The Effect of an Accompanying Situation on the Improvement of Students' Sight Reading Skills

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect that accompanying a tape-recorded soloist has on the ability of music students to sight read vocal and instrumental accompaniments at the piano. Specifically, the study examined a tape-recorded accompanying situation and its effects on the accuracy of the following sight reading skills: pitch, rhythm, and expression.

The null hypotheses for the study were tested by the Student's t test (a parametric test), the Mann-Whitney U test (a non-parametric test), and an analysis of covariance (a parametric test). Since the results of all three tests agreed, the validity of the findings was enhanced.

The treatment group that employed a tape-recorded soloist as an aid to teaching sight reading had significantly higher mean posttest rhythm accuracy scores than did the group that employed no taped soloist. The pitch accuracy and expression accuracy mean posttest scores of the two groups were not significantly different.