Comparison of the impact of the reciprocal feedback model of musical response and the diachronic model in teaching music art on shaping musical taste of secondary school students

Senjan, Ivana. (2018). Comparison of the impact of the reciprocal feedback model of musical response and the diachronic model in teaching music art on shaping musical taste of secondary school students. PhD Thesis. Filozofski fakultet u Zagrebu, Department of Pedagogy.
(Poslijediplomski doktorski studij pedagogije) [mentor Dobrota, Snježana].

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Abstract

The ultimate goal of teaching Music Art in secondary schools is to develop students' music culture and shape their musical taste, namely, to educate critical and informed listeners and music connoisseurs who could competently participate in rich and heterogeneous music offer. In Croatia, the culturological problem of a large number of young people who have neither a shaped musical individuality nor a developed feeling for quality music has become more evident in the last twenty years. Under the influence of mass media and peer groups young people often prefer commercial music of questionable aesthetic value. Despite the suggestions of numerous music pedagogues regarding the possible improvements and modifications of the existing teaching approaches to achieve a more efficient aesthetic education, teaching Music Art in Croatia has kept the same Diachronic model based on the chronological study of music history since the school year 1954/1955, which brings the traditionally designed teaching model and contemporary educational efforts into conflict. Therefore, the goal of this thesis is to contribute to the improvement of music and aesthetic education of secondary school students with the aim of upgrading musical tastes, extending music preferences and developing the abilities to observe, experience and evaluate music to educate critical listeners sensitive about the quality of a piece of music or its performance, regardless of its style. The goal of this research was to compare the impact of a modern approach to teaching Music Art based on the Reciprocal feedback model of musical response (Hargreaves, MacDonald and Miell, 2005) and the traditional approach based on the Diachronic model on shaping musical taste of students. The structure of the doctoral dissertation is divided into seven sections: Introduction, Aesthetics, Music preferences and musical taste of the listeners, Teaching Music Art in Croatian general secondary education, Empiric research, Literature and Appendices. The chapter Aesthetics describes the historical development of Aesthetics as a scientific discipline that has, after formalist and idealistic starting points during the twentieth century, evolved into an interdisciplinary field due to psychological and psychologistic research in arts and the development of hermeneutics and experimental aesthetics. It points out the presence of contemporary aesthetic problems because of the pluralism of directions in art, but also because of the relativity of the contemporary system of values. The term aesthetic has spread to everyday life as well as trivialities and the process of artistic creation and experience is not reexamined any more, ethos and aspects of works of art are not judged, their idea and meaning are not demanded. The subchapter on aesthetic education points out its general-education quality and comprehensive cultural character, which enables its presence at all levels of general education. Since it is based on sensory perception, emotional experience, knowledge and the sense of values, the complexity of the field is best proven by the fact that aesthetic education comprises both rational and emotional components of an individual. That is why the subchapter on aesthetics of music, after considering various theoretical starting points about the perception of beauty in music, leads to the conclusion that the perception of a piece of music and the listener's response to art do not exclusively depend on the aesthetic and expressive quality of music, but also on the interaction of the senses with the aesthetic object and the spirituallymental sphere of the listener (Thompson, 2014, 27). The chapter Music preferences and musical taste of the listeners gives definitions and characteristics of preference and musical taste, defining preference as short-term esteeming the attraction of a piece of music in everyday situations (Dobrota and Reić Ercegovac, 2016; Lamont, 2014), while musical taste is defined as overall patterning of an individual's music preferences over longer time periods (Mirković-Radoš, 1996). Various theoretical approaches to music preference which emphasize influential factors on music preference, their interaction and the listener's musical response are mentioned (Berlyne, 1974; Dobrota and Reić Ercegovac, 2016; Juslin and Laukka, 2004; Konečni, 1982; Madden, 2014; Madsen and Geringer, 2000/2001; Martindale, Moore and Borkum, 1990; Walker, 1980). There is also a detailed survey of the two most well-known models of music preference: Interactive theory of music preference (LeBlanc, 1982) and Reciprocal feedback model of musical response (Hargreaves, MacDonald and Miell, 2005), the latter being the starting point for the empirical research. Numerous influential factors on music preference are described (the listener, the situations and contexts of listening and the music) as well as the three types of musical response (physiological, cognitive and affective). Possible approaches to teaching Music Art which could improve aesthetic education are advised. The chapter Teaching Music Art in Croatian general secondary education is structured as a retrospective of teaching music from the ninth century until the present day, giving information about the curriculum and specific qualities of teaching approaches. Many didactic and teaching methods of the contemporary school subject Music Art are mentioned together with the analysis of the existing diachronic and synchronic model of teaching and on the basis of the problems perceived a possible perspective of the school subject is suggested. The subchapter on aesthetic education in teaching music describes the particularities related to the listener and the processes that happen during listening and analyzing music. For example, the subchapter deals with the strategies of listening to music, the typology of listeners, the models of listening to music in class, and the perception of music and critical thinking, all with the aim to upgrade the existing teaching music approaches regarding listening to music, which is the dominant activity in teaching Music Art. Also, as an example of a contemporary approach, intercultural music education based on understanding and accepting traditional music from different parts of the world is suggested since culturally heterogenous groups of students in schools in developed countries can be noticed more often than before. Although the changes in demographic structure of the students are not so explicit in Croatia, the intercultural music education is important for the preservation of cultural integrity and the development of individual competences that go beyond the differences among cultures and nations. The chapter Empiric research is divided into several subchapters where the methodology and modus operandi of the research are described, the arguments and the results are delivered and a conclusion is reached. For the research, conducted in methodological procedure as an experiment with parallel groups, the research instrument composed of a questionnaire and an experimental curriculum was constructed. The instrument comprised the Initial Questionnaire, the Final Questionnaire and the Evaluation Form. The Initial Questionnaire and the Final Questionnaire did not differ in any question. The Evaluation Form was handed out to the students together with the Final Questionnaire in order to examine the students' opinions about the impact of the experimental curriculum of Music Art on shaping their musical taste and about some specifics of the teaching approach during the school year when the research was conducted. The experimental curriculum of Music Art that the doctoral candidate created on her own and realized during the school year 2015/2016 with the students of two first grade classes and the students of two fourth grade classes of the general-program secondary school Gimnazija dr. Ivana Kranjčeva Đurđevac (N=90) was divided into four thematic sections: The listener, Situations and contexts of listening to music, Music and Musical response, analogously to the concept of the Reciprocal feedback model of musical response (Hargreaves, MacDonald and Miell, 2005). Simultaneously with the realization of the experimental curriculum, in the control group consisted of two first grade classes and two fourth grade classes of general-program in the secondary school Gimnazija „Fran Galović“ Koprivnica (N=94) the teacher D.B.-B. taught Music Art by the existing curriculum based on the Diachronic model. Although in both schools a total of 184 students took part in the research, the results of 171 students were taken into consideration because they took part in both phases of the questionnaire. The control group consisted of a total of 85 participants while the experimental group consisted of a total of 86 participants. The questionnaire comprised eighty particles whose function was to examine the personality traits of the listeners,the situations and contexts of listening to music, the perception of music and the attitudes to interculturalism. The fifth part of the questionnaire, the Appreciation of music excerpts had two listening tasks that related to the evaluation of preferences and knowledge of pieces of music of different genres and testing the knowledge of music via formal analysis of music excerpts. The first listening task tested the students' evaluation of preferences and knowledge of 15 music excerpts of classical, film and jazz music as well as musicals, traditional and popular music of average duration of 0:50 minutes (G. F. Händel: Suite Water Music, Alla Hornpipe; D. Pejačević: Ljubica; W. A. Mozart: Ave Verum Corpus; G. Puccini: Turandot, Nessun Dorma; John Williams: Theme From Schindler's List; Frank Sinatra: Fly Me To The Moon; Musical Grease: You're The One That I Want; Klapa Šibenik (harmony-singing group): Garlica je propivala (folk song); F. Barić: Podravska zvona; Fado: Mariza: Que Deus Me Perdoe; Bulgarian folk song: Houbava Milka; E. Presley: Suspicious Minds; Basshunter: Now You're Gone (techno); Gibonni: Činim pravu stvar; Z. Đorđević: Bum čika čika). The aim of the second listening task was to test the students' knowledge of the music excerpts which are included in the existing curriculum for teaching music in primary and general-program secondary schools. To test the knowledge of music nine excerpts of average duration of 1:50 minutes were used (G. F. Händel: Messiah, For Unto Us A Child Is Born; G. P. da Palestrina: Missa Papae Marcelli, Kyrie; W. A. Mozart: A Little Night Music, 1st Movement; J. S. Bach: Toccata And Fugue In D Minor; B. Smetana: Vltava; G. Bizet: Carmen – Habanera, Aria Carmen from Act I; J. Offenbach: Can-Can from Orpheus In The Underworld; C. Orff: Carmina Burana – O Fortuna; A. Kabiljo: Jalta, Jalta, Neka cijeli ovaj svijet - May This Whole World). The participants' task was to recognize and write the components: name and surname of the composer, name of the piece of music, style period, music genre, performing ensemble, tempo, musical texture and scale. After determining the initial results and teaching Music Art by applying the new method in the period of one school year, its effects on shaping musical taste of students were tested by the Final Questionnaire. The students' musical taste was examined with regard to the situations and contexts of listening to music (personal context, family, media, peers and friends), the perception of music (general perception of music and perception of musically expressive components of music via listening tasks), their preferences of music styles and music excerpts of different genres and their intercultural competence (the participants' intercultural attitudes towards knowledge, care and action, their attitudes towards traditional music of Croatia and other nations, their attitudes towards music with traditional elements in Music Art classes) and their attitudes towards teaching music (the participants' general attitude towards teaching Music Art, their attitude towards the impact of Music Art classes on different aspects of music knowledge. In accordance with the mentioned above, the tasks and the hypothesis of the research were defined. The results of the final questionnaire show that statistically significant differences between the experimental and the control group are not established regarding the evaluation of the situations and contexts of listening to music, and the most important factors that have impact on the choice of music are dominantly individual factors, their personality traits, emotions and moods, and partly the society, media and family. Also, the differences are not established regarding general perception of music because the results show that the participants of both groups perceive music in a similar way. For example, the biggest percentage of participants reply they like listening to pieces of music with fast tempo in a major key, while they do not care if they are simple or complex. While listening to music the participants first notice its melody, tempo, rhythm and text, therefore the most common reaction of the listener is humming the tune and rhythmic movements. Nevertheless, the results of testing the perception of musically expressive components, certain knowledge about music excerpts and the certainty in aesthetic appreciation and the evaluation of the quality of performance of the music excerpts point out statistically significant difference in favour of the experimental model of teaching. Testing the preferences of music styles shows that teaching by the Reciprocal feedback model of musical response has no significant influence on the evaluation of different music styles, with the exception of film music, traditional music of Croatia and traditional music of the world as well as musicals and quality music. After the analysis of the students' intercultural attitudes towards knowledge, care and action, both groups do not show improvement in their intercultural competences but the group that was taught music based on the Reciprocal feedback model of musical response shows more appreciation for the musical heritage of their nation, more interest to attend the concerts of folk music, more knowledge about the songs composed by Croatian composers and the interest to listen to them. They would opt for enlarging the share of music with traditional elements of different nations in music classes. The experimental group and the control group do not show difference regarding the students' general attitudes towards teaching music, their opinion about the efficiency or their personal experience of music classes, but the students of the experimental group think that they have developed their critical thinking for music and that they have learnt to tell apart the characteristics of different style periods of music history, to recognize the composers, style periods, the names of pieces of music and musically expressive elements within a piece of music. They believe that they have built the identity of a quality music listener. The results of the analysis of the closed questions in the Evaluation Form confirm that the students from the experimental group are more positive in their evaluation of the influence of Music Art classes on the perception of musically-expressive elements, in their certainty in aesthetic appreciation of a piece of music and the evaluation of the quality of performance. They are more positive in the evaluation of the improvement of their intercultural competences, their attitude towards music classes and their music teacher and the impact on shaping their musical taste. Even though the results of the analysis of the open questions in the Evaluation Form are not taken into consideration when confirming the hypothesis, they still help better understanding and evaluation of the quality of general secondary school music education and they give insight into specific observations and suggestions for the improvement of Music Art classes. The participants of both groups agree that in classes they liked best listening to music: W. A. Mozart: A Little Night Music, E. Grieg: Peer Gynt Suit and C. Orff: Carmina Burana, O Fortuna. The experimental group participants liked best having guests at their classes, and their favourite lessons were Film Music, Interculturalism, and Low Quality Everyday Music, while the control group participants liked best Jazz Music lesson. These students' observations suggest the need to enrich lessons with a larger variety of topics and more listening to music, especially contemporary music which is closer to the students, but they also show that the students are not closed to preferences of classical music of different style periods. What students did not like are some lessons, homework and the extensiveness of the teaching material. Having in mind that both groups think that lessons should include more listening to music, more modern music and music of students' choice as well as more guests in classes, it is logical to conclude that the curriculum should be modernized and that the model of teaching Music Art should be changed. On the basis of the results obtained from the research it can be concluded that teaching music based on the Reciprocal feedback model of music response can have a significant impact on shaping musical taste of students, unlike teaching by Diachronic model. Although the progress is not seen in all elements, it is possible to expect that longitudinal research of this model of teaching in duration of four years of secondary education could show a more intensive impact of teaching Music Art on shaping musical taste of students.

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