Individualized Instruction,Student Achievement,and Dropout in an Urban Elementary Instrumental Music Program

Abstract

In this study involving fifth- and sixth-grade students in an urban school system, both individual instruction within instrumental music classrooms and student subject variables were examined for their influence on an audiovisual music reading test, a performance sight-reading test, and attrition from the music program. When compared to group instruction, individualized instruction resulted in significantly superior scores on the performance test for students of higher than normal academic reading skills. No other instructional interactions or main effects were found. Of the subject variables used in the analyses, only the students' academic reading achievement and socioeconomic status were able to account consistently for unique and nontrivial proportions of variance in the three dependent variables. Scores on the two measures of achievement and dropout were not predictable by race or sex, and the students' grade level was either a nonsignificant or minor factor in the analysis. Differences in teachers also had virtually no effect on student achievement or attrition.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Block, J. H. (Ed.). Mastery learning: Theory and practice. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971.

Bloom, B. S. Learning for mastery. Evaluation Comment, 1968, 1(2), 17–33.

Colwell, R. Music achievement tests. Chicago: Follett Educational Corp., 1970.

Ebel, R. L. Estimation of the reliability of ratings, Psychometrika, 1951, 16, 407–424.

Flanagan, J. C. Program for learning in accordance with needs. Psychology in the Schools, 1969, 6, 133–136.

Flanagan, J. C. Education: How and for what. American Psychologist, 1973, 28, 551–556.

Glaser, R. Adapting the elementary school curriculum to individual performance. In Proceedings of the 1967 invitational conference on testing problems. Princeton, N.J.: Educational Testing Service, 1968.

Johnson, P. O. , & Neyman, J. Tests of certain linear hypotheses and their applications to some educational problems. Statistical Research Memoirs, 1936, 1, 57–93.

McCarthy, J. The effect of individualized instruction on the performance achievement of beginning instrumentalists. Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education, 1974, 38, 1–12.

10.

Shugert, J. An experimental investigation of heterogeneous class and private methods of instruction with beginning instrumental music students. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Illinois, 1969.

11.

Waa, L. An experimental study of class and private methods of instruction in instrumental music. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Illinois, 1965.

12.

Washburne, C. W. Educational measurements as a key to individualizing instruction and promotions. Journal of Educational Research, 1922, 5, 195–206.

13.

Watkins, J. , & Farnum, S. The Watkins-Farnum performance scale. Winona, Minn.: Hal Leonard Music, Inc., 1954.