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dissertation entitled THE EFFECT OF SUZUKI INSTRUCTION AND EARLY CHILDHOOD MUSIC EXPERIENCES ON DEVELOPMENTAL MUSIC APTITUDE AND PERFORMANCE ACHIEVEMENT OF BEGINNING SUZUKI STRING STUDENTS
presented by
Lelouda Stamou
has been accepted towards fulfillment of the requirements for Ph.D . degm in Music Education
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THE EFFECT OF SUZUKI INSTRUCTION AND EARLY CHILDHOOD MUSIC EXPERIENCES ON DEVELOPMENTAL MUSIC APTITUDE AND PERFORMANCE ACHIEVEMENT OF BEGINNING SUZUKI STRING STUDENTS
By
Lelouda Stamou
A DISSERTATION
Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
School of Music
1998 ABSTRACT
THE EFFECT OF SUZUKI INSTRUCTION AND EARLY CHILDHOOD MUSIC EXPERIENCES ON DEVELOPMENTAL MUSIC APTITUDE AND PERFORMANCE ACHIEVEMENT OF BEGINNING SUZUKI STRING STUDENTS
By
Lelouda Stamou
The purpose of the study was to investigate the effects of Suzuki string instruction
and early childhood music instruction on developmental music aptitude and performance
achievement of beginning Suzuki string students. Specifically, the following problems
were investigated: (a) the effect of Suzuki instruction on developmental music aptitudes of
beginning Suzuki string students, (b) the extend to which students’ developmental music
aptitudes at the beginning of instruction were predictive of their instrumental performance
achievement after 22 weeks of Suzuki instruction, and (c) the effect of early childhood
music instruction on Suzuki string students’ fiIture instrumental performance achievement.
The sample consisted of 43 beginning Suzuki string students (experimental group)
and 73 general music students (control group) between the ages of 5 and 8 years old. The
Music Experience Questionnaire (MEQ) was used to collect information on the Suzuki
students’ formal early childhood music experiences. All subjects were pre- and post-tested
using Primary Measures of Music Audiation (PMMA). Instruction lasted for 22 weeks
and consisted of one 20- to 30-minute private lesson and one 45- to 60-minute group
lesson every week for the Suzuki students, while general music students received two 30-
minute sessions of general music instruction every week. At the end of the 22-week
period, twenty-six Suzuki students were audiotaped while playing “Twinkle Theme” on their violin or cello and were rated by three independent judges on Intonation, Rhythm, and Expression.
Results indicated that Suzuki students tended to have higher post-instruction
PMMA Tonal and Composite mean scores and lower Rhythm mean scores than the general music students. None of these differences was, however, found to be statistically significant. Suzuki students’ pre-instruction PMMA scores were predictive of their string performance achievement after 22 weeks of instruction. Finally, Suzuki students who received early childhood music instruction tended to receive higher, although non- significantly so, instrumental performance achievement ratings than students who did not have such instruction. Due to non-significant results, further research is needed if the effects of Suzuki instruction on musical development are to be defined and the importance of early childhood music instruction for future musical success is to be determined. COPyfiSht by LELOUDA STAMOU 199s To my parents, whose love makes everything possible. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The author is indebted to many people whose kindness and guidance contributed significantly to the completion of this study. Special appreciation is directed to Dr. Cynthia
Taggart for her encouragement, guidance, and support throughout this project and for her being an invaluable model of teaching and academic excellence; to Dr. Albert LeBlanc for his mentorship, invaluable expertise, and support throughout my studies; to Dr. Judy Palac for being a great teacher and friend; and to Professor I-Fu Wang for his contributions to this project.
Special thanks go to Liz Reed, music specialist at Edgewood Elementary School in
Okemos, Michigan and the administrative staff and teachers of the Community Music
School at Michigan State University, the Okemos Community Education, and Community
Music School in Kalamazoo, Michigan, for their cooperation in providing a sample for this study. Thanks also goes to Diane Lange and Jean Fickett for their assistance, friendship, and kindness, and to students and parents for participating in this study.
Gratitude is expressed to the Fulbright Program, to the “Alexander S. Onasis
Public Benefit Foundation”, to the Pancretan Association of America and George Platsis, without the financial support of which, this dissertation would never come true.
Finally, my special thanks goes to Patrick, Mariazena, Sophia, and Brendan for bringing joy and warmth into my life; to Christos who stood by me during that long journey; and to my mother, father, and brothers whose love never left me... TABLE OF CONTENTS
LIST OF TABLES ...... ix
CHAPTER ONE RESEARCH BACKGROUND ...... Music Aptitudes: Characteristics and Measurement ...... The Suzuki Philosophy and Method of Teaching ...... The Effects of Music Instruction on Developmental Music Aptitude .. Music Aptitude as a Predictive Measure of Music Achievement ...... Efi‘ect of Early Childhood Music Experiences on Future Performance Achievement and Musical Success ...... The Focus of This Research ...... Purpose and Problems of the Study ...... Definitions ......
CHAPTER TWO RELATED LITERATURE ...... 25 The Effect of Instruction on Developmental Music Aptitude ...... 25 The Taggart Study (1997) ...... 25 The West Irondequoit Study (Gordon, 1980) ...... 28 The Flohr Study (1981) ...... 31 Primary Measures of Music Audiation as a Predictive Measure of Music Achievement ...... 34 The Plymouth Meeting Study (Gordon, 1986) ...... 34 The Woodrufi‘ Study (1984) ...... 36 Effect of Early Childhood Music Experiences on Future Performance Achievement ...... ~ ...... 40 The Mitchell Study (1985) ...... 40 The Moore Study (1973) ...... 42 Summary ...... 46
CHAPTERTHREE METHODOLOGY ...... 48 Sample ...... 48 Procedures ...... 50 Research Instruments ..- ...... 53 DataAnalysis ...... 55
CHAPTER FOUR RESULTS AND INTERPRETATIONS ...... 58
vii Primary Measures of Music Audiation Data ...... 58 Results ...... 58 Interpretation ...... 68 Problem 1: The Effect of Suzuki Instruction on Developmental Music Aptitude of Beginning Suzuki String Students ...... 70 Results ...... 7O Interpretation ...... 74 Problem 2: Predictive Validity of PMMA Scores ...... 78 Results ...... 78 Interpretation ...... 80 Problem 3: The Effect of Early Childhood Music Instruction on Future Performance Achievement ...... 82 Results ...... 82 Interpretation ...... 84
CHAPTER FIVE SUMMARY, IMPLICATIONS, AND RECCOMMENDATIONS ...... 87 Summary of the Study ...... 87 Purpose and Problems ...... 87 Procedures ...... 88 Analysis ...... 89 Results and Conclusions ...... 90 Implications for Music Education ...... 94 Recommendations for Future Research ...... 96
APPENDICES Appendix A: UCRIHS Permission ...... 100 Appendix B: Letter to Parents of the Suzuki Students ...... 101 Appendix C: Consent Form for Suzuki Students ...... 102 Appendix D: Music Experience Questionnaire (MEQ) ...... 103 Appendix E: Letter to Parents of the General Music Students ...... 104 Appendix F: Consent Form for General Music Students ...... 105 Appendix G: “Twinkle Theme” ...... 106 Appendix H: Performance Achievement Rating Scale ...... 107
REFERENCES ...... 109
viii LIST OF TABLES
Table 1- PWAPre—InstructionResults 59
Table 2- PMMA Post-Instruction Results ...... 59
Table 3- PMMA Pre-Instruction Results by Age ...... 61
Table 4- PMMA Post-Instruction Results by Age ...... 62
Table 5- PMMA Means and Standard Deviations Presented in PMMA
Manual ...... 63
Table 6- PMMA Reliability Coemcients ......
Table7- PMMA Pre-Instruction Subtest Intercorrelations ...... 66
Table 8- PMMA Post-Instruction Subtest Intercorrelations ...... 67
Table 9- The t Test Between Paired Suzuki and Non-Suzuki Students on
Pre-lnstruction PMMA Scores (Matching Variables) ...... 71
Table 10- The Paired-Samples t Test Between Suzuki and Non-Suzuki
Students on Post-Instruction PMMA Scores ...... 72
Table 11- The t Test Between Paired Suzuki and Non-Suzuki Students on
Post-Instruction PMMA Scores by Age Level ...... 73
Table 12- PMMA Predictive Validity Coefficients ...... 79
Table 13- PMMA Predictive Validity Coeflicients Reported in PMMA
Manual ...... 80
ix Table 14- The 1 Test on Age and Pre-lnstruction PMMA Scores Between
Group 1 and Group 2 ...... 83
Table 15- The 1 Test on Performance Achievement Scores Between
Group 1 and Group 2 ...... 84 CHAPTER ONE
RESEARCH BACKGROUND
The research described in this dissertation is part of a tradition of inquiry that has focused on the effects of several instructional modes on musical development and the existence of predictive variables of musical excellence. Common threads that run through this array of research are the role of music aptitude in musical development, the identification of methods and instructional approaches that most positively afi‘ect musical growth, and the identification of predictors of musical achievement.
The Suzuki method of music teaching, although widely Used, has not been researched to a point that its effects on students' music aptitude and achievement can be defined. Furthermore, the increasing awareness of the importance of the early years of life leads to several questions on the role of early childhood musical experiences in fiIture musical success. Curiosity about how early musical experiences and the Suzuki method afi‘ect musical development has given impetus to most of the work cited in this dissertation as well as to this research project itself.
WWW During our century, a strong interest has developed in music aptitude, its nature, sources, fiInction, and development. Music aptitude is defined as the potential to learn music, while music achievement is what one has learned. Gordon (1986) says that ”although it can be said that the level of one's music aptitude is commensurate with how well one audiates (hears and feels music for which the sound is not physically present), a satisfactory verbal description of music aptitude, that is, a definition of its elements, has not been yet found" (p. 3). After years of debates on the "nature-nurture" issue of music aptitude, according to which music aptitude was either innate and not afi‘ected by environmental factors or entirely environmental, research findings in neurophysiology, psychoacoustics, sociomusicology, cognitive psychology, and psychomusicology have led to the belief that music aptitude is a product of both nature and environment. The proportion that each one contributes to music aptitude is still unknown. Although the level of music aptitude one is born with cannot be defined accurately on the basis of ancestry, there is little doubt that unless one is early exposed to a rich informal environment in music, one's aptitude will start declining and will never reach its potential (Gordon, 1987). Gordon (1987), who has researched music aptitudes and music achievement, hypothesizes that one possesses the highest level of music aptitude at the time of birth. After that time, rich musical stimulation is nwded to keep that aptitude level from decreasing. Music aptitude is developmental, meaning that it can be affected by the environment during the first nine years of life, with the influence being greater the younger the child is (Gordon, 1980; Flohr, 1981; Taggart, 1997). After approximately age nine, music aptitude stabilizes, meaning that one's aptitude is no longer afi‘ected by the environment. Although one can keep learning and achieving during his/her whole life, his/her percentile ranks in terms of music aptitude compared to the whole population will remain relatively constant. This fact is supported by other research findings (Moog, 1976; Petzold, 1966) according to which, at a certain age, the child’s development of certain skills levels out. The terms ”developmental music aptitude" and ”stabilized music aptitude” will be used in this paper to represent the two periods before and after the approximate age of nine, as described above.
Gordon (1986) identified and found valid ways of measuring two non-preference dimensions of developmental music aptitude. The non-preference dimensions were tonal and rhythm. Gordon was not able to reliably measure other dimensions of developmental music aptitude, if any existed. When young children were asked to listen to a pair of harmonic patterns and to tell whether the two harmonic patterns in the pair were the same or different, their responses seemed to be nothing more than guesses. Reliability approached zero. In the cases of preference dimensions, like tone qIIality or dynamics, when young children were asked to tell whether the same melodic pattern performed twice had the same or difi‘erent tone quality (timbre), or in some other case, the same or difl‘erent dynamic level, almost none of the children were able to answer the question correctly, unless the difi‘erences were exaggerated. In order to be sure that the children were not experiencing difficulty in responding to questions about tone quality and dynamics as a result of hearing melodic patterns (those with tonal and rhythm elements combined), they were asked to make the same judgments for tonal patterns without the rhythm element and for rhythm patterns without the tonal element. The results were the same. In all cases the reliability of their responses was not significantly different from zero. Regardless of the manner in which the questions were asked or the nature of the content that they were asked to respond to, young children were incapable of making reliable judgments pertaining to their music preferences. That is to say that it is probable that music preference is not a dimension of developmental music aptitude. It is possible, of course, that an appropriate method for measuring the music preferences of young children has not yet been discovered. Moreover, it may be that preference aptitude is latent. Observations of young children in their spontaneous musical play reveal that young children are more interested in performing and listening to music than in explaining the music itself or responding expressively to the music (Moorhead & Pond, 1978; Gordon, 1980) Primary Measures of Music Audiation (PMMA) is a developmental music aptitude test developed by Gordon (1986) for children in kindergarten, first, second, and third grades. Its development began in 1971, and the test was first published in 1979. It is called a test of audiation and not a test of music aptitude because, at the ages for which the test is appropriate, aptitude is still developmental. PMMA has been found to be a reliable and valid music aptitude test (Gordon, 1986).
The Intermediate Measures of Music Audiation (IMMA) (Gordon, 1986) is also a test of developmental music aptitude constructed similarly to PMMA. IMMA is designed to be used with a group in which half or more of the students score above the 80th percentile on the Tonal and/or Rhythm subtests of PMMA. IMMA includes more difficult items and is used with students in grades one through four.
Audie (Gordon, 1989) is a developmental music aptitude test for 3- and 4-year old children. Unlike PMMA and IMMA, Audie is designed to be individually administered by a parent at home or by a teacher in school. According to Gordon, the major purposes of the music aptitude tests presented above are to identify musically gifted young children who can profit from special and/or additional music instruction, and to diagnose the comparative tonal and rhythm strengths and weaknesses of all young children so that instruction may be adapted to their individual musical needs. Music aptitude test scores should not be used, of course, to exclude any students from participating in musical activities. Edwin Gordon (1986) considers that "a well-designed and proven music aptitude test joined with a teacher‘s knowledge and judgment is the most valid way of assessing music aptitude” (p. 6). It has been found (Gordon, 1980) that ”there is less than five percent of the variance in common between general intelligence test scores and music aptitude test scores, and less than ten percent of the variance in common between general achievement test scores and music aptitude test scores" (p. 108). Many teachers have difiiculties describing music aptitude apart from musical achievement or academic intelligence and achievement (Gordon, 1980). Objective tests are valuable because they are less vulnerable than teachers to error of measurement. The Suzuki Philosophy and Method of Teaching
The Suzuki method of teaching music was founded in Japan in 1945 by Shinichi Suzuki. It was introduced in the United States in 1964 and has spread throughout the world since that time. Today, hundreds of thousands of children are being educated through the Suzuki method, not only on violin, for which the method was initially
developed, but on other instruments, such as piano, flute, guitar, viola, cello, and harp. The basic assumption of Talent Education, which is another name for Suzuki
education, is that every child can learn if given the right environmental stimulation at an early age and enough repetition and reinforcement. Suzuki believed that music is learned in the same way that language is learned. Everyone can learn music in the same way that they learned how to speak their native languages. Because of that basic assumption, the method is called the ”Mother Tongue” method. The Suzuki method has also been widely known as an early childhood method of music teaching. Students as young as two years old are nurtured with music in a continuous and natural way. Repetition is considered to be a key to musical development; a Suzuki teacher needs to repeat something as many times and in as many ways as needed for the child to understand. Music listening also plays an important role in students’ musical development and is considered to be an integral part of Suzuki education. Suzuki students daily listen to the Suzuki repertoire and they are able to sing songs that are far more advanced that what they can actually play. Above all, Talent Education is concerned with the education of the human potential and basic goodness of humankind and the learning of music as a means to a happier life (Landers, 1984). There are basic principles underlying the Suzuki method of instruction. The parent, the teacher, and the student form the ”Suzuki triangle," without which teaching and learning cannot be successful, especially at the beginning stages. Not only does the parent need to participate in the lessons, take detailed notes, and act like the ”home teacher" by guiding and correcting home practice and music listening, but he or she also needs to learn how to play the first songs from the Suzuki repertoire on the violin. Parents work closely with the teacher, act as models for the children, and constantly reinforce and encourage their children in their musical attempts (Suzuki, 1981; Starr, 1976).
Suzuki students participate in both private lessons and group classes. Group classes are considered extremely important for the musical and social development of children. Emphasis on motivation and positive reinforcement and the use of games contribute to motivating practice, overcoming boredom or tiredness, developing alertness, and testing the children's understanding of specific musical concepts. Continuous listening to the repertoire, rote learning, delay of music reading, performance from memory, and constant review of the previously learned repertoire to build a "musical vocabulary” are other basic principles of the Suzuki method. Emphasis is placed upon respecting each student's individuality and rate of development and learning. Also frequent performance in many settings is an important part of the learning process through which students acquire a natural and relaxed attitude about playing in front of others (Suzuki, 1973).
TheEffects ofMusi In ru i n n e1 m M i ' According to Moore (1990), it has become increasingly evident that, at the early childhood and primary levels of music education, efl‘orts should be directed toward developing children's music aptitudes and interests. Teaching towards the development of music aptitudes places emphasis ”upon providing broad and varied musical exposure for exploring and expanding students‘ potential, rather than limiting their experiences to certain exercises or activities that are readily achieved" (p. 22). Several studies have examined, among others, the effects of music instruction on children's music aptitude. Yet, there are conflicting views as to the influence of instruction on music aptitude. A major source of the conflicting Views may result from the difficulty of measuring young children's aptitudes. DeYarman (1975) found that the type or amount of formal music training had little effect upon children's music aptitude before the fourth-grade as measured by the Musical Aptitude Profile (Gordon, 1965). This led him to the conclusion
that music aptitude stabilizes by the age of five or six. Another study by Schleuter &
DeYarman (1977) yielded similar results and concluded that school music instruction from
kindergarten through grade four has little or no efl‘ect upon music aptitude levels. One
needs to keep in mind that both studies employed the Musical Aptitude Profile, which is a
stabilized music aptitude test designed for children in grades four through twelve. When
one considers that these studies were conducted without the benefit of a music aptitude test designed specifically for primary-age children, it seems fair to state that positive
influences from the special music instruction may have been undetected by the measurement instruments available for these studies (Moore, 1990).
Jordan-DeCarbo (1982) investigated the effect of same/different discrimination
techniques, readiness training, pattern treatment, and gender on kindergartners’ aural discrimination and singing of tonal patterns as measured by the tonal subtest of Primary
Measures of Music Audiation (PMMA) and other instruments. Significant pretest to
posttest gains on both aural perception and singing scores were reported over the 11-week
instructional period, but it could not be determined specifically whether the gain was the result of the effect of training or maturation. As Jordan-DeCarbo pointed out, ”such
growth, nonetheless, indicates that the kindergarten age level cannot be overlooked as a
critical period of development for both aural discrimination and vocability” (p. 245).
Elliott (1995/1996) investigated the effect of exposure to selected background music on the music aptitude of kindergarten children. The Primary Measures of Music
Audiation was administered to experimental and control groups; then for fourteen weeks,
experimental groups were exposed to two hours of a selected background music listening program while engaged in kindergarten classroom activities, and control groups were not.
After fourteen weeks of treatment, both groups were administered PMMA as a posttest.
Results indicated that exposure to a selected background music listening program did not
have an effect on children's music aptitude scores. The results of the study indicate that music listening that is not active does not have any effect on music aptitude scores.
Children need to be engaged in music listening if this is to affect their music aptitude.
Dowdy (1996) investigated the relationships between movement activities, rhythm
aptitude, and rhythm skills of 47 second and third grade students. The control group
received regular music lessons focusing on rhythm, while the experimental group received
the same lessons but with movement activities. The instructional period was 12 weeks. All
students were administered the Music Achievement Test by Richard Colwell and the
PMMA as pretest and posttest measures. Results indicated that the use of movement in
addition to regular music instruction did not increase the students' rhythm aptitude more
than regular music instruction without movement did.
Kane (1994) designed a training program for kindergarten teachers to help them
present tonal preparatory audiation guidance techniques and traditional rote song
techniques to kindergarten children. The problems of the study were to investigate (a) the
effect of tonal preparatory audiation guidance versus traditional teaching of rote songs on
kindergarten children's developmental tonal aptitude and singing achievement, and (b) to
investigate whether kindergarten teachers, after receiving instruction fi'om a music
specialist, become as efl‘ective in the teaching of tonal preparatory audiation guidance techniques as in the teaching of traditional rote song techniques to kindergarten students.
Kane found that there is no evidence to suggest that tonal preparatory audiation guidance has a greater effect on the developmental music aptitude or singing achievement of kindergarten children than the traditional teaching of rote songs. She also found that kindergarten teachers can be equally effective in teaching either of the two techniques.
Morgan (1996) investigated the effects of five instructional interventions on the rhythmic aptitude of second grade students. One hundred and one second grade children were divided by class into five instructional treatment sections. All five groups were administered the Intermediate Measures of Music Audiation (IMMA) as a pretest and posttest measure. One section received special rhythmic instruction during the eight weeks of treatment. Another group was taught using a discrimination training model, and a third
group was taught using a "combined cognitive intervention” approach that was based
upon Gordon's (1986) instructional recommendations. Two other groups received training
that reflected aspects of the "combined cognitive intervention" approach. No significant
differences were found among the various treatments on rhythmic aptitude scores as
measured by the Intermediate Measures of Music Audiation (IMMA). This finding is
surprising, given the variety of treatments. Although Morgan reported that it was not
possible to determine why no differences were found between treatments, it is possible that the treatment period (eight weeks) was too short to reveal any significant differences.
The author suggests that future researchers should investigate the effects of longer periods
of instruction, whether the IMMA may be an insensitive test for second-graders or
relatively short instructional interventions, and the ways that formal instruction can have
optimal impact on rhythm aptitude.
Forsythe (1985) who developed and implemented a computerized preschool
measure of music audiation, administered PMMA to 350 six- to eight-year-old students
and MAP to 318 nine- to eleven-year-old students to explore the growth of musical ability across a wide age span. She found that amount of music training was significantly related to music aptitude. However, no type of music instruction—Suzuki, Dalcroze, Orfl‘, piano, creativity group, or dance—was found to be superior for the development of music aptitude.
Yang (1994/ l 995) investigated whether beginning group piano students, ages six to nine, who received additional training in (a) solrnization, (b) rhythmic movement, or (c)
solrnization and rhythmic movement, would attain a higher level of music achievement in piano study than those who received group piano instruction alone. Results indicated, among Other things, that. (a) nine months of piano study seemed to be particularly beneficial in developing the musical aptitude of the six-year-old subjects, as measured by the Primary Measures of Music Audiation; and (b) piano students who received additional training in solmization or solmization and rhythmic movement developed significantly better skills in tonal discrimination, melodic play-back, and teacher-directed performance skills than those who received additional rhythmic movement training alone.
Jessup (1984) investigated the comparative effects of indirect and direct music teaching upon the developmental music aptitude and music achievement of second-grade students. Classes were given twelve weeks of instruction. Two teachers each taught two classes and employed primarily indirect teacher behaVior for one class and primarily direct teacher behavior for the other. Results showed no significant interactions or main effects for teacher or treatment. However, there was an aptitude main effect in each of the analyses. Students with low music aptitude increased significantly more in developmental music aptitude than students with high music aptitude. Students with high music aptitude achieved significantly higher music listening, rote song, and tonal and rhythm scores than students with low music aptitude.
A significant increase in rhythm aptitude of third grade students that was due to instruction was found by McDonald (1987), who investigated the application of Edwin
Gordon's empirical model of learning sequence to teaching the recorder. Treatment involved a teaching-learning sequence in which children first learned to sing the song by rote, then sang or chanted isolated tonal and rhythm patterns of the song on a neutral or tonal and rhythm syllables, and only much later started reading and writing these patterns.
The control group received instruction that involved a teaching-learning procedure in which individual fingerings, pitches, and rhythm symbols were presented in isolation and assembled in playing songs from notation. Children were pre- and post-tested using
Primary Measures of Music Audiation (Gordon, 1976), and their recorder performance achievement was recorded on a rating scale test. Results indicated that the experimental group had significantly higher mean composite and rhythmic increases than the control groups. The mean increase in the tonal scores was greater for the experimental group than the control group, but not significantly so. Results also supported that treatment was more
10 effective in all dimensions (melodic, rhythmic, executive skills and composite) than the traditional method.
Cemohorsky (1991/1992) studied the effects of movement instruction adapted from the theories of Rudolf Von Laban upon the rhythm performance and developmental rhythm aptitude of kindergarten and second grade children in a suburban independent school. Prior to instruction, the rhythm subtest of the Primary Measures of Music
Audiation was administered to 30 kindergarten and 33 second-grade students. Treatment lasted for 23 weeks and consisted of informal movement instruction based upon five movement themes: body awareness, weight, space, time, and flow. Two weeks before instruction ended, children were taught three criterion chants: one in duple, one in triple, and one in unusual paired meter. At the end of instruction all children took the rhythm subtest of PMMA and were also individually tape-recorded while performing the chants.
Based on the results of the study, Cemohorsky reported that “it may not be concluded that movement instruction has an efi‘ect upon the rhythm performance of children of select upper socio-economic backgrounds” (p. 28). It could be concluded, however, that movement instruction has an efi‘ect upon the developmental rhythm aptitude of children with lower aptitude.
Flohr (1981) investigated the influence of short-term music instruction on 5-year- old children's developmental music aptitude as measured by PMMA Twenty-nine children were randomly assigned to one of three groups. Music-I group received 12 weeks of instruction on instrumental improvisation, and Music-II group received 12 weeks of instruction consisting of singing, playing percussion instruments, and movement. The control group received no instruction in music. PMMA was administered to all children as a pretest and posttest measure. Flohr found that there was a significant difl'erence in
PMMA post-test scores between the groups receiving music instruction and the control group. That led him to the conclusion that short-term music instruction influences five- year-old children's developmental music aptitudes. The control group's mean scores on the
11 PMMA decreased, though non-significantly, during experimentation. F lohr explained this
finding by the fact that all children, including the control group, were given music instruction once a week during the three months preceding experimentation. As soon as treatment started, music instruction in the control group stopped. Flohr suggested that
”the control group's decrease after the end of instruction suggests that the efl‘ects of instruction may be temporary" (p. 223). '
DiBlassio (1984/ 1985) attempted to determine which, if any, of four methods of tonal pattern instruction had the greatest efl‘ect on developmental tonal aptitude, and which, if any, of four methods of rhythm pattern instruction had the greatest effect on developmental rhythm aptitude. Eight first grade classes constituted the tonal groups and were administered the tonal subtest of PMMA, and eight other classes constituted the rhythm groups and were administered the rhythm subtest of PMMA. The tonal groups were taught tonal patterns and the rhythm groups were taught rhythm patterns from seven to ten minutes each for a period of twelve weeks. The students in the tonal groups received tonal pattern instruction in four combinations of tonalities. Those were as follows: Group 1, major and minor; Group H, major, minor, dorian, and mixolydian;
Group 111, major, minor, and atonal; and Group IV, pentatonic. The students in the rhythm groups received rhythm pattern instruction in four combinations of meter. Those were as follows: Group I, duple and triple; Group II, duple, triple, and combined; GroUp III, duple, triple, unusual paired, and unpaired; and Group IV, duple, triple, combined, unusual paired, and unpaired. At the conclusion of the twelve-week period students were re- administered either the tonal or the rhythm subtest of PMMA depending on the group classification. Analyses indicated that there was no significant interaction or significant difference for treatments. A significant main effect, however, was found for aptitude.
Also, low aptitude students made greater gains than high aptitude students, regardless of treatment, in both the tonal and rhythm analysis.
12 In her study of developmental music aptitude, Taggart (1997) sought to determine
(a) the effects of age appropriate instruction on the tonal and rhythm developmental music aptitudes of young children ages three through eight; (b) whether the effects of appropriate instruction on developmental music aptitude vary according to the age of the child; and (c) whether the effects of appropriate instruction on developmental music aptitudes atrophy after the instruction stops. Treatment consisted of age-appropriate instruction for 20 minutes twice a week for a whole year. Audie was administered as a pre-instruction and post-instruction measure of developmental music aptitude to the preschool children, whereas PMMA was administered prior to and after the instructional period as a measure of the 5- to 8-year-old students’ developmental music aptitudes. The results of Taggart’s study suggested that (a) appropriate instruction significantly increases the tonal and rhythm music aptitudes of 3- to 8-year-old students; (b) the efi‘ects of instruction vary according to the child’s age; and (c) the effects of appropriate instruction on developmental music aptitude hold up over time.
Moore (1987) investigated whether certain instruction, designed to fit in the typical school setting, would have an effect upon the students' rhythm aptitudes.
Furthermore, she tried to determine whether such instruction would have an efl‘ect upon their overall music aptitude, if it indeed influenced their rhythm aptitudes. Two hundred- sixty students in second and third grade were divided in three groups. All subjects completed a researcher-designed Music Experience Questionnaire and were administered
PMMA prior to treatment. During the lO-week instructional period, students in Group I received two half-hour lessons every week emphasizing rhythm and movement. Group 11 received an equal number of lessons based on another form of instruction using a singing/listening approach with no emphasis on rhythm and movement. Group 111 received no school music lessons during the ten-week period. Group I functioned as the experimental group and Groups II and III functioned as the control groups. Following the instructional period, PMMA was administered as a posttest to all students. Results
13 indicated that, after having been subjected to special rhythm and movement instruction, the rhythm aptitudes of the experimental group subjects were significantly higher than those of the two control groups, who had not been given the rhythm and movement lessons. Also, although there was some positive change in the overall music aptitude of the experimental group when compared to the control groups, the change was not statistically significant. It was concluded from the study that primary-age children's rhythm aptitude can be influenced by special music instruction and that ”rhythmic aptitude seemingly contributes to developmental music aptitude, but music aptitude in general appears to be too complex a concept, even in primary-age children, to be significantly changed by one element" (p. 9). It was also found that there was a correlation between music experience and tonal scores on PMMA. This, according to Moore, suggested that early musical experiences for these students probably contributed to their tonal aptitude.
In a study by Gordon (1979), PMMA was administered to 75 children 5, 6, 7, and
8 years old who were attending either a highly respected private academic school or a well-known community music school in western New York state. Students in the private school came fi'om families in the upper-middle and higher socio-economic level, while students in the community music school came from impoverished neighborhoods. The private school had two periods of Orff instruction every week, and Suzuki instruction was ofl‘ered as an elective. Private instrumental lessons, voice instruction, music theory, and ballet constituted the curriculum of the community music school. It was reasoned that the test results for the two groups of children who attended the private academic school and the community music school would be different from the test results of the children who participated in the standardization program of the PMMA. The children tested in the standardization program of the PMMA represented a stratified sample of typical children, their developmental aptitude being normally distributed.
The results of the study indicated that (a) with the exception of the 5-year old children on the Tonal test, children in the private academic school scored significantly
14 higher than the standardization group; (b) the 7- and 8- year old children in the community music school scored significantly higher on the rhythm test than the standardization group.
No mean differences favored the standardization group. No statistically significant difi‘erences were found between the children in the private academic school and the community music school.
The differences are most logically explained as outcomes of early informal environmental cultural influences and innate music capacities. The children who attended the private academic school were select in the cultural advantages that they enjoyed outside of school and the rich school arts curriculum available to them. Although they probably had the same distribution of innate capacity as the standardization group, the private academic school children demonstrated higher overall developmental music aptitude because of their environment and corresponding opportunities. The fact that the 5-year old children in the private academic school demonstrated higher developmental music aptitude than 5-year old Children in the standardization group on the rhythm test and not on the tonal test is most likely, according to Gordon (1979), the result of the emphasis on eurhythrrric activities in the private school that kept their rhythm aptitudes high, and a result of the Orff program with its characteristic pentatonic songs that can be limiting to the children's tonal aptitudes because of the absence of leading tone. Overall difi‘erences between the community music school group and the standardization group were not significant, because the children who attended the community music school probably had a higher level of innate music capacity, as reflected in their choice to study music, than children in the standardization group who, however, had a more favorable environment in terms of cultural opportunities than the children in the community music school. According to Gordon (1979), it would seem that the overall higher innate capacities of the younger children in the community music school combined with their receiving quality instruction allowed them to compare favorably with the younger children in the private academic school and in the standardization group even
15 though the latter two groups had more cultural advantages (Gordon, 1979).
In another study by Gordon (1980), PMMA was administered in April, 197 8 to
873 children (grades K-3) in West Irondequoit, New York. The difi‘erent children in adjacent grades were referred to as the cross-sectional group, while the same children in adjacent grades were referred to as the longitudinal group. The music teachers were given the test results for all students during the summer so that when instruction began in the fall, they would teach to the children’s individual differences following the suggestions provided in the manual of PMMA. After eight months of specified music instruction during one or two music periods every week, PMMA was administered to the students again. The results of the study indicated that the longitudinal group, which received specified music instruction for eight months, scored significantly higher in PMMA than the cross-sectional group. The differences between the two groups tended to be greater for the younger children and more extreme for the rhythm than the tonal test. The latter was due, according to Gordon (1980), to the fact that the teachers had concentrated their lesson plans more on rhythmic activities than tonal activities. In a longitudinal predictive validity study of PMMA, Woodmfi (1984) investigated, among others, the effect of Suzuki violin instruction on the developmental music aptitude of kindergarten Suzuki violin students. PMMA was administered to the students as a pretest and as a posttest after a semester of Suzuki instruction. Results indicated a slight increase in students' developmental music aptitudes. Woodrufl‘ concluded that more research is necessary if the effect of Suzuki instruction on music aptitude is to be determined. It is evident fiom the studies presented above, that the effects of instruction on children's developmental music aptitudes have not been fully determined. Factors that seem to influence developmental music aptitude are the type of instruction, amount and/or frequency of instruction, age of children, and level of music aptitude before instruction.
l6 ch wit
We Further research is needed to identify how these factors interact and affect developmental music aptitude. Research on the effect of popular instructional methods for long instructional periods on developmental music aptitudes seems warranted.
Music Amitude as a Predictive Measure of Music Achievement
According to Gordon (1990), a child's developmental music aptitude is the best predictor of the level at which the aptitude will stabilize around the age of nine, and a child's achievement can never go beyond the aptitude level with which the child was born. Gordon claims that the relationship between music aptitude and music achievement is complex. High achieving students in music have a high music aptitude but low achieving students do not necessarily have a low aptitude. Many children who have relatively high music aptitudes have relatively low music achievement, because they have not been given the opportunity to learn music to the extent that their music aptitude will allow (Gordon, 1990).
A music aptitude test should be able to reveal a child's music aptitude and predict the highest level at which a child would be able to achieve with optimal music instruction.
This would mean that (a) the instrument used for measuring music aptitude has predictive validity, (b) the instruction employed is appropriate for the students' individual needs and contributes to raising their achievement towards their aptitude level, and (c) the instrument used for measuring music achievement is valid.
Several studies have been done on the relationship between music achievement and music aptitude. Taggart (1994) investigated the diagnostic, predictive, and inverse validity of Audie (Gordon, 1989), which is a music aptitude test designed for 3- and 4-year old children. Predictive validity information was gained by correlating Audie subtest scores with rhythm and tonal achievement ratings. The results of the study suggested that there is predictive validity for both the rhythm and the melody subtests of A udie.
I7
In her study to determine the effect of audiation on the ability of six-grade students to improvise rhythmically, lessen (1991/1993) found, among other things, that a correlation exists between stabilized rhythm aptitude and three aspects of performance of rhythm improvisation: completeness of beats, steadiness of pulse and sense of finality. In a study of the role of music aptitude, fine motor skills, coding ability, behavioral characteristics and academic achievement in predicting achievement in instrumental music, Stancarone (1992) measured the above characteristics of 114 string players from three public elementary schools, who had one to four years of experience playing their instruments (violin, viola, cello). The set of the music aptitude variables consisted of a music aptitude test (Measures of Musical Ability), a visual-motor test (Coding, fiom the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children), and four fine motor tests (F irstlEdge/Palm, Placing Pennies in Box with Preferred Hand, Tapping Board and Finger Tapper). The results of the study showed that academic achievement and music aptitude best predicted music achievement (r = .47 and r = .59 respectively). In a study of the effects of solmization and rhythmic movement training on the achievement of beginning group piano students between the ages of six and nine, Yang (1994) found, among others, that beginning piano students’ competency in synchronized kinesthetic movement in music is the strongest predictor of their musical achievement. The predictive power of this competency was stronger than the predictive power of the students’ scores on Primary Measures of Music Audiation.
Dregalla (1983) investigated the combination of factors that best predicts music achievement. Dregalla used students' scores on Gordon’s (1965) Music Aptitude Profile, a stabilized music aptitude test, and scores on a researcher-designed questionnaire that included factors shown in the literature to be strongly related, as predictor variables, with music achievement. Students' scores on Colwell’s Music Achievement Tests combined with the teacher's ratings became each student's level of musical achievement. Results indicated that three predictor variables, music aptitude, number of years in ensemble, and
18 presence of a piano in the home, together accounted for 44% of the variance of the musical achievement of the total group tested.
Belczyk (1992) investigated whether the use of music aptitude and timbre preference test results can predict performance achievement among beginning band students. He found that music aptitude as measured by the Intermediate Measures of
Music Audiation (Gordon, 1986) significantly predicted music achievement scores. Music achievement scores were derived from judges' ratings of children's performances of rhythm etudes, tonal etudes, and familiar songs. A longitudinal predictive validity study for the Intermediate Measures of Music
Audiation was conducted by Gordon (1986). Thirty three fourth-grade students participated in this one-year study. They were divided into two groups; Group I was taught violin during the first semester and recorder during the second semester. Group II was taught recorder during the first semester and violin during the second semester. IMMA was administered prior to instruction, and at the end of each semester each child was rated by two judges on melodic and rhythmic accuracy and musical expression while Singing two songs and performing them on the violin or the recorder. The results of the study indicated that IMMA was predictive of the students' achievement. Two longitudinal predictive validity studies of PMMA have been conducted. The first longitudinal predictive validity study was conducted by Gordon (1986) in a parochial school in Pennsylvania. At the beginning of the academic year, twenty-six 7- and 8-year- old children were administered PMMA and then, given violin instruction for the whole academic year. At the end of the year, violin performances of the children were recorded and evaluated by two judges on intonation, rhythrrr, and musical expression. The predictive validity coeficients found between children’s PMMA TonaL Rhythm, Composite scores and their composite performance achievement scores were considered powerful enough to establish the predictive validity of PMMA (.78 for Tonal, .58 for Rhythm, and .73 for
Composite scores).
19 The second longitudinal predictive validity study was conducted by Woodruff
(1984). Two groups of kindergarten students were administered PMMA prior to beginning Suzuki violin lessons. After one semester of training, PMMA was re- adnriniStered and the students' violin performances were tape-recorded and rated for tonal and rhythm achievement. PMMA Tonal subtest was found to have high predictive validity. PMMA Rhythm subtest demonstrated only a moderate degree of predictive validity. That the coefiicients reported in this study were lower than those in the previous study could be attributable to the duration of instruction; a period of only twelve weeks of instruction is not long enough to allow children to achieve their firll musical potential. Quality of instruction received may have also affected the results in Woodruff 5 study.
Valid and predictive music aptitude tests can be of great benefit to music teachers and students. By knowing the students' music aptitude levels, teachers can teach to the students’ individual needs. Music aptitude scores can be used very effectively to identify cases of low achievers with high music aptitude who do not achieve because of inappropriate training or lack of motivation. More research studies are needed on the predictive power of music aptitude tests. Research designs that allow longer instructional periods are needed to investigate the longitudinal predictive power of the music aptitude tests employed in these studies.
Eff- fEarl hilo ouM i EXr'en nF ~Prfrm-o: Ahiev t- at Musical Success The importance of early musical experiences for firture musical success has been the focus of many studies. Suzuki (1973), as well as Gordon (1990), believe that the music environment to which a child is exposed during the first three or five years of life is crucial for the child's musical development. The more appropriate early informal experiences and formal instruction in music are, the higher the level at which a student's music aptitude will stabilize and, thus, the higher this student's musical achievement and success can be.
20 In a biographical study of the life-span development of 165 Polish professional musicians ranging in age from 21 to 89, Manturzewska (1990) was led by the results to
form the hypothesis that if musical training starts after nine, the career, particularly in the cases of virtuoso-type pianists and violinists, will not lead to mastery regardless of the
musical abilities and degree of motivation. According to the author, late-comers may reach the status of professional musician, but they will never attain firll ease and naturalness of musical performance. These facts support the importance of early childhood music education for future musical achievement. Several studies also report the efi‘ects of early musical experiences on the children's musical development and future musical success (Jenkins, 1976; Gordon, 1967; Brand, 1986; Doan, 1973; Brokaw, 1983; Zdzinski, 1991;
Zdzinski, 1992; Sloboda & Howe, 1991; Sosniak, 1985; Sloane, 1985; Howe, Davidson,
Moore, and Sloboda, 1995). Forsythe (1984/1985) while developing the Preschool Measure of Musical Audiation, an adaptation of Gordon's (1979) Primary Measures of Music Audiation for use with preschoolers, administered Gordon's PMMA to 350 six- to eight-year olds and his Musical Aptitude Profile (MAP) to 318 nine- to eleven-year-olds to explore the growth of musical ability across a wide age span. Statistical analysis revealed, among others, that stabilization of music aptitude occurred around age ten with a partial stabilization about age five. She also found that the musical aptitude of children who participated in instructional programs in music during their preschool years, or attended a
preschool with musical activities, stabilized at a higher level than children with neither of these experiences. Webb (1984) conducted a study to determine the relationship, if any, between musical aptitude test scores and intelligence test scores of children at the third-grade level and also to identify other factors than intelligence that appear to be significant for identification of musical aptitude. Results of the study indicated a positive, but weak, relationship between musical aptitude and intelligence, as indicated by a Pearson product-
21 moment correlation coefficient of .37, between students' scores on the Primary Measures of Music Audiation and scores on the Cognitive Abilities Test (CAT). Other factors, however, that Webb considered likely to influence music aptitude included previous musical study, sex, socio-economic status, school attended, age at which study began, and early musical experiences. Sex and school attended did not appear to influence music aptitude scores in Webb's study.
Mitchell (1985) showed that there are some early childhood musical experiences related to musical ability, including preschool music instruction, the presence of musical older siblings, the presence of a piano at home, and having musical parents. Mothers singing with their children, parents and other adults helping children to learn songs, family participation in singing and instrument playing, and parents who participate in musical activities have also been identified as some of the early childhood musical experiences that significantly relate to future musical success (Kirkpatrick, 1962; Wendrich, 1981). Moore (1973) attempted to assess the difl‘erences in pitch and rhythm abilities of 5-year old children and to identify the important factors for these responses in terms of early musical experiences. Results indicated, among others, that early informal musical experiences that appeared to be positively related to the child's musical ability are having and hearing musical instruments played in the home, having parents and siblings who participated or participate in musical activities and show their present interest by singing, playing and going to concerts, having parental help to sing in tune and move to music, and having an opportunity to hear various kinds of recorded music. Results also indicated that nursery and church school musical experiences appeared as predictors of students' pitch and rhythmic abilities. This finding led Moore to the conclusion that preschool children would benefit from the musical experiences provided by such schools.
The findings of the above studies have implications for participation in early childhood music and movement classes and instrumental instruction from an early age.
Such instruction at such a critical period for children's musical development may have
22 great effects on children's music aptitude and future achievement. More research is needed to define the efi‘ect of musical experiences early in life for firture musical development.
The Focus of This Research
The effects of instmction on music aptitude and music achievement lie at the heart of the current research. Also, the degree to which musical experiences during the first years of life can influence future music achievement gives impetUs to this project. Methods of teaching music that are popular and widely used deserve extended research so that the strengths and weaknesses of them are identified and their effects on students' musical development can be defined. Hundreds of thousands of students today receive music instruction with the Suzuki method, and Suzuki programs in the United States and all over the world keep growing. There have been some conflicting results on the effects of the method on music aptitude and achievement. Criticisms often claim the inefliciency of the Suzuki method for music aptitude development. It is imperative that research is conducted on the effects of an instructional approach that is so widely used today. Results of such research will contribute to the existing body of knowledge on the efi‘ects of instruction on musical development and will aid the improvement of the method itself to better serve the students’ musical needs. Furthermore, the current research will seek to shed some light on the power of the developmental music aptitude to predict music achievement and on the role of early childhood musical experiences in future performance achievement. This project is seen as a necessary step in the continuum of research that seeks to define the factors necessary for creating the optimal environment for musical development.
Mose and Problems of the Study The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of Suzuki string (violin or cello) instruction and early childhood music instruction on the developmental music aptitude and performance achievement of beginning Suzuki students. The specific problems of the study are the following:
23 1. To investigate the effect of Suzuki string instruction on developmental music aptitudes of beginning Suzuki students.
2. To investigate the extent to which students' developmental music aptitudes at the beginning of instruction were predictive of their performance achievement after 22 weeks of Suzuki instruction.
3. To investigate whether participation in early childhood music classes prior to
Suzuki instruction afi‘ected students' future instrumental performance achievement. Definitions Music Aptitude - The potential to achieve in music. Developmental Music Aptitude - Music aptitude afi‘ected by the environment (until approximately the age of nine). Stabilized music aptitude - Music aptitude not affected by the environment (after approximately the age of nine). Music Achievement - Accomplishment in music. ' Performance Achievement - Accomplishment in violin or cello performance (for the current research study). Early musical experiences - Early childhood music instruction before the age of
five.
24 CHAPTER TWO
RELATED LITERATURE
The effect of instruction and early childhood music experiences on developmental
music aptitude and achievement and the predictive power of different tests of music
aptitude have been the focus of several research studies. Some of them have focused on
any one of the above issues while others have covered one or more of them as part of a broader investigation. For the purposes of the present study, studies closely related to the issue of the efi‘ect of instruction on developmental music aptitude are considered to be the ones that include pre- and post-instruction measurement of music aptitude. Studies that are closely related with the above issues will be presented as part of any of the categories below: (a) the effect of music instruction on developmental music aptitude, (b) Primary
Measures of Music Audiation as a predictive measure of music achievement, and (c) the effect of early childhood music experiences on future music achievement.
The effect of Instruction on Developmental Music Aptitude
The Taggart Study (1997)
In her study of developmental music aptitude, Taggart (1997) investigated the effect of age-appropriate instruction on the tonal and rhythm developmental music aptitudes of children 3- to 8-years of age. Additionally, she sought to determine whether this effect varied depending on the age of the children and whether it would atrophy after instruction stopped.
25 The sample consisted of 183 preschool through second grade children in at-risk schools in Lansing, Michigan. Treatment consisted of two 20-minute music classes every week taught by a music specialist for an entire school year. Instruction consisted of singing and chanting in a variety of tonalities and meters, tonal and rhythm patterns instruction in major and minor tonalities and duple and triple meters, and movement instruction that focused on continuous, fluid movement as well as on beat movement.
Prior to this instruction, children had had minimal music instruction as part of their school curriculum.
The tonal and rhythm subtests of Audie (Gordon, 1989), which is a music aptitude test for preschool children, were administered to all preschool children immediately prior to and after the instructional period. Primary Measures of Music Audiation was administered to all children in grades K-3 immediately before and after the instructional period and again after a summer of no instruction. Pre-instruction and post-instruction scores were compared as measures of the children’s music aptitudes prior and after instruction. Also, in order to control for age, post-instruction music aptitude scores after a summer of no instruction were compared to pre-instruction aptitude scores of the children at the same grade level. Because of the fact that a differentmeasure (Audie) was used for measuring the music aptitudes of preschool children than these of children in grades K-3, the preschool children’s scores were not considered in the comparison of differences in music aptitude between grade levels.
Results indicated that, with the exception of the preschool children’s tonal aptitude, post-instruction scores for all age levels were significantly higher than pre- instruction scores, with the difi‘erences being greater the younger the children were. For
26 children in kindergarten through third-grade, who were tested again after a summer of no instruction, it was found that aptitude scores continued to increase over the summer and, at the beginning of the next academic year, the aptitude scores of these children were significantly higher than the aptitude scores of the children the year before at the same grade level who had not received music instruction. The increase in music aptitude during the summer for the children who had received music instruction the previous year was greater than the increase that could be accounted for by maturation alone.
Taggart (1997) concluded the following: (a) Appropriate music instruction significantly aids the development of music aptitudes of children, ages three through eight;
(b) the effect of this instruction varies according to the age of the child and it is stronger the younger the child is; and (c) the effect of appropriate music instruction on developmental music aptitude holds over time. The implications of these findings are obvious concerning the importance of planning appropriate music curricula for young children. Providing appropriate music instruction to children as early in their life as possible will contribute greatly to their musical potential. These results are considered even more important for at-risk children, whose home environments are not likely to provide them with the necessary stimulation for their music potential to be maintained and grow.
Taggart’s (1997) study is an important addition to the body of research that supports the importance of early childhood music instruction for the development of children’s music aptitudes. Investigating the efi'ects of music instruction on the developmental music aptitudes of at-risk children is of great interest and significance. It would be interesting to compare these results with the reflects that such an instruction
27 would have, especially as it concerns the long term effects (e. g., after a summer of no instruction), on a population closer to the one that was used for the standardization of
PMMA). It would also be interesting to find out how these effects compare to the effects that appropriate. instrumental instruction would have on a population of at-risk children.
Although, the aforementioned study focused on the effects of instruction on developmental music aptitude of children of various age levels, as does part of the present study, it differs fiom it in several ways. In Taggart’s study, the efi‘ects of music instruction are compared to no instruction at all, while in the present study the efi‘ects of instrumental
(Suzuki) instruction are compared to these of general music instruction. In a way, the above study aims to support the claim for music instruction in young children versus no instruction at all, while the present study stands as a comparative study that seeks to identify the type of instruction that contributes more to musical growth. Furthermore, the sample in the present study more closely resembles the one used for the standardization of
PMMA, in the sense that it includes children fi'om a variety of socio-economic backgrounds and includes many more children enjoying a rich cultural environment.
The Wm Irondmuoit Study (@rdon, 1980)
A study of developmental music aptitude was conducted by Gordon (1980) in
West Irondequoit, New York. In April of 1978, PMMA was administered to almost all children enrolled in grades K—3 in the nine elementary schools in the city. The sample consisted of 127 children in kindergarten, 202 in first grade, 280 in second grade, and 264 in third grade. PMMA was administered again approximately two weeks later to test for practice effects from taking the tests. The difi‘erences between test and retest means were negligible, while the standard deviations remained essentially the same. Coupled with their
28 hightest-retest reliabilities (ranging from .60 to .76), those findings indicate, according to
Gordon (1986) that “even for tests which yield results that are expected to fluctuate, practice efl‘ects in taking the tests are negligible and should pose no threat to the validity of the Primary Measures of Music Audiation or the Intermediate Measures of Music
Audiation” (p. 109).
The test results were then given to the music teachers so that they would become familiar with them during the summer and prepare themselves to teach to each student’s individual strengths and weaknesses in September, according to instructional suggestions provided in the Manual for PMMA. The tests results were also explained by the music teachers to the parents and suggestions were ofi‘ered to them fOr providing their children with appropriate informal home experiences and formal music instruction. Parents of students who received composite percentile ranks of 80 and above were advised to encourage their children to some type of out-of-school special music instruction that would supplement the music instruction offered to them by their regular school program.
In April 1979, after the students had received approximately eight months of specified music instruction during one or two music periods every week, PMMA was administered to them for a third time. The different children in adjacent grades were referred to as the cross-sectional (control)group, while the same children in adjacent grades were referred to as the longitudinal (experimental) group. The children in the control group had received traditional music instruction that was provided by teachers who had no specific knowledge of the children’ s developmental music aptitude test scores. Because one year of physical and mental growth was held constant, the differences in the PMMA Tonal, Rhythm, and Composite mean scores between the two groups could
29 be attributed to the effect of instruction. Correlations were also computed for the 1978
and 1979 PMMA scores of the children in the longitudinal group.
The results indicated that the majority of observed mean differences between the experimental and the control groups of children were significant, with all differences favoring the experimental group. Furthermore, the differences tended to be greater for younger students and more extreme when associated with the Rhythm than with the Tonal .
subtest of PMMA. According to Gordon (1980), teachers had concentrated their lesson
plans more on rhythmic activities than tonal activities. Correlations between the 1978 and
1979 PMMA scores of the children in the experimental group were found to be
considerably lower than the test-retest reliabilities computed in April 1978. That was
expected as a result of fluctuating music aptitude due to intensive exposure and instruction
over a period of eight months.
From the results of the study, the following conclusions were reached: (a)
Developmental music aptitude is a reasonable concept, because children’s music aptitude
scores fluctuate depending on the music instruction to which they are exposed; (b)
children’s music aptitude will develop more positively when the teacher has knowledge of
their music aptitude test scores; (c ) the younger the children are when music instruction is
adapted to their individual musical needs, the more they will profit from it; and (d)
Primary Measures of Music Audiation is a test battery sensitive to developmental music
aptitudes.
Gordon’s (1980) study presents the comparative effects of two types of music
instruction on students’ developmental music aptitude. The first type is individualized
music instruction based on teachers’ knowledge of students’ music aptitude test scores,
30 while the second one is a more traditional approach in which teachers are not aware of their students’ music aptitude levels. The present study will investigate the effects of
Suzuki instruction on developmental music aptitude by comparing them to the effects of general music instruction. The need for music aptitude testing in the general music classroom, where individualization of instruction is not easily accomplished compared to a typical Suzuki program that includes private lessons with students, may also be inferred from the present study.
The Flohr Study (1981)
In his study, Flohr (1981) sought to determine the influence of short-term music instruction on five-year-old children’s developmental music aptitude as measured by
Primary Measures of Music Audiation. The sample consisted of 29 children who were enrolled in the Child Development Center of Texas Woman’s University in Denton. The mean age of the sample was five years and three months. All children were given music instruction once a week during the three months preceding experimentation. When the study began, children were randomly assigned to one of three groups. Children in the group labeled Music-I received instruction with concentration on improvisatory experiences using Orfi‘ xylophones, including question and answer games, improvising to a bordun, improvising extensions to phrases, and playing in response to verbal stimuli.
Children in the group labeled Music-II received typical classroom music experiences involving singing, dancing, expressive movement, playing percussion instruments, and games. The control group received no music instruction at all. Groups labeled Music-I and
Music-II received 25 minutes of music instruction twice a week for 12 weeks. PMMA was administered to all students at the beginning of the study and again after 12 weeks at the
31 end of the experimental period. This pretest-posttest design, using PMMA as the dependent measure, was implemented to assess the effects of instruction.
An analysis on covariance (ANCOVA), with pre-instruction music aptitude level used as the covariate, on the composite PMMA pretest-posttest scores of the three groups indicated no significant difference among them. Flohr (1981) speculated that the small sample size and attrition within the Music-I group might have been the reason why significant differences among the three groups were not detected. Thus, any questions concerning the relative effectiveness of the two types of music instruction employed in the study were left unanswered.
As part of firrther analysis, an ANCOVA (with pre-instruction music aptitude used as the covariate) was conducted with the Music-I and Music-II scores combined and contrasted with the control group scores. The analysis indicated that a statistically significant difference existed between the combined Music-I and Music-II groups and the control group favoring the combined groups and suggesting that music instruction was responsible for the variance. Additional t tests indicated that PMMA mean scores of the combined music groups improved significantly during the 12-week instructional period, while PMMA mean scores for the control group were non-significantly lower on the post- test than on the pre-test.
Flohr (1981) concluded that a 12-week period of music instruction significantly increased the overall music aptitude of 5-year-old children, as measured by PMMA composite scores. Keeping in mind that all children had received music instruction for three months prior to experimentation, the control group’s decrease in PMMA scores after the end of instruction suggested that the efi‘ects of instruction may be temporary.
32 According to Flohr (1981), the significant increases in the children’s PMMA scores after a relatively short period of instruction “support the theory that a young child’s music aptitude as measured by the PMMA is influenced by instruction” and “add credence to the concept of young children’s developmental music aptitude” (p. 223). Based on the results of his research, Flohr supported that if an instructional approach does not yield improvement in children’s PMMA scores during a lZ-week period, it should be examined and modified. He finally reported the need for further research concerning the duration of instructional effects.
Flohr’s (1981) finding that instructional effects may be temporary contradicts
Taggart’s (1997) conclusion that the effect of appropriate instruction on developmental music aptitudes holds up over time. It is evident that duration of instruction may be greatly influencing whether the instructional effects hold up over time or not. The efi‘ects of one year of instruction, as in Taggart’s study, are more likely to hold up over time more than the effects of a 12-week instructional period (as in Flohr’s study). Type and quality of instruction are also likely to play an important role on the duration of instructional effects.
Prior to determining the duration of the effects of different instructional approaches, it is important that the nature of those efi‘ects is first determined. Flohr did not manage to determine the relative effects of the two types of general music instruction on
5-year-old children’s developmental music aptitude. The present study difi‘ers fiom Flohr’s study in that it seeks to determine the efl‘ects on music aptitude of an instrumental music instructional approach compared to a typical general music instructional approach including elements from the methodologies of Orff and Kodaly. Furthermore, the sample employed in the present study is bigger than the one in Flohr’s study and includes not only
33 5-year olds but also 6-, 7-, and 8-year-old students. Finally, the instructional period is much longer (22 weeks) since the study seeks to determine the long-term rather than the short-term effects of instruction on developmental music aptitude.
From the studies presented above (T aggart, 1997; Gordon, 1980; Flohr, 1981), it is evident that children’s music aptitude as measured by PMMA is influenced by instruction. It seems that the importance of music instruction versus no instruction at all for music aptitude development (Taggart, 1997; Flohr, 1981) has already been established and that what needs to be determined is which instructional approaches are actually more efi’ective. Gordon’s (1980) study attempted to determine the comparative effectiveness of individualized and not individualized music instruction for music aptitude development in the context of the general music classroom. The present study is also part of that form of inquiry on the comparative effectiveness of several instructional approaches for the development of music aptitude. It actually goes even further to compare the effects of an instrumental and a general music instructional approach on music aptitude development.
Primarry Measures gMysic Audiation as a Predictive Measug
of Music Achievement
The P uth Meetin Stud Gordo 1986
Music aptitude is defined as the potential to achieve in music, and according to
Gordon (1986) a valid music aptitude test should be able to predict music achievement.
The predictive power of the Primary Measures of Music Audiation was investigated in a study by Gordon (1986) in Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania. The sample consisted of 26 children, 7- and 8-years old, in a parochial school, who, like the rest of the students in the
34 same school, were required to study the violin for one year. PMMA was administered to the students at the beginning of the academic year, shortly after some children had been given violins and some others had been playing for no longer than a year. At the end of the academic year, children’s performances were recorded and evaluated by two judges on
Intonation, Rhythm, and Musical Expression. Each student received three separate ratings and one composite rating fiom each judge. After the two judges’ ratings of the children’s performance achievement were combined, the three ratings on Intonation, Rhythm, and
Expression were correlated with the children’s pre-instruction PMMA scores. The predictive validity coefficients between the children’s PMMA Tonal, Rhythm, and
Composite scores and their Intonation, Rhythm, Expression, and Composite scores ranged from . 37 (correlation between PMMA Rhythm scores and performance achievement in
Rhythm) to .75 (correlation between PMMA Tonal score and performance achievement score on Intonation). The coefficients were considered by Gordon (1986) to be of sufiicient power to establish the predictive validity of PMMA scores.
The investigation of the predictive power of PMMA is one of the problems investigated in the present study. The difference from the Plymouth Meeting study is that, the present sample includes children 5-, 6-, 7-, and 8-years of age, and not just 7-, and 8- year old children as in Gordon’s (1986) study. If PMMA scores are found to be predictive of music achievement for all these age levels, that will extend and further substantiate the
findings of the Plymouth Meeting study. Additional differences include the fact that, in the present study, none of the students had any instrumental instruction at the time that
PMMA was administered to them, whereas in the Plymouth Meeting study, some of the
35 students in the sample already had one year of violin instruction at the time that the study began.
The Woodruff Study
Another longitudinal predictive validity study of PMMA was conducted by
Woode (1984) in Manhattan, New York. The problems of the study were (a) to determine the predictive validity power of PMMA scores, and (b) to determine the effects of training upon the developmental music aptitude of the students. The students who participated in the study were one kindergarten class of 13 students and a second kindergarten class of 10 students. In spite of the fact that these two groups had different classroom teachers, all students received similar training from the same Suzuki violin teacher. The Tonal and Rhythm subtests of PMMA were administered to each group of students separately before the beginning of the instructional period. Treatment consisted of eighteen to twenty 30-minute violin lessons over a period of 12 weeks. All students were taught the first two phrases of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star - Variation A” as included in Suzuki Book 1. At the conclusion of the 12-week instructional period, PMMA was re-administered to the first and second group of students. The students were also tape-recorded while performing sections of the first two phrases of the Twinkle variation after having heard them played by their teacher. Two independent judges rated the students’ performances on Tonal and Rhythm achievement. Thus, every child received two separate ratings and a composite rating from each judge. Inter-judge reliabilities ranged from .91 to .98. In order to investigate the first problem of the study, the ratings of the two judges were combined, and the pre—instruction PMMA Tonal, Rhythm, and Composite scores
36 were correlated with their corresponding achievement rating scores for each group of
students. In order to investigate the effect of Suzuki instruction on developmental music
aptitude, pre-instruction and post-instruction PMMA Tonal, Rhythm, and Composite
scores were correlated with each other for both groups of students. Also, post-instruction
PMMA scores were correlated with the achievement rating scores for each group of
students.
Results indicated that pre-instruction PMMA Tonal, Rhythm, and Composite
scores predicted the Tonal, Rhythm, and Composite performance achievement scores of
students in the first group with coefficients of .67, .41, and .59 respectively. These
coefficients were compatible with those reported in the Plymouth Meeting study (Gordon,
1986). For the students in the second group, the corresponding predictive validity
coefficients were much lower (.31, .02, and .15 respectively). Since, inter-judge reliability was unusually high and split-half reliabilities for pre-instruction PMMA scores satisfactory
(.94 for Tonal, .56 for Rhythm, and .79 for Composite), the great difference in the results between the first and the second group, could be attributed, according to Woodruff, to the efi‘ects of instruction upon that group. As he said, “it is not unreasonable to expect that
similar training could have a significantly difi‘erent effect upon two groups of students at the kindergarten level” (p. 35). The coefficients that resulted fi'om the correlation between post-instruction PMMA scores and performance achievement scores were generally lower for both groups than the coefiicients resulting fi'om the correlation between pre-instruction
PMMA scores and performance achievement scores.
The intercorrelations between pre-instruction PMMA Tonal and Rhythm subtests
were .50 for the first group and .46 for the second group. The intercorrelations between
37 post-instruction PMMA Tonal and Rhythm subtests were .02 for the first group and -.30 for the second group, which were significantly different than the pre-instruction coefficients.
After training, PMMA Tonal, Rhythm, and Composite mean scores increased slightly for both groups. Correlations between pre-instruction and post-instruction PMMA scores, along with PMMA subtest intercorrelations, indicated that the Suzuki training had significantly different effects upon the first and the second group. Although it is not clear how Woodruff drew that conclusion, he claimed that “the correlations between post- instruction PMMA scores and rhythm achievement scores suggest that the rhythm training may have negatively affected Group B to the extend that rhythm achievement could not be predicted by the PMMA Rhythm subtest” (p. 41). It is true that the rhythm content of
Suzuki training, a single rhythm pattern throughout (the pattern used in Twinkle Variation
A), was quite different from the content of the PMMA Rhythm subtest, a series of varied rhythm patterns, and that might have caused the unusual results for Group 2. Woodrufi‘ concluded that the PMMA Tonal subtest may be used with confidence for predicting
Tonal achievement of kindergarten children who are given Suzuki violin instruction. The same could not be concluded, however, for the Rhythm subtest of PMMA, the predictive power of which was much weaker.
Woodrufi’s (1984) study was a carefirlly designed study, and in his report, he extensively tried to interpret the results. However, the small size of the two groups (n = 13 for the first group and n = 10 for the second group) was never speculated as being indirectly responsible for the inconsistency of results between the two groups. Neither was quality or type of treatment ever considered to be possible reasons for the conflicting
38 findings. In a study like Woodruff' s, where instruction is offered by a single teacher
(possible teacher effect) and the sample is so small (23 students), conclusions are to be reached with great caution. It would be very interesting to know whether the inconsistencies between the two groups would exist if the groups’ sizes were bigger or if kindergarten children from a number of teaching studios were included in the sample.
Woodrufi‘s (1984) study is similar in design with the greater part of the present study. However, the results of his study have limited generalizability, because of the sample consisting of kindergarten children only, all of which had the same Suzuki teacher, and because of the inconsistencies found for the two groups. The present study will seek to answer problems similar to the ones presented in Woodrufl’ 5 study by including in the sample children from kindergarten through third-grade, so that all ages for which PMMA is appropriate are represented. Furthermore, the present study will include beginning
Suzuki students from a number of teaching studios, in order to control for teacher efi‘ect.
Whether Suzuki training has the same effects on the relationship between rhythm aptitude and achievement as it had in Woodrufl’ 3 study will be investigated in the present study.
Whether those effects vary for the different age levels will also be determined. The present study can be characterized as a follow-up to the one conducted by Woodrufi’.
Inconclusive results, like the ones presented above, about the effects of the Suzuki method for music aptitude development need to be firrther investigated. More studies are needed to draw conclusions on the effects of the tonal and rhythm training provided through the method, so that improvement of instruction can take place to better accommodate the students’ musical needs.
39 From the studies presented above, the need for PMMA predictive validity studies that include more varied samples and a long enough experimental periods becomes evident. Although the predictive validity of PMMA has been established through the
Plymouth Meeting study, its coefficients represent a population of 7- and 8-year-old children. Similarly, although Woodruff s predictive validity coefficients for the PMMA
Tonal subtest added credence to the predictive power of PMMA, they only hold true for a population of kindergarten children. The present study aims to fill the gaps within and between the two studies presented above, by including students from 5- to 8-years old and a longer instructional period than the one in Woodruffs study.
Effect of Early Childhood Music Experienge on Future Pfiormance Achievemem
The Mitchell Study (1985)
The effect of early music experiences on musical development has become a major area of interest in music education research. Mitchell (1985) sought to determine what, if any, relationships exist between the development of tonal memory and (a) the presence of an instrument at home, (b) musical parents, (c ) older musical siblings, (d) formal preschool music instruction, (e) informal music learning, and (t) the child’s self expressed interest in doing something musical.
The sample consisted of 121 third-grade students from the Beverly Hills Unified
School District, 68 of which were boys and 53 were girls. The PMMA Tonal subtest was administered to the students as a measure of their tonal memory. Their test scores were correlated with 13 predictor home environmental variables identified fi'om a researcher- designed questionnaire that was completed by the students’ parents.
No significant correlations were found for the total sample between PMMA Tonal test scores and the presence of an instrument or musical parents in the home. A weak correlation existed between test scores and the presence of older siblings. This correlation was stronger for females than it was for males. A weak correlation existed also between test scores and the presence of formal preschool music instruction (music instruction as part of a preschool program or as an extracurricular class). Informal music learning
(informal home musical experiences) did not seem to correlate significantly with the students’ scores. Finally, no relationship was established between PMMA Tonal test scores and the child’s self expressed interest in music as shown by his/her exhibiting movement to music or as observed by the parents.
Mitchell (1985) concluded that “development of a child’s tonal memory is not heavily dependent on environmental variables associated with the physical presence of instruments in the home, parents who are actively musical in the home, or formal and/or informal music learning during the child’s first six years” (p. 50). She also concluded that the presence of older musical siblings appeared to influence the tonal memory of younger siblings. Based on the results of her research, Mitchell was led to say that “heredity may in fact play a role in the development of tonal memory” (p. 50). She, nevertheless, went on to support the inclusion of informal music experiences in the home and the establishment of music curricula in preschool programs.
Mitchell’s (1985) study is a correlational study between early music experiences and tonal memory. It is not clear whether the author considers tonal memory to be part of music aptitude or mrIsic achievement. The fact that she only included third-grade children in her study may be the reason for her non-significant results. Strong correlations between
41 preschool music environmental factors and tonal memory may have been undetected because by the time children are eight years old, a variety of other factors may have influenced their tonal memory. If the effects of musical experiences from birth to age six on the development of tonal memory are to be determined, a sample of six-year old children needs to be included. The elapse of two years between the age of six- and eight- years old and the existence or lack of musical experiences during this time may have resulted in the inability of the research design to detect possible significant relationships.
This fact was not acknowledged by the researcher.
Unlike Mitchell’s (1985) study, the present study tries to compensate for that
“elapsed time” between the preschool years and the time of research testing by including
five year old children in the sample. In this study, early music experiences are defined as the experiences that a child has before the age of five. Children of 6-, 7- and 8-years of age are also included in the sample so that comparative analysis can take place. Furthermore, the present study focuses on the effects of formal early childhood music experiences rather than home enviromnent on firture music achievement as measured by string performance achievement.
The Mm Study (1973)
In her study of pitch and rhythm responses of five-year old children in relation to their early musical experiences, Moore ( 1 97 3) attempted to identify significant environmental factors as they relate to pitch and rhythm responses of five-year old children. Specific environmental factors included the musical instruments owned and played in the home, parents’ participation in musical activities, the sex and age of the
42 child, the socio-economic status of the family, and the child’s attendance of nursery and church schools.
The sample consisted of 101 five-year old boys and girls fiom the Public School
District 742 surrounding St. Cloud, in Minnesota. During the first week of kindergarten, all students were individually tested using an author-designed test that included three sections for Pitch and three sections for Rhythm. The Rhythm test involved keeping a steady beat, identifying rhythm patterns as same or different, and imitating rhythm patterns. The Tonal test involved identifying tonal patterns as same or different, singing familiar songs in a median range, and imitating tonal patterns. All testing sessions were recorded to aid more exact scoring by both the research director and the music specialist who scored the performances.
Following the performance test, a music experience questionnaire was sent to each student’s home to be completed by the student’s parents providing data on a variety of environmental factors that included: (a) the availability and use of music instruments, phonographs, tape recorders, television, and radio in the home; (b) the parents’ participation with the child in any kind of musical activity, i.e., singing, moving, going to concerts; (0 ) the presence of older siblings who were involved in musical activity or not;
((1) the parents’ musical background; and (e) the child’s attendance at church or nursery school. A stepwise multiple criterion regression was used to assess the correlations between students’ achievement scores and the environmental variables mentioned above.
The results of the study indicated that a child’s pitch and rhythm responses correlated with the combined environmental variables for each of the Tonal and Rhythm test sections beyond the .01 level of significance. Experiences in the home environment
43 that appeared to be positively related to the child’s ability to respond to the Pitch and
Rhythm sections of the performance achievement test were having and hearing musical
instruments played in the home, having parents and siblings who participate in musical
activity and show their interest in music by singing, playing instruments, going to concerts,
having parental help to sing in tune and move to the music, and having the opportunity to
hear various kinds of recorded music. Some of the 113 environmental variables identified
were found to predict both Pitch and Rhythm responses, while others appeared to
exclusively predict one or the other. Pitch responses were, however, found to have higher
correlations with and use fewer predictors than rhythm responses.
The child’s sex appeared to be a significant variable in the vocal range and pitch
accuracy section of the Pitch test with the girls performing significantly better than the
boys. Socio-economic status as measured by one parent’s occupational level appeared as a
predictor variable for the ability to keep a steady beat and also for vocal range and pitch
accuracy. It was also found that four (20%) out of the twenty highest scores in the two
tests, were from the lower half of the socio-econonric scale, indicating that it is possible
(but not likely) for a home of low socio-economic status to produce children of high
musical ability.
Nursery and church school experiences were found to be important factors for
both pitch and rhythm responses. Nursery and church school experiences along with
educational television programs that included music were found to be the predominant
influencing factors in the success of children who lacked any selected musical experiences.
Approximately seven percent of the subjects who scored at or above the test mean were
fi'om non-musical homes. Another three percent could be considered borderline cases, because their high scores did not reflect many musically motivating conditions in their homes. For these children who lacked any selected musical experiences, attendance in church school and nursery school and watching educational television programs that included music seemed to be the predominant influencing factors in their success. Moore
(1973) was led to conclude that preschool children would benefit from the musical experiences provided by nursery and church schools. According to her, these findings add
“further evidence to the current thesis that children must be exposed to many kinds of learning activities much earlier than most of them are at this time” (p. 57).
Moore’s (1973) study is one of a number of research studies that investigate variables from the home musical environment as predictors of music achievement. Studies regarding the effects of early childhood music experiences on firture musical success focus mostly on the effects of home enviromnent and not as much on the effect of formal early childhood musical instruction provided either as part of a church school or nursery school program or as an extracurricular activity.
The present study difi‘ers from Moore’s (1973) study as well as from Mitchell’s
(1985) study in a variety of ways. First, it focuses on the effects of formal early childhood music experiences rather than on the effects of the home music environment. Secondly, the present study is not just a correlational study; it goes filrther to determine causation by examining whether significant differences exist between the performance achievement of children who had early childhood music instruction and those who did not have such experiences. Looking for causal relationships rather than correlations between early childhood music experiences and firture music success is important if the importance of early childhood music programs and curricula is to be established.
45 Summary
The research reviewed in this chapter focuses on three major areas: (a) the efi‘ect of instruction on developmental music aptitude, (b) the power of PMMA to predict music achievement, and (c) the effect of early childhood music experiences on firture music achievement. Studies that are closely related with the above areas were presented to provide the research foundation and the primary impetus for the present study.
The researchers presented in this chapter concluded the following: (a) Music aptitude may develop as a result of appropriate instruction; (b) PMMA scores are predictive of future music achievement; and (c) formal preschool music experiences correlate weakly with the development of tonal memory as measured by PMMA scores, while musical experiences provided through attendance of church or nursery school correlate significantly with music achievement as measured by rhythm and pitch responses.
The studies presented in this chapter regarding the efi‘ect of instruction on music aptitude development focused on comparing the efl‘ects of music instruction versus no instruction at all, or on comparing the effects of two difi‘erent approaches in general music instruction on developmental music aptitude. No study focused on the efi‘ects of Suzuki instruction as compared to the effects of a general music program on music aptitude.
More studies are needed to investigate the relative efi‘ectiveness of popular instructional approaches so that the elements that contribute to optimal music development are identified and already established methods of teaching music are improved to better serve the students’ nwds. The studies that focused on the power of PMMA to predict instrumental performance achievement used limited samples in terms of age levels or number of students participating. Studies that involve a greater number of subjects at all age levels for which PMMA is intended need to be conducted, so that the predictive power of
PMMA by age level is determined and the overall predictive power of it firrther validated.
The studies that focused on the effect of early childhood music experiences on
firture music achievement were mostly correlational studies that investigated the relationships, if any, between early childhood music experiences in and/or out of the home and future music achievement as measured by children’s tonal and rhythm responses.
None of the studies presented sought to establish causation between the two variables, and none of them dealt directly with the effect of such experiences on future instrumental performance achievement.
The present study seeks to fill some of the gaps in the studies presented above by
(a) investigating the efi‘ectiveness of an instrumental music instructional approach versus general music instruction on developmental music aptitude , (b) investigating the predictive power of PMMA using a sample that includes all age levels for which PMMA is appropriate (5- to 8-year-old children), and (c) by attempting to determine a causal relationship between early childhood music experiences and future instrumental performance achievement. The author hopes to shed some more light into the issues presented above and to provide stimulation for further research.
47 CHAPTER THREE
METHODOLOGY
The procedures that will be detailed in this study are designed to explore (a) the effect of Suzuki instruction on developmental music aptitude, (b) the power of music
aptitude scores to predict performance achievement after 22 weeks of instruction, and (c)
the effect of early childhood musical experiences on future performance achievement. The
participants, the research instruments, the procedures for carrying out the study, and the
data analysis techniques are going to be discussed in detail in the context of this chapter.
Smle The sample for this study consisted of 116 children between the ages of 5 and 8 years old. F arty-three of them were beginning Suzuki string students (experimental group)
and seventy-three were general music students in kindergarten through third grade
(control group). The experimental group consisted of 16 five-year-old, 6 six-year-old, 8
seven-year-old, and 6 eight-year-old students. The violin and cello students for the
experimental group were drawn from the new students in three Suzuki string programs in
Michigan. One was a Suzuki program amliated with a community music school operating within a university school of music in East Lansing, Michigan. The others were a
community Suzuki program in Okemos, Michigan and a program afiiliated with a
community music school in Kalamazoo, Michigan. In all three community music
programs, financial aid and scholarships were available based on family income for families who could not afford the tuition. Students from all three Suzuki programs had a 20- to 30-
minute private lesson and a 45- to 60-minute group lesson every. week for 22 weeks. The three Suzuki programs that were used in this study were comparable in terms of
curriculum, philosophy of teaching, level of teacher training, quality of instruction, and
48 socio-economic class of the families enrolled.
The experimental group included beginning Suzuki string students who have had at least one early childhood music class before the age of five and students who had no early childhood music classes before the age of five. The researcher identified students fi'om the experimental group as belonging to one or the other subgroup depending on their early childhood music experiences, information for which was collected through the use of a survey instrument, the Music Experience Questionnaire (MEQ).
Students from four classes (18 students in kindergarten, 17 in first-grade, 19 in second-grade and 19 in third-grade) in a public school in Okemos, Michigan, constituted the control group. Students in the contrOl group had general music instruction for 30 minutes twice a week taught by a music specialist as part of their school curriculum. The students received no instrumental instruction except for the occasional use of small percussion instruments in these general music class. The music specialist teaching these classes used an eclectic music curriculum with an emphasis on singing and elements fiom Kodaly and Orfi‘ methodologies (hand signs, solfege, etc.). The public school from which the four classes were chosen was located in a suburban area where most of the families belonged in the upper-middle or higher socio-econonric class.
Students in the experimental and control groups represented various ethnic backgrounds (white, African-American, and Asian), with the majority of the students being white. None of them had any Suzuki string instruction prior to this study. Suzuki students represented a number of Suzuki teaching studios and teachers to control for any teaching setting or teacher effect. Although it is possible that some of the Suzuki students might have had general music instruction as part of their school curriculum, no control was provided for that in the present study.
49 Procedures
After the original proposal for conducting the current research study was approved by the researchers guidance committee, a copy of the proposal was submitted to the
University Committee on Research Involving Human Subjects (UCRIHS). After permission for conducting the research study was granted by UCRIHS (see Appendix A), the researcher introduced herself and the research study to the students of the experimental group and their parents during a welcoming Suzuki concert (”Play-In").
Information about the research study and the researcher was also given to the parents of the experimental group subjects (see Appendix B) in written form. The letter was accompanied by a consent form (see Appendix C) that parents had to sign and return to the researcher if they were willing to have their children participate in the study. Also, parents had to fill out the Musical Experience Questionnaire (MEQ), an author-designed survey instrument, presented in Appendix D, through which they provided information about their children’s formal early childhood music experiences. A letter was also sent to the parents of the control group subjects (see Appendix E), accompanied by a consent form (Appendix F) that had to be signed and returned to the researcher if parents were willing to have their children participate in the study. In general, the consent forms emphasized that participation in the study was entirely voluntary and that a child could withdraw from the study or refirse to respond at any time with no penalties.
Confidentiality of the responses was ensured. The researcher also investigated the students' files to get information on fill] names, ages, school and classes attended, so that she would have adequate demographic information for all students.
The week prior to the administration of the PMMA, the investigator met with students of the control and experimental groups for a whole class period in order to get to know them and make them familiar with the testing procedures of the Primary Measures of MusicAudiation (PMMA). The testing took place in eafly Fall, at the beginning of the ' school year. The Tonal subtest of the Primary Measures of Music Audiation was
50 administered during the first week of the study and the Rhythm subtest during the second week to all subjects. Scores on these tests were measures of the subjects' developmental tonal and rhythm aptitudes prior to instruction. Students were tested in groups that ranged in size fiom 5 to 18 students. Individual testing took place only if this was necessary to secure correct scoring and validity of data in cases of very young children or in cases of children who missed one or both of the testing sessions. In these cases, parents were contacted and asked to have their children meet with the investigator privately at a different time.
In the administration of PMMA, students were instructed to write their names at the top of the answer sheet or were helped to do so, especially in the case of kindergarten children and first-graders. Both tests were presented to the students as “musical games”.
Students had the opportunity to practice answering through the recorded practice examples provided for both the Tonal and Rhythm subtests. The investigator made sure that all children understood the directions. Students were instructed by the researcher to put their finger or keep their pencil on the item to be answered and were reminded every single time (e.g., "Now, find the tree and put your finger on the tree. Are you ready for the tree songs? Listen. . . "). The investigator paused the tape occasionally or when needed to make sure that everybody knew which test item was next. No testing-regardless of student age-took less than 20 minutes. Especially with the kindergarten public school class and some Suzuki students who were around the age of 5, the testing sessions lasted approximately 30 minutes, including the distributing and collecting of tests. Students were informed by the researcher at the beginning of the Tonal test administration that if they were careful and quiet, they would get a prize at the end of the second (Rhythm) testing session. Candy or stickers were given to the children as a reward at the end of the Rhythm test administration. The students in the experimental group received a 20 to 30-minute private Suzuki lesson and a 45 to 60-minute group Suzuki lesson every week for 22 weeks. All children
51 fiom the experimental group were taught the same repertoire and playing techniques.
Students in the control group had general music instruction for 30 minutes twice a week taught by a music specialist as part of their school curriculum but no instrumental music instruction. At the end of the 22-week period, the tonal and rhythm tests of the PMMA were administered again in both control and experimental groups. Scores on these tests were measures of the subjects' developmental tonal and rhythm aptitudes after 22 weeks of instruction. All test administrations were conducted by the investigator.
At the end of the 22 week period and after the post-instruction administration of
PMMA had been completed, students fiom the experimental group were audiotaped while individually performing the same familiar song ("Twinkle Theme", see Appendix G) on violin or cello. By that time, students were familiar with the researcher because of the previous testing sessions and because the researcher was a Suzuki teacher herself and had the opportunity to informally interact with those students in a variety of settings. At the end of PMMA rhythm test administration and while giving out the prize to the students, the researcher suggested that she and the students get together again for a "Twinkle
Marathon", during which every one of them would play ”Twinkle Theme" for her and be recorded "like a popular music star". The researcher told them that "everyone will be recorded alone in a personal recording studio and also given a prize-surprise at the end".
Students were excited with the idea of being recorded and receiving a prize. Students were taken individually out of their regular group class, led to an adjacent room, and audiotaped while playing "Twinkle Theme". The setting and the attitude of the researcher was game-like and non-threatening to the children. Solo playing is a common practice in the Suzuki method, in private lessons, group classes, and solo recitals, so playing for the researcher-Suzuki teacher was not unusual.
Three independent judges listened to and rated all the students' recorded performances on intonation, rhythm, and expression using a three-dimension, author- designed performance achievement rating scale (Appendix H). The judges were music
52 teachers who, at the time, were not teaching or had not taught any of the students participating in the study. The rating scale was pilot-tested prior to the actual rating of performances, and the inteljudge reliabilities were found to be .96 for Intonation, .96 for Rhythm, .97 for Expression, and .98 for Composite performance achievement scores, reflecting a great degree of agreement among the three judges.
The Research Instments PMMA is a developmental music aptitude test developed by Gordon (1986) for children in kindergarten, first, second, and third grade. Its development began in 1971, and the test was published in 1979. It is called a test of audiation and not a test of music aptitude because at the ages for which the test is appropriate, aptitude is still developmental; it fluctuates, in other words, as a result of the continuous interaction between the child's innate capacities and the environment. In PMMA, the listener "reacts to immediate impressions with intuitive responses, in terms of sameness and difference, to what is aurally perceived" (Gordon, 1976).
The purpose of PMMA is to aid teachers and parents in offering children appropriate instruction and music opportunities and to adapt instruction to the musical strengths and weaknesses of each child. Scores on PMMA can serve the following purposes: 1. To compare the tonal and rhythm aptitude of the child. Through this idiographic analysis, informal and formal music instruction can be accommodated to serve the child's needs. 2. To compare the child's scores with those of the other children. Through this normative assessment, strengths and weaknesses of the child are identified, and appropriate informal and formal music instruction can be provided. 3. To identify children who can profit fiom the opportunity to participate in additional group and private instruction in and out of school. In no situation, however,
53 should PMMA be used to exclude children of low music aptitude from participation in music activity.
PMMA includes two subtests: Tonal and Rhythm. Each test is recorded on a separate cassette and consists of 40 items with practice examples. Children are asked to identify whether the two patterns of each item heard on the tape are same or different and mark their answer by circling the faces on the answer sheet that are the same, if they think that the patterns are the same, or the faces that are different if they think that the patterns are different. Every item is identified by a picture of a familiar item instead of a number.
Thus, the respondents do not need to know numbers and the test does not measure mathematical ability. No formal music achievement is required to answer the questions, because the child needs to answer in terms of same and different, which is a concept that all children of 5 years of age and older know. Each one of the two subtests lasts approximately 12 minutes. The two subtests should be administered on different days, no more than 2 weeks apart. The directions of the test are read to the children instead of being pre-recorded, because it was found in the pre-publication research that young children cannot keep pace with recorded directions (Gordon, 1986).
The Music Experience Questionnaire (MEQ), that was designed to be completed by the students' parents, sought information on two major questions. The first was whether a child had any extracurricular (outside of a preschool or day-care program) music instruction before the age of five, the type of these classes, the length of time that these classes were attended, and the duration of instruction received per week. The second major question was whether a child had any music instruction as part of a preschool or day-care program before the age of five, the type of these classes, the length of time that these classes were attended, and the duration of instruction received per week. Based on the information provided through the MEQ, every child could be identified as having had early childhood music instnrction or not. lnforrnation about these two areas were collected, and students were classified as having had early childhood music instruction if
54 they had music instruction either inside or outside their preschool or day-care center. Similarly, students were classified as having had no early childhood music instruction if they had no music instruction both inside and outside of their preschool or day-care program.
The rating scale that was used for rating the performance achievement of the students in the experimental group (Suzuki string students) was an author-designed three- dimension rating scale. The dimensions used in the rating scale were Intonation, Rhythm, and Expression. All three dimensions contained five criteria. The Intonation and Rhythm dimensions were continuous, while the Expression dimension was additive. Each Suzuki student that performed "Twinkle Theme" received three ratings by each judge on
Intonation, Rhythm, and Expression respectively, and a CompoSite rating that was the sum of the scores of the three dimensions.
Data Analysis Means and standard deviations were computed for pre-instruction and post- instruction PMMA scores of the experimental (Suzuki students) and control group
(general music students). Means and standard deviations were computed both for the overall groups as well as for the separate age levels within the experimental and control groups. In addition, split-half reliabilities corrected for length with the Spearrnan-Brown
Prophecy formula were computed for the Tonal, Rhythm, and Composite PMMA scores of the pre- and post-instruction administration.
In order to determine the effect of instruction on developmental music aptitude, all students from the experimental group were matched according to age and pre-instruction
PMMA scores with students from the control group. A paired-samples t test was conducted on the matching variables (pre-instruction PMMA Tonal, Rhythm, and
Composite scores) to verify that there were no significant differences in music aptitude between the matched students. A paired-samples t test was conducted on post-instruction
55 PMMA Tonal, Rhythm, and Composite scores to determine whether any significant differences existed in post-instruction PMMA mean scores between the Suzuki and general music students. A two-tailed test was consistently used instead of one-tailed test, because there have been indications of music aptitude decreasing as an efl‘ect of instruction
(W oodruff, 1984). If significant differences occurred in post-instruction PMMA scores favoring either the experimental or the control group in overall or at specific age levels, several conclusions might be drawn on the efi‘ect of Suzuki or general music instruction on developmental music aptitude of beginning Suzuki and general music students respectively.
To determine whether pre-instruction PMMA scores of the experimental group subjects were predictive of their string performance achievement at the end of the 22- week instructional period, pre-instruction PMMA Tonal, Rhythm, and Composite scores of the Suzuki students were correlated (Pearson Product-Moment correlation) with their
Intonation, Rhythm, Expression, and Composite performance achievement scores.
Deciding on the predictive power of PMMA scores would add to the body of research that supports the use of PMMA scores for forming appropriate expectations from the students in terms of achievement and for adapting instruction to accommodate the students’ individual needs.
To determine whether prior early childhood music instruction affected string performance achievement, independent-sarnples t tests were conducted to test for significant difi’erences in performance achievement between the Suzuki students who had early childhood music instruction and those who did not. These tests were conducted for the Suzuki group in overall as well as for the separate age levels within the experimental group. If significant differences occurred favoring the students who had had early childhood music instruction, findings would add to the body of research on the significance of early childhood instruction for filture musical success. If non-significant difi‘erences were found, several speculations would be made on the possible efl‘ects of
56 home environment compared to formal early childhood music instruction and other factors on those students’ future performance achievement.
All tests of significance conducted on data presented in the body of this paper were two-tailed tests and or was set at .05 level unless otherwise noted.
57 CHAPTER FOUR
RESULTS AND INTERPRETATIONS
Primgry Measufires of Music A ydiation Det_a
Resu_lts
Means and standard deviations for the PMMA pre-instruction scores of the experimental (Suzuki students) and control group (general music students or "non-Suzuki group") are presented in Table 1. Mean age for the experimental group was 5.81 years old, while it was 6.53 years old for the control group. A t test conducted on mean ages indicated that mean age for the control group subjects was significantly higher than mean age for the experimental group subjects, t(113) = -3. 12, p < .05. The mean scores for the control group (n = 73) tended to be higher than those for the experimental group (9 = 43) on the pre-instruction administration of PMMA, as would be expected because of the difference in age between the two groups. For both groups, mean Rhythm subtest scores were lower than mean Tonal subtest scores. Standard deviations for the experimental group were larger than the ones for the control group, indicating a greater score variability in the Suzuki than in the non-Suzuki group.
Table 2 contains means and standard deviations for the PMMA post-instruction scores of the experimental and control group. PMMA post instruction scores were still slightly higher for the control than the experimental group, but less so. PMMA post- instruction mean scores were higher for both groups than pre-instruction scores. The standard deviations of the post-instruction scores for both groups were smaller than those
58 of the pre-instruction scores, with the experimental group having larger standard deviations than the control group.
Table 1
PMMA Pre-instruction Results
PMMA tests n M SD
Suzuki group Tonal 42 30.00 7.31 Rhythm 43 27.30 6.28 Composite 42 57.45 12.86
Non-Suzuki group Tonal 68 33.63 5.22 Rhythm 69 30.94 5.28 Composite 66 64.41 9.97
Table 2
PMMA Post-Instruction Results
PMMA tests n M SD
Suzuki group Tonal 37 33.38 6.01 Rhythm 37 29.24 5.73 Composite 37 62.62 10.24 Non-Suzuki group Tonal 66 35.21 4.97 Rhythm 65 31.06 4.70 Composite 63 66.24 9.20
59 Means and standard deviations for PMMA pre-instruction scores by age level are
presented in Table 3. PMMA Tonal scores for each age level were higher than PMMA
Rhythm scores. With the exception of the Rhythm subtest mean score for the 5-year old
students and the Tonal subtest mean score for the 7-year-old students, PMMA mean
scores for the control group were slightly higher than those for the experimental group.
Standard deviations for the experimental group tended to be greater than the
corresponding standard deviations for the control group, with the exception of the ones
for the 5-year-old students’ Tonal and Composite mean scores and the 6—year-old
students’ Tonal mean score. Differences in standard deviations between the experimental
and control group were in some cases dramatic, and this is probably due to the difl‘erences
in size between the corresponding age levels of the two groups. In general, results
indicated that the scores of the experimental group subjects tended to be slightly lower
and more varied than those of the control group subjects in the pre-instruction
administration of PMMA
Means and standard deviations for the PMMA post-instruction scores by age level
are presented in Table 4. In half of the cases, PMMA mean scores of the experimental group were higher than those of the control group. As in the pre-instruction administration, Tonal mean scores tended to be higher, at all age levels, than Rhythm
scores for both the experimental and control group. For the experimental group, PMMA
post-instruction mean scores were higher at all age levels than PMMA pre-instruction mean scores. For the control group, with the exception of the Rhythm subtest mean score
for the 7- and 8-year old students, post-instruction mean scores were higher than pre- instruction mean scores. The differences between Tonal and Rhythm scores in the post- instruction administration tended to be more extreme than in the pre-instruction administration of PMMA. Especially for the 5- and 6-year old students of the experimental group, Tonal aptitude scores increased from the pre- to the post-instruction administration considerably more than their Rhythm aptitude did. Similar trends were not evident for the control group. Standard deviations of the post-instruction PMMA scores were mostly greater for the experimental than the control group, indicating greater score variability for the Suzuki than the non- Suzuki group. In general, results indicated that the scores of the experimental group subjects tended to be more varied than those of the control group subjects in the post-instruction administration of PMMA.
Table 3
PMMA Pre-Instruction Reglts by &e
n Togel Rhyth_m Commsite
M. S_D M 5.12. M SD. Suzuki 5y. 15 26.00 5.00 24.69 4.54 50.93 8.57 6y. 6 33.50 3.33 30.83 6.11 64.33 8.09 7y. 8 36.00 3.96 32.12 5.33 68.12 8.27 8y. 6 36.83 2.56 31.50 2.17 68.33 2.94
Non-Suzuki 5y. 17 27.41 5.59 23.75 4.20 51.00 9.16 6y. 16 34.20 4.52 30.87 4.60 64.73 7.58 7y. 19 35.84 206 33.61 1.82 69.44 2.95 8y. 19 36.88 1.32 34.53 1.84 71.41 2.15
61 Table 4
PMMA Post-Instruction Results by Age
n Tonel_ Rhythm Compos_ite
M 5.2 M S_D M SD. Suzuki 5y. 16 31.94 4.78 26.37 4.73 57.56 7.68 6y. 4 37.75 2.06 31.50 7.68 69.25 9.53 7y. 7 37.28 1.98 32.28 4.99 69.57 5.91 8y. 6 37.50 2.59 31.50 3.94 69.00 6.13
Non-Suzuki 5y. 17 28.53 4.19 25.65 4.69 53.80 8.32 6y. 16 35.94 4.23 32.94 2.74 69.06 6.69 7y. 19 37.17 2.16 32.75 3.28 69.75 4.30 8y. 19 38.41 2.20 33.25 2.69 ’ 71.56 4.01
For reasons of comparison, the PMMA mean scores and standard deviations that are reported in the PMMA Manual are presented in Table 5. As shown fi'om the Tables, pre-instruction and post-instruction PMMA mean scores at all age levels of the experimental and control groups were higher than those reported in the PMMA Manual, indicating a more select population in terms of music aptitude in the present study as compared to the population involved in the standardization of PMMA Standard deviations of the pre-instruction and post-instruction PMMA mean scores were mostly smaller tlnn the ones reported in the Manual, reflecting less variance of PMMA scores of the students involved in the present study than those of the students involved in the standardization of PMMA. This finding in conjunction with the higher PMMA mean scores are indications that students in the present study tended to score closer to the top
62 than students that participated in the standardization of PMMA.
Table 5
PMMA Means and Standard Deviations Presented in PMMA Manual
n Tone] Rhythm Composjge
M SD M S_D M S_D
5y. 127 24.70 5.28 22.30 3.74 47.00 7.65 6y. 202 29.80 5.03 25.80 4.34 55.60 8.25 7y. 280 32.00 4.75 27.70 4.55 59.70 8.35 8y. 264 34.60 3.35 29.40 3.99 64.00 6.29
Split-half reliabilities by age level for the PMMA pre-instruction and post- instruction scores of the experimental and control groups are presented in Table 6. For reasons of comparison, the corresponding coefficients that are reported in the PMMA
Manual are also included in the Table. As shown, split-half reliability coefficients for the pre- and post-instruction adrrrinistration of PMMA in the present study are similar to the ones reported in the PMMA Manual.
63 Table 6
PMMA Reliabilig Coefficients
Mal Rhythm Composite
Pre-instruetien edminietretien
5y. .78 .76 .80 6y. .88 .78 .89 7y. .86 .81 .85 8y. .89 .85 .92
Post-instruction administration
5y. .82 .79 .86 6y. .89 .82 .90 7y. .89 .85 .90 8y. .85 .85 .89
Reliability Melents rep_orted in PMMA Manual 5y. .85 .72 .90 6y. .89 .85 .92 7y. .89 .86 .92 8y. .85 .86 .90
Subtest intercorrelations ranged fi'om -.15 to . 92 for the pre-instruction administration of PMMA, and fiom .26 to .91 for the post-instruction administration
(Table 7). Subtest intercorrelations for the pre-instruction administration of PMMA tended to be lower, at all age levels, than the ones reported in the PMMA Manual, except for those of the 5-year-old students, whose intercorrelations tended to be higher than those reported in the Manual. That means that with the exception of the S-year-old students, the PMMA Tonal and Rhythm subtests measured unique dimensions of students’ music aptitude and that the greatest portions of their variances were related to factors that the two tests did not have in common. This does not seem to be the case for the 5-year- old students, who tended to do well in one PMMA subtest if they did well in the other.
An atypical finding was the negative intercorrelation between pre-instruction Tonal and Rhythm scores of the 8-year-old students. The coefficient (-.15) indicates a low negative correlation between the two subtests, meaning that for the 8-year-old students as scores on one subtest moved in one direction, scores on the other subtest tended to move in the opposite direction. A negative coefiicient (-.30) between the two subtests was also reported by Woodrufi‘ ( l 984) for the post-instruction administration of PMMA in one of two groups of kindergarten children participating in his study. The relatively small sample size in the present study might have been responsible for that inconclusive finding. The intercorrelations between the subtests on the post-instruction administration of PMMA were generally lower than those of the pre-instruction administration for the 5- and 7-year- old students and higher than the pre-instruction ones for the 6- and 8-year-old students. In general, coeficients were comparable to those reported in the PMMA Manual (Table 8), indicating that each subtest measured a unique dimension of students’ music aptitude.
65 Table 7
PMMA Pre-Instruction Sebtest Intercorrelations
Tonal ththrn Composite
5 years old
Tonal - .61 (.45) .92 (.76) Rhythm .61 (.45) - .88 (.57) Composite .92 (.76) .88 (.57) -
6 years old
Tonal - .38 (.49) .80 (.84) Rhythm .38 (.49) - .86 (.82) Composite .80 (.84) .86 (.82) -
7 years old
Tonal - .41 (.51) .81 (.89) Rhythm .41 (.51) - .87 (.88) Composite .81 (.89) .87 (.88) -
8 years old
Tonal - -.15 (.49) .49 (.85) Rhythm -.15 (.49) - .79 (.89) Composite .49 (.85) .79 (.89) -
Note. Numbers in parentheses indicate subtest intercorrelation coefficients reported in PMMA Manual. Table 8
PMMA Post-Instruction Subtest Intgcorrelations
Tonal Rhfihm Composjte
5 years old
Tonal - .50 (.45) .86 (.76) Rhythm .50 (.45) - .87 (.57) Composite .86 (.76) .87 (.57) -
6 years old
Tonal - .58 (.49) .89 (.84) Rhythm .58 (.49) - .89 (.82) Composite .89 (.84) .89 (.82) -
7 years old
Tonal - .26 (.51) .63 (.89) Rhythm .26 (.51) - .91 (.88) Composite .63 (.89) .91 (.88) -
8 years old
Tonal - .49 (.49) .82 (.85) Rhythm .49 (.49) - .90 (.89) Composite .82 (.85) .90 (.89) -
Note. Numbers in parentheses indicate subtest intercorrelation coefficients reported in PMMA Manual.
67 Interpretation
Results indicated that general music students, overall, had higher music aptitude
scores than the Suzuki students in the pre-instruction administration of PMMA Mean age
of the general music students was also significantly higher than that of the Suzuki
students. Because of the fact that older students score better than younger students on
PMMA by virtue of age alone (Gordon, 1986), the overall difi‘erences between the two
groups in pre-instruction PMMA mean scores are attributable to the mean age difference between the two groups.
From the analysis of the pre-instruction PMMA data by age level, it was found that
at the majority of age levels, Students fi'om the control group tended to have slightly higher PMMA scores than the experimental group subjects. A factor that could be
contributing to the differences in pre-instruction PMMA scores between the two groups, is the difference in socio-economic background of the experimental and control group
subjects. The Suzuki students came from a variety of socio-economic levels and the majority of them could be assumed to be coming from middle class families. The majority of general music students came from the upper-middle and higher socio-economic class, as evident by their neighborhood and the school which they attended. The difi‘erence in
socio-economic class could imply a difference in the cultural environment that subjects from the two groups had been able to enjoy. It is possible that the control group subjects had enjoyed a richer cultural and home music environment than the experimental group
subjects, and that might have influenced their music aptitudes.
From the analysis of post-instruction PMMA data by age level, it was found that
with the exception of the Rhythm subtest mean scores of the 7- and 8-year-old students in
68 the control group, PMMA scores at all age levels of the experimental and control group had increased from pre- to post-instruction administration. It is possible that the rhythm training provided through general music instruction in this setting was not efficient or challenging enough to support the 7- and 8-year old students’ rhythm aptitude development. The developmental music aptitudes of students that are 7- and 8-years old are also less affected by the environment, compared to the 5- and 6-year-old students. The younger the students are, the greater the influence that the environment has on their music aptitudes.
In the pre-instruction and post-instruction administration of PMMA, Tonal mean scores were, for both groups, higher than their Rhythm mean Seores. This is typical and was also reported in the PMMA Manual (Gordon, 1986); it is probably attributable to the fact that students’ formal or informal music experiences are more tonally than rhythmically oriented.
Split-half reliability coefficients for the pre- and post-instruction administration Of
PMMA were, generally, similar to the ones reported in the PMMA Manual and higher enough than the respective pre- and post-instruction PMMA subtest intercorrelation coefficients. Although the subtest intercorrelation coeficients in the pre-instruction administration of PMMA for the 5-year old children were higher than the ones reported in the Manual and closer to the subtest reliability coeflicients for that age level found in the present study, the tendencies were not strong enough to indicate lack of reliability in the pre-instruction test scores of the 5-year old students. It can, thus, be concluded that
PMMA test results were reliable and each subtest measured a unique dimension of students’ music aptitude at both administrations of PMMA.
69 Problem 1: The effect of Suzulglnstruction on Developmental Music Aptitude of
Beginning Suzuki StringStudents
RLults
In order to determine the effect of Suzuki instruction on developmental music aptitude of Suzuki students as compared to general music students, subjects from the experimental group were matched based on age, first, and then on PMMA Tonal, Rhythm, and Composite aptitude scores with subjects from the control group. Because the control group had more students than the experimental group, the students fi'om the control group whose PMMA scores were closest to those of the experimental group students, were chosen to be included in the pairs. Paired-samples t tests were conducted on the PMMA pre-instruction Tonal, Rhythm, and Composite aptitude scores of the pairs, to ensure that the paired subjects did not significantly differ fiom each other on the matching variables.
The results, as shown in Table 9, indicate that there were no significant differences between the pairs and, consequently, the way that the subjects fi'om the experimental and control group had been matched was valid.
A paired-samples t test was conducted on the experimental and control groups in order to determine whether post-instruction PMMA Tonal, Rhythm, and Composite mean scores of the Suzuki students were significantly different than those of the general music students with whom they were matched. The results, as shown in Table 10, indicate that there were no significant differences in the post-instruction PMMA mean scores between the experimental and control group. However, post-instruction PMMA Tonal and
Composite mean scores of the Suzuki students tended to be slightly higher than those of the general music students.
70 Table 9
The 1 Test Between Paired Suzuki and Non-Suzuki Students en Pre-Instruetion PMMA
Scores (MatchinIg Variables)
n Suzuki Non-Suzuki
Age level M S_D M SD 1 value
5years old Tonal 13 26.31 5.27 26.38 5.47 .27 Rhythm 13 23.54 3.71 23.46 5.27 -.43 Composite 11 51.64 8.69 51.18 9.27 -1.24
6years old Tonal 5 34.20 3.19 34.40 3.21 1.00 Rhythm 5 33.20 2.17 33.20 2.28 .00 Composite 5 67.40 3.36 68.00 2.91 1.18
7years old Tonal 7 37.14 2.48 36.86 2.27 -l.55 Rhythm 6 34.67 2.50 35.00 2.00 .79 Composite 7 70.71 4.15 70.28 3.95 -1.16
8years old Tonal 5 36.60 2.79 37.00 1.41 .59 Rhythm 4 31.50 1.91 31.75 1.71 .33 Composite 4 67.75 2.99 68.75 2.50 2.45
p>.05
71 Table 10
Thailand-Samples t Test Between Suzuki and Non-Sugki Students on Post-Instruction PMMA Scores n Suzuki Non-Suzuki
M S_D M S_D (value Subtest Tonal 25 34.56 5.17 34.16 5.82 -.41 Rhythm 29 29.79 5.46 29.83 5.47 .03 Composite 25 64.32 9.85 62.60 10.17 -1.30
p>.05
A paired-samples t test was then conducted at each age level to evaluate whether significant differences existed in the post-instruction PMMA Tonal, Rhythm, and
Composite scores between students of the experimental and control groups at corresponding age levels. Results indicated that at no age level were post-instruction
PMMA mean scores of the Suzuki students significantly different than the respective scores of the general music students. However, post-instruction PMMA Composite mean scores of the Suzuki students tended to be higher than those of the general music students at all age levels except fiom the 8-year old students. The results of these tests are presented in Table 11.
72 Table 1 1
The 1 Test Between Pained Suzuki and Non-Suzuki Students on Post-Instruction PMMA Scores by Ag: Level
n Suzuki’ Non-SuzukL
M SQ M SD tValue Agelevel 5yearsold Tonal 11 30.73 5.46 28.54 3.80 -1.12 Rhytlun 15 26.33 4.89 26.67 4.85 .22 Composite 12 57.17 8.83 53.25 5.41 -1.71
6years old Tonal 3 38.67 1.15 39.67 .58 1.00 Rhythm 3 35.33 .58 32.67 2.08 -3.02 Composite 3 74.00 1.00 71.00 5.57 -.87
7yearsold Tonal 6 37.50 2.07 37.17 2.32 -.30 Rhythm 6 34.00 2.28 33.83 5.27 -.08 Composite 6 71.50 3.27 71.33 2.87 -.14
8years old Tonal 5 37.00 2.55 39.60 .55 2.52 Rhythm 5 31.80 4.32 32.80 3.42 .33 Composite 4 67.75 7.41 71.25 3.59 1.50
p>.05
73 Integpretation
From the analysis of PMMA pre- and post-instruction data for the experimental and control groups in overall (presented in Table 1 and Table 2), it was found that PMMA mean scores of the control group were still higher in the post-instruction administration than the ones of the experimental group, but much less so than in the pre-instruction administration of PMMA. This finding, in conjunction with the results of the paired- sarnples t test for the groups in overall (Table 10) in which post-instruction PMMA Tonal and Composite mean scores of the Suzuki group tended to be higher than those of the general music students with whom they were matched, shows that Suzuki instruction may have had more positive effect on the developmental aptitude of Suzuki students, as compared to the efi‘ect of general music instruction on general music students.
Ifthis conclusion on the tonal development of Suzuki students holds true in replications of the present study, it can be explained by the fact that Suzuki instruction is very intense during the first year of study with learning focusing very much on fine motor skill development and in-tune singing and playing. Although Suzuki students’ performing repertoire during their first year is quite limited, their listening repertoire is much broader since they listen daily to a tape that includes all songs from Suzuki Book 1, and are also occasionally exposed to major and minor songs fi'om more advanced Suzuki books through games in the group classes and “play-ins” where students fi'om all ages and levels get to play together and listen to one another. It would be interesting for future research. to investigate the efi‘ects of Suzuki instruction on tonal aptitude of students who are given even broader daily music listening assignments that include songs in minor and other tonalities (dorian, lydian, mixolydian, etc.) Another reason that Suzuki students seem to
74 develop tonally more than general music students may be the fact that Suzuki learning is consistently reinforced through the daily listening assignments and the practice sessions with the parents, while with general music students such reinforcement is less likely. As it is evident due to non-significant results, further research is needed to test the validity of the conclusions drawn in the present study, and to determine the factors that contribute to superior tonal development of Suzuki students, in case this finding holds true.
From the analysis of post-instruction PMMA scores between Suzuki and general music students (presented in Table 4), it was found that especially for the 5- and 6-year- old Suzuki students, rhythm aptitude scores increased from pre- to post-instruction testing considerably less than their tonal aptitude did. That this fact is observed for the 5- and 6- year-old students and not so much for the 7- and 8-year olds, is probably because of music aptitude being affected by instruction more the younger the students are. Also, from the pair-samples t test on post-instruction PMMA scores of the two groups (presented in
Table 10), it was shown that Suzuki students tended to have lower post-instruction rhythm aptitude scores than the general music students with whom they were matched.
Although non-significant, these findings may raise several questions about the efficiency of rhythm instruction provided in the Suzuki method as compared to that provided in general music instruction. It is possible that rhythm instruction provided through the Suzuki method and repertoire does not aid the development of rhythm aptitude as effectively or as quickly as the rhythm instruction provided through a general music program. That Suzuki rhythm training may be rigid, was also one of Woodrufi’s (1984) conclusions.
From the comparison of post-instruction PMMA mean scores by age level (see
Table 3 and Table 4), it was found that the Rhythm subtest mean scores of the 7- and 8-
75 year-old students in the control group had decreased fi'om pre- to post-instruction administration of PMMA, while for the 7- and 8-year-old students in the experimental group rhythm mean scores increased and remained stable respectively. Although this
finding seems to contradict what was reported above on the efficiency of general music instruction for rhythm aptitude development as compared to Suzuki instruction, one needs to keep in mind that in the comparison of post-instruction PMMA mean scores, the level of pre-instruction music aptitude was not controlled, and this is probably what caused the contradiction. The results of the paired-samples t test according to which Suzuki students had lower, although non-significantly so, post-instruction rhythm aptitude than the general music students with whom they were matched, are more likely to reflect the truth, because in that analysis pre-instruction level of music aptitude was controlled.
Due to non-significant results concerning rhythm aptitude development of Suzuki students, further research is needed to investigate the reasons why, if indeed, Suzuki rhythm instruction is less effective than general music rhythm instruction for students’ rhythm aptitude development. It can be speculated that the treatment period was not long enough for the effects of Suzuki instruction on music aptitude development to be clearly defined. The amount of fine motor learning that takes place at the beginning stages of learning a musical instrument in addition to music learning might be influencing how quickly the efl‘ects of instruction on developmental music aptitude become evident. The quite limited rhythm instruction that Suzuki students receive during their first semester of studies, focusing on learning four rhythm patterns in duple meter and listening to songs in duple and triple meter, might also be responsible for the lower rhythm aptitude of Suzuki compared to general music students.
76 Attention should be given to the fact that all general music students in the present study were taught by the same music specialist which is likely to have created a teacher effect. Studies that employ longer instructional periods and a number of public school music programs and music specialists to control for any teacher effect are necessary, if the effects of the Suzuki method on music aptitude development as compared to the efi‘ects of general music instruction on general music students are to be determined. Future research also needs to control for additional music instruction that Suzuki students might have been receiving. It is possible that a number of the Suzuki students that participated in the present study were also receiving general music instruction as part of their regular school program, but no control was actually provided for it. Future research needs to clarify whether the greater tonal development of the Suzuki students in the present study reflected actual differences between Suzuki and general music instruction or if it just resulted from the fact that some of the Suzuki students in the study had been receiving both Suzuki and general music instruction during the instructional period.
Finally, it may be possible that there are not, indeed, any significant differences in the way the two instructional methods affect the development of music aptitude. In this case, Gordon’s (1986) claim that “the children who had elected not to study an instrument have no less music aptitude as a group than children who had elected to study an instrument” (p. 107) would be verified. More research is needed to clearly define the effects of Suzuki instruction on developmental music aptitude and to decide which of the factors presented above influence, if at all, and in what ways, the development of Suzuki students’ music aptitude.
77 Problem 2: Predictive Validity of PMMA Scores
Re_sult_s
At the conclusion of the 22-week instructional period, Suzuki students’ instrumental performances were rated by three independent judges on Intonation, Rhythm, and Expression. Thus, each student had four ratings (Intonation, Rhythm, Expression, and
Composite) from each judge. Interjudge reliabilities, computed with coeffecient alpha, were found to be .96 for Intonation, .96 for Rhythm, .97 for Expression, and .98 for the
Composite performance achievement ratings, reflecting a high level of agreement among the three judges.
In order to determine whether pre-instruction PMMA scores of the experimental group subjects were predictive of their instrumental performance achievement at the end of the 22-week instructional period, pre-instruction PMMA Tonal, Rhythm, and
Composite scores of the Suzuki students were correlated using Pearson Product-Moment correlation with their Intonation, Rhythm, Expression, and Composite performance achievement ratings, after the three judges’ ratings of their performance achievement on each dimension had been combined.
Pre-instruction PMMA Tonal and Composite scores were found to be predictive of Intonation, Rhythm, Expression, and Composite performance achievement scores. Pre- instruction PMMA Rhythm scores were found to be predictive of Rhythm, Expression, and Composite performance achievement scores (see Table 12). The highest coeficient of predictive validity (.67) was found between PMMA Tonal scores and Composite performance achievement ratings, while the lowest (.30) was found between PMMA
Rhythm scores and performance achievement ratings on Intonation. An unusual finding
78 was that PMMA Tonal scores were found more predictive of rhythm achievement
(predictive validity coeflicient .63) than intonation achievement (.60). Woodrufl‘ (1984) had found that PMMA Rhythm scores for one of the kindergarten groups in his study were more predictive of tonal than rhythm achievement. Taking into consideration that subtest intercorrelation coefficients in the present study showed that each PMMA subtest measured a unique dimension of developmental music aptitude, this finding is inconclusive. More research studies are needed to determine whether this finding was an anomaly of the data, a result of the instructional effects, or even further a disfirnction of the music aptitude test in the present study.
Table 12
PMMflredictgve Valigig Coefficients
Performance achievement scores
p Intonation .R_hyth_m Expression Cemmsjte
PMMA Tonal 25 .60“ .63" .61“ .67" Rhythm 26 .30 .57" .48" .50" Composite 25 .49" .65“ .61“ .65"
** Correlation is significant at the .01 level (l-tailed)
For reasons of comparison, the PMMA predictive validity coefi'lcients that are reported in the PMMA Manual are presented in Table 13. Those represent coefficients
79 from a one-year longitudinal predictive validity study in which participants were 7- and 8-
year old students from Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania (Gordon, 1986). While the
Intonation, Expression, and Composite performance achievement scores in the present
study were predicted by the PMMA Tonal, Rhythm, and Composite scores in a lower
degree than in the Plymouth Meeting study, Rhythm performance achievement scores
were better predicted by PMMA scores in the present study than in Gordon’s study.
Table 13
PMMA Predictive Validity Coeffrcientg Reperted in PMMA Man—fl
p IntoMtipn Rhythm Expressien Cwije
PMMA Tonal 26 .75 .50 .71 .78 Rhythm 26 .66 .37 .54 .58 Composite 26 .74 .42 .68 .73
Interpretation
That PMMA scores were found to be predictive of performance achievement
extends and further substantiates the predictive validity of PMMA as reported in the
Plymouth Meeting study (Gordon, 1986) and in Woodrufi’s (1984) study. The fact that
the predictive validity coefficients for Tonal and Composite scores reported in this study
were slightly lower than the ones reported in the PMMA Manual could be due to a variety
of reasons. First, in Gordon’s study, the sample consisted of students some of which were not beginners but had already been receiving violin instruction for one year when the study
began. Also, the treatment period in Gordon’ study was a whole year, while in the present
study it was only 22 weeks. The longer treatment period and the participation of students who had been receiving violin instruction already for a year when Gordon conducted his
study, probably contributed to higher predictive validity coefficients in Gordon’s study as
compared to the present one, because longer instructional periods allow students to
achieve closer to their potential. Also, the fact that subjects in Gordon’s study were 7- and
8—year-old students while in the present study subjects were 5-, 6-, 7-, and 8-year old
students might have affected the predictive validity coeficients in the two studies.
Students that are 7- and 8-years old, probably by virtue of age alone, have more chances than 5- and 6-year-old students to achieve closer to their potential, because of the relatively longer music stimulation that they have been receiving from the environment until they reach the age of 7 or 8. The fact that rhythm achievement was better predicted by PMMA scores in the present study than in Gordon’s study could be attributable to possible differences in the rhythm instruction provided as part of the treatment in the two
studies.
The predictive validity coemcients found in the present study were, with the exception of the ones for PMMA Tonal scores, higher than the ones reported in
Woodruff s (1984) study. That is probably due to the longer instructional period involved in the present study. However, comparison of predictive validity coeflicients reported in this study with Woodrufi’ s (1984) should be done with caution because of his limited
sample (kindergarten students only) and the conflicting results on the predictive power of
PMMA Rhythm scores found in his study.
81 It is to be noted that the present study included in its sample all ages for which
PMMA is appropriate, unlike Gordon’s (1986) study which only included 7— and 8-year- old children, and Woodrufi’ s (1984) study which only included kindergarten children.
Thus, the predictive validity coefficients reported in this study firrther validate the ones reported in the PMMA Manual since they represent the power of PMMA to predict performance achievement of children 5- to 8-years old.
Problem 3: The Efi‘ect of Early Childhood Music Instruction on Future Perfom
MIME!
RLults
In order to determine the effect of early music instruction on performance achievement, Suzuki students whose performances were rated in Spring 1998, were categorized as having early childhood music instruction before the age of five (Group 1, n = 21) or as having no early childhood music instruction before the age of five (Group 2, n = 3). Independent-samples t tests were conducted to verify that GrOup 1 did not significantly differ in mean age and pre-instruction music aptitude fi'om Group 2, so that differences in performance achievement between the two groups could be meaningfully computed for the groups in overall. A statistical analysis for separate age levels was not possible due to extremely small group sizes. Results indicated that students in Group 1 and
Group 2 did not significantly difi‘er in mean age and music aptitude as measured by pre- instruction PMMA scores (see Table 14).
82 Table 14
The 1 Test on Age and Pre-Instruction PMMA Scores Between Group 1 end Group 2
Mad instruction Did not h_ave instruction
n M S_D n M §I_) tvalue
Age 21 6.14 1,38 3 5.00 1.00 1.75 Subteg Tonal 20 32.00 6.74 3 27.67 6.03 1.05 Rhythm 21 28.62 5.62 3 27.33 3.78 .38 Composite 20 61.00 11.65 3 55.00 9.54 .84
p>.05
An independent-samples t test was conducted to determine whether the Intonation,
Rhythm, Expression, and Composite performance achievement scores of Group 1 were significantly different than the Intonation, Rhythm, Expression, and Composite performance achievement scores of Group 2. The test conducted was a two-tailed t test and or was set at .05 level.
Results (see Table 15) indicated that Suzuki students in Group 1 tended to receive higher ratings in Intonation, Rhythm, Expression, and Composite performance achievement than students in Group 2, although those differences were not statistically significant. Note that the inequality in sample size between Group 1 (n = 21) and Group 2
(n = 3) raises questions about the validity of the statistical significance that resulted from the t tests conducted. Furthermore, with a sample that small, it would be very dificult to
find significance, unless the differences were extreme.
83 Table 15 m t Test on Perforrn_ance Achievement Scores Between Group 1 and Group 2
Had instruction (n = 21) Did not have instruction in = 3)
M _S_I_)_ M .SD t value
Achievement Intonation 3.52 1.14 3.44 1.83 .10 Rhythm 3.19 1.10 2.67 .58 .80 Expression 2.97 1 .32 2.22 1 .07 .93 Composite 9.68 3.25 8.33 3.48 .67
p > .05
Inte_rprgetion
Results indicated that students who had early childhood music instruction tended to achieve higher than students who did not have such instruction. Although the difi‘erence was not statistically significant, one needs to keep in mind that with such small group sizes
(n = 21 for Group 1, n = 3 for Group 2) it would be dificult to find statistical significance.
Inequality in the group sizes, also, raises several questions about the validity of the results of the test of significance conducted.
Results agree with Moore’s (1973) findings that musical experiences provided in nursery or church schools are closely related to pitch and rhythm responses. It is also consistent with Mitchell’s (1985) results according to which there is a correlation between early childhood formal music experiences and PMMA Tonal scores.
It was not expected that so many Suzuki students would have had early childhood music instruction. More similar group sizes were expected. This, however, shows that parents who get involved in their children’s music education, as the ones who enroll them in a Suzuki program, are sensitive about the importance of early childhood music education for their children’s musical development and try to provide their children with such experiences from as early in their lives as possible.
Another reason that could account for the non-significant differences between the two groups of children is the effects of home environment. It is possible that the Suzuki students who did not have early childhood music instruction had no less music stimulation than the children who had early childhood music instruction. Their parents, sensitive to their children’s music education, as shown fi'om their enrolling them in a Suzuki program later, probably provided them with a rich music environment during their preschool years by singing, chanting, or playing music for them, by attending concerts with them, or by having them observe the music lessons and practice of their older siblings. Several studies
(Jenkins, 1976; Manturzewska, 1990; Sosniak, 1985; Howe et al. 1995) have shown that home environment is the best predictor of children’s firture musical success. Jenkins
(1976) found that factors that were most closely related with musical development of 2- and 3-year-old children, and musical responses of 1"-grade children were (a) fiequent opportunities for the child to hear singing in the home, and (b) fi'equent opportunities for the child to sing with other members of the family, especially the mother, and with other children. Gordon (1976) who investigated the relationship of environmental factors to both musical aptitude and achievement test scores, found that several factors (e.g.,
“siblings sing or play” and “piano at home”) had great influence on children’s music achievement.
85 Another factor that could be contributing to the non-significant differences in
performance achievement between children who had early childhood music instruction and
students who did not, is the amount of early childhood music classes that Suzuki students
had taken prior to taking Suzuki lessons. Students were categorized as having had early
childhood music instruction if they had at least one semester of early childhood music
classes. It is possible, however, that one semester of such instruction might have not been
enough to cause any significant effects on children’s future performance achievement.
Although data were provided on amount of early childhood music instruction through the
Music Experience Questionnaire (MEQ), investigating the efi‘ect of the amount of early
childhood music instruction on future performance achievement was not a problem of the
present study and the research design did not control for it. No control was also provided in the present study for type or quality of early childhood music instruction.
The age at which children received early childhood music instruction could also be
a factor influencing the results. An early childhood music class attended at the age of two
might have had difi‘erent efi‘ects on performance achievement at, or after, the age of five,
compared to an early childhood music class attended at the age of four. The design of the present study did not control for this factor because the above was not defined as one of the problems of this study. Thus, it is possible that amount, type, and quality of early
childhood music instruction, along with age at which instruction was received caused
interactions that remained undetected by the present study. Future research studies are
needed to detemline the type and strength of those interactions, so that the effects of early
childhood music instruction on future performance achievement are clearly defined.
86 CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS, AND RECOMMENDATIONS
A sununary of the study is presented in this chapter. Conclusions and implications for music education are also included along with recommendations for firrther research.
Su of the Stud
Pumse and Problems
The purpose of the study was to investigate the efi’ect of Suzuki string instruction and early childhood music instruction on developmental music aptitude and performance achievement of beginning Suzuki students. The specific problems of the study were the following:
1. To investigate the effect of Suzuki string instruction on developmental music aptitudes of beginning Suzuki students.
2. To investigate the extend to which students’ developmental music aptitudes at the beginning of instruction were predictive of their instrumental performance achievement after 22 weeks of Suzuki string instruction.
3. To investigate whether participation in early childhood music classes prior to
Suzuki instruction affected the students’ instrumental performance achievement.
87 Procedures
The sample for this study consisted of 116 children between the ages of 5 and 8 years old. Forty-three of them were beginning Suzuki string students who had no Suzuki string instruction prior to the study (experimental group) and seventy-three were general music students in kindergarten through third grade (control group). PMMA was administered to both groups by the investigator during the first and second week of the study. The Music Experience Questionnaire (MEQ) was also administered to the parents of the experimental group subjects, who provided information on whether their children received early childhood music instruction before the age of five and prior to Suzuki instruction.
Students in the experimental group received one 20- to 30-minute private lesson and one 45- to 60-minute group lesson every week for 22 weeks and they represented a number of teaching studios. Students in the control group had general music instruction for 30 minutes twice a week by a music specialist as part of their school curriculum but no instrumental music instruction.
At the end of the 22-week instructional period, PMMA was administered again to all students of the experimental and control group. Twenty-six students from the experimental group were also audiotaped while performing “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” on their violin or cello. Their performances were rated by three independent judges on
Intonation, Rhythm, and Expression fi'om which a Composite score was derived.
88 AME
Means, standard deviations, and split-half reliabilities were computed for PMMA
pre-instruction and post-instruction scores of the experimental (Suzuki students) and
control group (general music students). In order to determine the effect of Suzuki
instruction on the developmental music aptitude of beginning Suzuki students, all students
from the experimental group were matched according to age and pre-instruction music
aptitude scores with students from the control group. A paired-samples t test was
conducted on the matching variables (pre-instruction PMMA Tonal, Rhythm, and
Composite scores) to verify that there were no significant difl‘erences in music aptitude between the matched students. A paired-samples t test was conducted on post-instruction
PMMA Tonal, Rhythm, and Composite scores to determine whether any significant
differences existed in the post-instruction PMMA mean scores of the Suzuki and general music students. A two-tailed test was consistently used instead of a one-tailed test to
allow for possible decreases of music aptitude to become evident, and or was set at .05
level.
To determine whether pro-instruction PMMA scores of the experimental group
subjects were predictive of their string performance achievement at the end of the 22- week instructional period, pre-instruction PMMA Tonal, Rhythm, and Composite scores
of the Suzuki students were correlated (Pearson Product-Moment correlation) with their
Intonation, Rhythm, Expression, and Composite performance achievement scores.
To determine whether early childhood music instruction afi‘ected string
performance achievement, independent-samples t tests were conducted to test for
89 significant difi’erences in performance achievement between students who had early music instruction prior to Suzuki instruction and those who did not.
Resultsilntd Conclusi_o_n_s
It was found that PMMA mean scores increased fi'om pre- to post-instruction administration for all age levels of the Suzuki group. PMMA mean scores of the general music students increased, too, from pre- to post-instruction administration of PMMA, with the exception of the Rhythm mean scores of the 7- and 8-year old students. It is possible that the rhythm training provided through general music instruction in this setting was not efficient or challenging enough to support the 7 - and 8-year old students’ rhythm aptitude development. The fact that the older the students the harder it is for their music aptitude to develop (Gordon, 1990; Taggart, 1997) might have also been one of the reasons for the decrease in rhythm aptitude of 7- and 8-year-old control group students.
After the students of the experimental and control group were matched according to age and pre-instruction music aptitude, their post-instruction PMMA scores were compared. It was found that the Suzuki students tended to have higher post-instruction
PMMA Tonal and Composite mean scores and lower Rhythm mean scores than the general music students with whom they were matched. None of these difl‘erences was, however, found to be statistically significant. Although the rhythm aptitude of the Suzuki students did not decrease from pre- to post-instruction administration of PMMA, it did not develop as much as the rhythm aptitude of the general music students with whom they were matched. It could be speculated that Suzuki instruction aids the development of tonal and overall music aptitude more than general music instruction does, while rhythm instruction offered through the Suzuki method may not be as efficient for the development
of rhythm aptitude as the rhythm instruction provided through a general music program.
The superiority of the Suzuki method for tonal and overall aptitude development needs to be further investigated. The intensity and individualization of instruction that take place in the Suzuki method, along with music listening and parental reinforcement of music learning daily at home, are possible reasons why the Suzuki method may indeed be more effective for tonal and overall aptitude development. In private lessons, Suzuki teachers have opportunities to observe each individual and teach to their individual needs.
Individualization of instruction is not as easily accomplished in a typical general music program, where music teaching is usually directed to the average child. Constant listening to the Suzuki repertoire in group classes, concerts, “play-ins”, and at home, including music pieces that are more advanced and rich tonally than beginners’ repertoire, could also be contributing to superior tonal development of the Suzuki Students compared to general music students. It will be interesting for filture researchers to investigate the effects of
Suzuki instruction on tonal aptitude of students who are given even broader daily music listening assignments that include songs in major, minor and other tonalities (dorian, lydian, mixolydian, locrian etc.). As it is evident due to non-significant results, further research is needed to test the validity of the conclusions in the present study and to determine the factors that contribute to superior tonal development of Suzuki students, if this finding holds true.
Due to non-significant results concerning rhythm aptitude development of Suzuki students, further research is needed to investigate the reasons why, if indeed, Suzuki rhythm instruction is less effective than general music rhythm instruction for students’
91 rhythm aptitude development. It can be speculated that the treatment period was not long enough for the effects of Suzuki instruction on music aptitude development to be clearly defined. The amount of fine motor learning that takes place at the beginning stages of learning an instrument in addition to music learning might be influencing how quickly the efi‘ects of Suzuki instruction on developmental music aptitude become evident. The quite limited rhythm instruction offered to Suzuki students during their first semester of studies, focusing on learning songs that include four rhythm patterns in duple meter, might also be contributing to the Suzuki students’ lower rhythm aptitude as compared to that of general music students after a semester (22 weeks) of instruction.
Attention should generally be given to the fact that all general music students in the present study were taught by the same music specialist, which is likely to have created a teacher effect. Studies that employ longer instructional periods and a number of public school music programs and music specialists to control for any teacher effect are necessary, if the effects of the Suzuki method on music aptitude development as compared to the effects of general music instruction on general music students are to be determined.
Future research also needs to control for additional music instruction that Suzuki students might have been receiving. It is possible that a number of the Suzuki students that participated in the present study were also receiving general music instruction as part of their regular school program, but no control was actually provided for it. Future research needs to clarify whether the greater tonal and overall music aptitude development of the
Suzuki students in the present study reflected actual differences between Suzuki and general music instruction or if it was a result of the fact that some of the Suzuki students had been receiving both Suzuki and general music instruction during the instructional
92 period.
Finally, it could be possible that there are not, indeed, any significant differences in the way the two instructional methods affect the development of music aptitude. In this case, Gordon’s (1986) claim that “the children who had elected not to study an instrument have no less music aptitude as a group than children who had elected to study an instrument” (p. 107) would be verified. More research is needed to clearly define the effects of Suzuki instruction on developmental music aptitude and to decide which of the factors presented above influence, if at all, and in what ways, the development of Suzuki students’ music aptitude.
Pre-instruction PMMA scores predicted the instrumental performance achievement of Suzuki students. PMMA Tonal, Rhythm, and Composite scores were also predictive of
Expression achievement scores. Expression is an important and necessary part of musical performance, and it is often indicative of a really good rather than simply a technically proficient musician. Predictive validity coefficients for PMMA Tonal and Composite scores were slightly lower than the ones reported in the PMMA Manual , but higher for
Rhythm. The results of this study firrther substantiate the predictive validity of PMMA because, in addition to verifying the findings of other longitudinal predictive validity studies of PMMA (Gordon, 1986; Woodruff, 1984), they are also derived fiom a sample that includes more ages (5- to 8-year old students) from the spectrum of developmental music aptitude than what other studies have included so far.
Finally, it was found that Suzuki students who received early childhood music instruction tended to receive higher instrumental performance achievement ratings than students who did not have such instruction. The small size of the sample along with the
93 inequality in group sizes may have made it harder to find statistical significance.
Furthermore, no control was provided in the present study for the effects on firture performance achievement of the amount, type, and quality of early childhood music instruction as well as for the effects of the age during which early childhood music instruction was received. It is possible that some or all of the above factors caused interactions that remained undetected by the present study. Only with caution can it, therefore, be concluded that early childhood music instruction affects future instrumental performance achievement.
Implieetions for Music Education
Results regarding the efi‘ects of Suzuki instruction on developmental music aptitude of Suzuki students, revealed only trends in the way Suzuki instruction influences musical development. One needs to keep in mind that results were mostly non-significant, and therefore, further research is needed to verify those results, so that conclusive findings are established and generalization is possible.
The trends found in this study suggest that Suzuki instruction aids the development of tonal and overall music aptitude more than general music instruction does, while general music students’ rhythm aptitude seems to develop more than that of the Suzuki students. The individualization and intensity of instruction and daily reinforcement of music learning that takes place in a Suzuki program could be contributing to superior tonal and overall music aptitude development of Suzuki students as compared to general music students. The amount of motor skill learning that takes place during the first year of
Suzuki instruction and the quite limited rhytlun performing and listening repertoire of
94 beginning Suzuki students might be the reasons why beginning Suzuki students’ rhythm aptitude develops less than that of general music students. It is also possible that the effects of Suzuki instruction on rhythm aptitude need longer instructional periods, compared to 22-weeks in the present study, to become evident.
Modifications in the rhythm instruction provided through the Suzuki method may be needed. The Suzuki repertoire during the first year of study could be expanded to include songs in a variety of meters. Because songs in different meters might be difficult to be performed by beginners in terms of the bowings required, they can be included in the listening tasks that first-year Suzuki students are assigned. Twinkle variations that take a great portion of the instructional time during the first year of study, can be expanded to include variations in triple meter, combined, or unusual meters and more challenging rhythm patterns. Movement (either continuous, fluid movement or beat movement) can be more extensively employed as a possible aid for Suzuki students’ rhythm aptitude development.
Results of the predictive validity of PMMA indicated that PMMA scores are predictive of filtUre performance achievement. PMMA scores can be employed by music teachers so that they form appropriate expectations fi'om each student in terms of achievement and can appropriately advise parents for encouraging their children to seek instrumental instruction and additional music activities. Music teachers can use PMMA scores to gain information on students’ music aptitudes so that they can individualize instruction and teach to the students’ individual needs. That can be usefirl for general music teachers who do not often have the opportunity to observe every individual at length. Individualizing instruction in the context of the general music classroom could be a
95 way to compensate for the lack of private lessons in which individualization of instruction is more easily accomplished.
Regarding the effects of early childhood music instruction on firture performance achievement, it appears that students who have early childhood music instruction prior to beginning instrumental instruction tend to perform better than students who do not have such instruction. Because of the non-significant results found in the present study, findings on this problem are to be accepted with caution. Amount, quality, and type of early childhood music instruction, as well as age at which instruction was received, are possible factors, not controlled in the context of the present study, that might be interacting in defining the efl’ect of early childhood music instruction on students’ future performance achievement. The importance of early childhood music education needs to be advocated to parents, teachers, and caregivers, so that children are exposed to a rich music environment as early in their life as possible.
Reggmmendetiope for Fptpre Researeh
Results of the present study suggested that Sumki instruction aids the development of tonal and overall music aptitude more than general music instruction does, but it is not as effective as general music instruction for students’ rhythm aptitude development. Although tendencies in the data suggested the above, results did not reach significance. Further investigation of the effects of Suzuki instruction on developmental music aptitude employing larger sample sizes and longer instructional periods is needed to determine whether the trends found in the present study represent actual differences in the way Suzuki instruction affects music aptitude development as compared to general music instruction. Studies that provide for longer treatment periods and for several administrations of PMMA are needed to investigate the short and long term effects of the
Suzuki method on music aptitude development, so that a better picture of the way the method afl‘ects musical development can be obtained.
Comparative research studies employing several modifications of Suzuki rhythm training as the treatment and typical Suzuki rhythm training as the control, would give music educators information on how to improve beginning Suzuki instruction. Studies that control for any additional music instruction that Suzuki students may be receiving as part of their school curriculum are needed if the comparative effects of Suzuki and general music instruction are to be defined. Finally, replications of the present study including a greater number and variety of general music classes and Suzuki programs to control for teacher efi‘ect is essential for generalizability.
PMMA scores were found to be predictive of Suzuki students’ performance achievement scores. The present study included 26 five- to eight-year old Suzuki students, unlike Gordon’s study (1986) that involved only 7 - and 8-year old students and
Woodrufi’ s study (1984) which included only kindergarten children. However, the sample in the present study was not big enough to allow meaningful computation of predictive validity coefficients for each age level separately. PMMA predictive validity studies that include a larger sample of 5- to 8-year-old students would allow the predictive power of
PMMA for separate age levels to be determined.
Finally, it was found that Suzuki students who received early childhood music instruction tended to perform better than students who did not have such instruction. The small sample size, however, along with the inequality in group sizes may have hindered
97 finding statistical significance and did not allow conclusive results. Furthermore, no control was provided in the present study for the amount, type, and quality of early childhood music instruction, or for the period in life during which early childhood music instruction was received. It is possible that some or all of the above factors cause interactions, undetected by the present study, that define the way early childhood music instruction influences future performance achievement. Further research that employs larger samples and controls for the above factors seems warranted if the importance of early childhood music instruction for future musical success is to be cleariy defined.
Although results of the present study did not reach statistical significance in two out of the three problems that were investigated, they revealed interesting trends on important issues of musical development. More studies are needed to provide complete and conclusive information on the efi‘ects of the Suzuki method on music aptitude development and the importance of formal early childhood musical experiences for future success. It is hoped that findings of the present study will provide the impetus for firrther research so that the importance of early childhood musical experiences is firrther investigated and the effects of the Suzuki method are clearly defined, determining some of the factors that contribute to students’ optimal music development.
98 APPENDICES
99 APPENDIX A
UCRIHS Permission
TO: thia_Taggart 2 4 Musrc dg.
RE: IRB#: 97-642 . TITLE: THE EFFECT OF SUZUKI‘VIOLIN INSTRUCTION AND EARLY MUSICAL EXPERIENCES ON THE DEVELOPMENTAL MUSIC APTITUDE AND PERFORMANCE ACHIEVEMENT OF BEGINNING SUZUKI VIOLEN STUDENTS REVISION REQUESTED: N/A CATEGORY. 1-A.B APPROVAL DATE: 10/06/97
The university Committee on Research Involving HHmun Subjects'IUCRIHSI review of this reject as complete. I am pleased to advase that the rights and wel are of the human subjects appear to be adequahely “retested and methods to obtaan informed consent are a roprrate. Egrefore, the UCRIHS approved this project and any re sions listed a ve.
RINBNAL: UCRIHS approval is valid for one calendar year. beginning with the approval date shown above. Investigators planning to continue a project be and one year must use the green renewal form (enclosed wash e oragrnal a royal letter or when a project is renewed) to seek t certification. There is a maxamum of four_such expedrt renewals ssrble. Investigatogs wis to contrnue a prOJect beyond tha tame need to submat 1: again or complete revaew.
REVISIONS: UCRIHS must review guy changes in procedures involving human EEZjects, rior to anatration of t e change. If this is done at .time o renewal, please use the en renewal form. To revrse an approved protocol at an o r tame during the year send your wratten request to the IRS Chaar, requesting revised approval and referencin the project's IRB # and title. Include in your request a descr ptron of the change and any revised - ins runents, consent forms or advertisements that are applicable. PROBLEMS] , CHANGES: Should either of the £011 ' arise during the course of the work, investigators must noti UCRIHS promptly: (1) roblems (unexpected sade effects, comp aints, e c.) involving uman subjects or (21 changes an the research environment or new information 1ndicating greater risk to the human sub'ects than existed when the protocol was prevaously revaewed and approved.
If we can be of any future help, lease do not hesitate to contact us at (517)355-2180 or BAX (51714 2- 171. Sincerely, vid 8. Wright, Ph.D. RIBS Chair DEflzbed ,/
cc: Lelouda Stamou
HX) APPENDIX B
Letter to Parents of the Suzuki Students
Dear parent:
My name is Lelouda Stamou and I am a Suzuki violin teacher currently teaching at the Suzuki program in the Community Music School at Michigan State University. I am also a doctoral student in Music Education and this year I will be working on my dissertation research. I am writing to ask your permission for your daughter or son to participate in my research study. The objectives of my study are: (a) to investigate the efl‘ect of Suzuki instruction on your child's music potential, (b) to investigate whether your child's performance achievement after six months of Suzuki instruction will match his or her _ potential as measured by a music aptitude test that will be administered to the children prior to instruction, and (c) to determine whether any differences exist in performance achievement between Suzuki students who had early childhood music classes prior to starting Suzuki lessons and those who did not. Children participating in the study will be beginning Suzuki students, like your own child. They are going to take a music aptitude test (a test that shows the child's music potential) two times during the year. The first time will be in September and the second in March or April. The test has two parts, the Tonal subtest and the Rhythm subtest and each one of them lasts for 12 minutes. Children listen to recorded pairs of rhythm or tonal patterns and have to decide whether the patterns in the pair are same or difi‘erent. In March or April children will also be audiotaped while individually performing a song that they will all learn during the year. This study has already been explained to the director and the teachers in the Suzuki program and I am contacting you with their permission. Participation is entirely voluntary. The test scores will remain confidential and can be given to you upon request. Your child is free to withdraw from the study at any time without penalty and can also refuse to participate in any procedures. I hope you will approve of your son or daughter’s participation, and you can indicate this by signing and returning the Qnsent form attached to this letter. If you have any questions or concerns about this study, please call me at (517) 355-6200. Judy Palac at 355-7665, or Cindy Taggart at 353-9122.
Yours sincerely,
Lelouda Stamou
101 APPENDIX C
Consent Form for Suzuki Students
W
I have read the explanation attached and hereby consent to my child's participation in your study on beginning Suzuki students. I understand that participation is entirely voluntary, that my child is free to withdraw from the study at any time without penalty, and that my child can refuse to answer any questions or refiise to participate in the procedures. I understand that my child's verbal assent will be obtained as a precondition of participating in the study, and that my child's name will not be used in any report of results. Within these restrictions, I understand that when the study is completed the overall results of it can be made available to me upon my written request.
Signed: Date:
(Parent or Legal Guardian)
Child's Name:
Private Teacher's Name:
102 APPENDIX D
Music Experience Questionnaire (MEQ)
First and last name of your ghilg:
Name of your private Suzuki teacher:
1. Did your child have any early childhood music instruction outside of his/her preschool or day-care center before enrolling in the Suzuki program?
YES NO
a. If you answered “YES”, what kind of instruction did your child have?
b. For how long (weeks, months, or years) did your child have that instruction?
c. For how many hours (or minutes) a week did your child have that instruction?
2. Did your child have any early childhood music instruction as part of his/her preschool or day-care center before enrolling in the Suzuki program?
YES NO
a. Ifyou answered “YES”, what kind of instruction did your child have?
b. For how long (weeks, months, or years) did your child have that instruction?
c. For how many hours (or minutes) a week did your child have that instruction?
103 APPENDIX E
Letter to Parents of the General Music Students
Dear Parent:
My name is Lida Stamou and I am a violin teacher and a doctoral student in Music Education at the School of Music at Michigan State University. I am writing to ask your permission for your child to participate in my research study. Your child along with other children in his or her regular music class will take a music aptitude test (a test that defines the child's music potential) two times during this year. The first will be in September 1997 and the second in March or April 1998. The purpose of taking this test will be to investigate how your child's music aptitude changes through time. The test has two parts: the Tonal subtest and the Rhythm subtest and each of them lasts approximately 12 minutes. Children listen to recorded pairs of tonal or rhythm patterns and decide whether the patterns of each pair are the same or difi‘erent. The responses and test scores of all children will remain confidential.
This study has already been explained to the director and the teachers in the school and I am contacting you with their permission. Participation is entirely voluntary, and your child is free to withdraw from the study at any time without penalty. Your child can also refuse to answer any questions or refuse to participate in any procedure. Participants in the study will be at no risk. The test scores will remain confidential and can be given to you upon your written request. I
I hope you will approve of your son or daughter’s participation, and you can indicate this by signing and returning the consent form attached to this letter. Ifyou have any questions or concerns about this study, please call me at (517) 355-6200, Judy Palac at 355-7665, or Cindy Taggart at 353-9122.
Yours sincerely,
Lelouda Stamou
104 APPENDIX F
Consent Form for General Music Students
CONSENT FORM
I have read the explanation attached and hereby consent to my child's participation in your study on music aptitude development. I understand that participation is entirely voluntary, that my child is free to withdraw fi'om the study at any time without penalty, and that my child can refirse to answer any questions or refirse to participate in the procedures. I understand that my child's verbal assent will be obtained as a precondition of participating in the study, and that my child's name will not be used in any report of results. Within these restrictions, I understand that when the study is completed the overall results of it can be made available to me upon my written request.
Signed: Date:
(Parent or Legal Guardian)
Child's Name:
Name of General Music Teacher:
105 APPENDIX G
“Twinlde Theme”
106 APPENDIX H
Performance Achievement Rating Scale
Intonation
Choose only one criterion from the ones below:
5. Plays the correct parts of the song and all of the notes in tune. 4. Plays the correct parts of the song and most of the notes in tune. 3. Plays the correct parts of the song and a few notes in tune. 2. Plays the parts of the song incorrectly and most of the notes in tune. 1. Plays the parts of the song incorrectly and a few of the notes in tune.
Rhfihm
Choose only one criterion from the ones below:
Keeps a steady tempo and plays all the rhythm patterns correctly. Keeps a steady tempo and plays most of the rhythm patterns correctly. Does not keep a steady tempo and plays most of the rhythm patterns correctly. Does not keep a steady tempo and plays a few of the rhythm patterns correctly. Does not keep a steady tempo and plays none of the rhythm patterns correctly.
Expressiveness
Circle any of the criteria below that are satisfied by the student:
Plays with a feeling of continuity within each phrase. Breathes at the end of each phrase. Plays with appropriate tempo. Plays with appropriate bowing articulation. Plays with good tone quality. era-99's»
107 REFERENCES
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116 MICHIGAN STATE UNIV. LIBRARIES \l 1ll “WI W W ”I ”W lfll H W IHI W IN” MI W ll“ 1ll 31293016838967