Measures of Instructional Effectiveness in Music Research

Abstract

For this investigation, I reviewed 25 years of published experimental and descriptive research (1972-1997) involving the evaluation of music teaching in group and individual lesson settings. The Journal of Research in Music Education, the Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education, and the Journal of Music Therapy were the primary sources for the review, but I also included additional published articles that had been cited in the reference lists of the articles identified in these three primary journals. A total of 86 articles satisfying the criteria for inclusion were categorized according to methodology and purpose and were examined to determine both the dependent measure(s) and the unit(s) of analysis used in the evaluations of teaching. Measurements of teaching effectiveness in the research reviewed varied in specificity from frequency counts of verbal feedback to global evaluations of overall effectiveness. Although a number of studies included assessments of student attentiveness as a dependent measure, only 13 of the 86 investigations measured student achievement. In those instances in which aspects of teacher behavior were measured in relation to accomplishment of the learner, the strength of association between the behavior of the teacher and student achievement was found to be either very weak or statistically nonsignificant. All of the investigations reviewed used either the teacher or therapist, the instructional session (e.g., rehearsal, class), or a specified period of instructional activity as units of analysis. The underrepresentation of student achievement as a component dependent measure in research on music teaching and the averaging of teacher assessment data across rehearsals, classes, or lessons suggests a need to expand the research base to include the systematic measurement of teaching effectiveness in relation to the accomplishment of instructional goals.