK. one octave lower in S: then I couldn't.” context.” Change Rhythm None available None available Chunking “I think I was just going “Starts in m. 13 again. Stops through the one measure that after first note of m. 15. was with the high notes in Starts at beginning of m. 14, it.” stops after second note of m. 15.” Clap and Count “Now I'm just counting out “Starts at beginning (Clapping only, Counting the melody to make sure I've Stops after third note of only, or clapping and got it.”; “And I was like measure 3, looks at music. counting together.) tapping out the rhythm Claps and counts” because the rhythms were a little complicated.”
144 Fingers/Hands Alone “R: what are you doing there “Whistles part from do you think? beginning quietly, fingers S: fingering” moving on valves” Marking Music “And then I numbered them “Stops to write in music.” all with the fingerings.” Memorization “Right there I'm turning it “Turns music over over um to try and play the Starts at beginning, tries to first line by memory.” play from memory, Stops at end of measure 3” Mental Rehearsal “R: When you stop and “Starts at measure 5, plays to you're looking at the music end of exercise, Looks at like that, what are you music” doing? S: I'm like thinking about what I can improve and what I was making mistakes on. And I was, I wanted to go and see where I wanted to start.” Play Faster “And there right now I'm “Starts at beginning, quicker speeding up in the rhythm” tempo until m. 9, stops after downbeat of measure 16” Play Slower “Because um like sometimes “Starts at beginning, at if I play it slower I can like slower tempo, Stops at end kinda get it right and then I of measure 8” can go back and play it faster.” Repetition “I was repeating a measure “Starts at measure 15, cause it was harder” repeats two times”
145
Repetition/Five Times None available – “Starts at beginning of Correct Method presumably, this code would measure 5 only have occurred in At measure 7, plays experimental group post-test sixteenth notes five times and continues” Sight-Reading “Um, at first I was just going “Starts at beginning, to play through it and I was completes full run-through going to see what mistakes I Says, ‘All righty’” made” Singing “Now I'm just singing out “Sings part from beginning, the melody.” tapping on leg” Whistling “Uh I'm actually whistling “Whistles from beginning the tune cause it's a little like through measure 9” habit I have, like it helps me get it and figure it out.” Works to Desired Pitch “R: OK, what are you doing “Starts low and works up here? harmonic series to hit pitch” S: Um, trying to find out what that pitch was cause I forgot exactly what it was.” Self Evaluation Specific: Aware of Habit “I get the stuff done but like None available – too I notice if it's a song I don't difficult to view in video like I tend not to practice it. footage But then when I need to practice it I start to practice it and then I start to like it again.”
146
Boredom “I get bored sometimes “Starts back at the practicing at home so I just beginning. Plays all the way do random little things or through the song again like I keep switching songs Stops playing and looks or play a song I really like down at the floor for a over and over and over moment. Seems bored.” again.” Frustration “And I kept sort of messing “Starts at the beginning, up and I get frustrated at stops after the second note that...which is normal of measure 7, says, ‘not (laughs).” again’” Negative Comment “I kinda sucked because I “upon reaching m. 9 student didn't realize I had to go says, ‘I can't play the second from low to high at first” part’” Positive Comment “Yeah, I didn't know I could None available – participant hit that note. I really liked it. would have needed to make (laughs)” positive comment aloud. Starting Points: Restarting in same “If I ever mess up like in a “Stops after sixteenths in measure as error song like in halfway through measure 4, restarts at it instead of going back to beginning of m. 4 and the beginning I'll just pick it continues” up in that spot again.” Start at beginning “then I think I, I played from “Starts at beginning again.” the beginning” Starts within exercise “S: I um messed up right “Stops to briefly look at the here so I tried to play it over music. Starts at m. 5 again. (second line), plays until R: The bottom line? end.” S: yeah.”
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