The focus of this project was the development and implementation of various interactive and presentation tools for use in a college-level music fundamentals course for non-music majors.  This chapter will  summarize the results of the project, including the primary areas of investigation: (1) student attitudes regarding the effectiveness of multimedia-aided instruction, (2) student achievement with regard to certain topics in the music fundamentals course relative to the incorporation of both commercially produced and concept-specific produced software by the author, and (3) student response to certain music selections using the Digital Affective Response Technology (DART) software program.  Conclusions and recommendations based on the findings of this study are found in the final portion of this chapter.
 

Student Attitudes

A survey instrument was devised to examine student attitudes relative to the use of multimedia instructional software in the classroom.  On a five-point scale, over 90% of the 166 students completing the survey indicated that the use of in-class multimedia materials was either somewhat helpful or very helpful.  None of the students reported that the use of multimedia in the classroom was not helpful.  There was no significant difference in responses to the survey in relation to gender, or perceived music experience on the part of the student.

The use of the Practica Musica software as an outside-of-class learning aid was perceived as either somewhat helpful or very helpful by 88% of the students, 7% indicated that it was not helpful, and 5% stated that it made no difference in their learning.

Key Signatures , a software program written by this author was reported to be somewhat helpful or very helpful by 81% of the students, 7% of the students indicated that it was not helpful, and 12% stated that it made no difference in their learning.

Software as a practice tool was reported to be somewhat helpful to very helpful by 91% of the students, 5% reported that it was not helpful, and 6% stated that it made no difference in their learning.  A large majority of students perceived the use of multimedia instructional software, both in-class and outside-of-class to be an aid to learning.
 

Student Achievement

Statistical analysis of the pretest/posttest instrument indicated significant gains in achievement by students using instructional software outside-of-class.  This was demonstrated in two areas: written note identification and written key signature recognition.

The overall score and the remaining subsections of the test indicated no significant difference in achievement due to software use.  There was no significant difference in pretest or posttest scores due to gender.
 

Musical Preferences

The DART software program was a dynamic measure of individual musical preferences.  Students indicated preference toward music selections with conjunct melodies, higher amounts of repetition in construct, and low proportions of syncopation.  Student opinions, however, varied greatly when asked to judge particular music selections as “good” or “bad” and the response time rating occurs approximately at an equal rate.  Preference for selections between these two areas take a significantly longer period of time.

Conclusions

Students from an undergraduate music fundamental course for non-music majors perceived the use of in-class multimedia presentation software as being a helpful tool for learning.  Those students also indicated that they perceived the use of outside-of-class software to be an effective aid to learning.  Cognitive gains were demonstrated with the incorporation of outside-of-class software over students not using outside-of-class software in two areas: note identification and written key signature recognition.  The second area is of particular interest in that it was an area in which both commercially produced software and content-specific faculty-produced software were incorporated; suggesting that a combination of commercially produced and content-specific faculty-produced software might be an effective teaching strategy.

Further study comparing outside-of-class software to that of no outside-of-class software use for classes not incorporating in-class multimedia presentation tools is needed.  This study did not do so, and results may be influenced by this factor.

Other factors may indeed be influencing the results of this study.  The overwhelmingly positive student survey results as well as the demonstrated cognitive gains could in fact be influenced by the daily inclusion in the lecture-demonstration itself and the attitude of the teacher for such learning tools.  Other factors could include the facilities used in this study.  Not all institutions would have such ideal facilities and equipment.  Results of other related studies could vary from institution to institution depending upon the combination of these variables.  Additional studies could help isolate such potential variables.

The use of the DART program proved to be an effective tool by which to measure certain attitudes of students toward particular music selections on a second-by-second basis.  This tool allowed large numbers of students to participate using existing facilities without further equipment purchase.

The results from the DART data indicate that students of this investigated population have preferences for music with particular constructs.  Although this area of the study was limited to only a few music construct areas, it suggests that in-class music selections demonstrating specific music concepts might be more effective if these demonstrated preferences are taken into consideration.

Other potentially interesting uses of the DART instrument exist.  Because of the software-based structure of the testing instrument, such a tool could be used in numerous replicating studies in institutions across the nation with existing computer labs.  Other benefits might include the computer-networking possibilities of a software-based preference data collection tool.  An entire classroom of students could respond to a music stimulus in a coordinated real-time fashion such that the moment-by-moment results of the music selection rating of both the individual and the group mean scores could be presented.  Peer-influence results among other areas of study could be investigated without the purchase of any additional equipment to the institution.  Such a study has already been started by this author.  In short, this type of tool offers flexibility for the researcher to design specific needs for data collection into the software program and can be implemented using preexisting computer labs.
 
 

Recommendations

There is a great need for further study of technologies of all types that are currently incorporated into music educational systems.  Much of the literature preceding the current period concluded mixed results from the use of various programs within music education.  It is this author’s conclusion  that some of the previous literature is not applicable to the current period in that the medium that was used to obtain the given results were vastly different as an interface for the student, and thus can not be compared to the potential of contemporary programs.  Because of the recent surpassing of certain technical benchmarks we have only recently entered the period whereupon the impact of multimedia can be truly measured.

There is also a great need for a current national survey concerning use of technology in music education.  Much has changed since the Taylor and Parrish 1978 national survey and the conclusions reached at that time are no longer applicable. Such a survey would be very helpful for educators, administrators, and school boards as decisions are made each year with regard to the potential inclusion of technology in the music curriculum.

This study has indicated that the implementation of multimedia into the classroom of a music fundamentals course for non-music-majors was perceived by those student to be an effective learning aid.  Further studies are needed to investigate the effectiveness and perception on the part of students in other music courses at all levels of music education.   Further study is also needed to investigate currently incorporated classroom presentation aids such as Microsoft’s Musical Instruments, among others, as to its’ effectiveness and perceived effectiveness on the part of both the teachers and the students.  Many existing classroom presentation programs are probably being incorporated, and the effectiveness of such incorporation should be investigated.

This study investigated only two of the three areas identified where  implementation of software programs could be beneficial: in the classroom and the lab.  The use of software at the student’s place of residence was not investigated in this study.  Industry has exhibited a trend toward the development of materials which will be accessed by the student from their place of residence; study with regard to the effectiveness of this area of learning is needed.

If future studies indicate similar results of positive attitudes on the part of the teacher and students, as well as demonstrated cognitive gains attributed to the incorporation of learning technologies both in and outside of the classroom, then dialogues between key organizations will be critical.  Organizations such as the Association for Technology in Music Instruction (ATMI), the Music Educators National Conference (MENC), along with textbook publishers, equipment and software manufactures will need to expand communication and cooperation for the creation of effective educational technology tools and technology-enriched teaching strategies.