Elementary-Aged Children's Aesthetic Experiences with Music

Abstract

This study examined the perceived aesthetic experiences of elementary school children. Sixty 4th graders, from 3 intact public school classes that included students identified as gifted and with special needs, listened to 'Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 43, Variation 18,' by Rachmaninoff and simultaneously indicated responses by manipulating a Continuous Response Digital Interface (CRDI) dial. One week later, participants repeated the listening activity under identical experimental conditions. As in similar studies with adults, aggregated graphic analyses showed that many of the children's highest and lowest reactions tended to cluster at the same places, and test-retest reliability showed a high positive correspondence between the two listening sessions (r = .99). Although it is impossible to know if these 4th graders actually had aesthetic experiences, it seems clear that they did respond to this music. It was determined that 57 students, including most of those with special needs, successfully used the CRDI dial to indicate their reactions and 58 expressed comfort with the simplicity of its use. Additional analyses, which compared responses based on developmental statuses, found a wide range of correlations between children who were categorized as normally developing, gifted, or having special needs.

Musical Development and Learning Characteristics of Students

“…• Research suggests that an especially important period in musical development occurs between the ages of 5 and 7 (Hargreaves & Zimmerman, 1992) • 5-year-olds can do memory tasks such as clapping the melody of a song (Miyamoto, 2007) • Timbre detection is fairly accurate after 5-6 years of age (Gembris, 2006) • Sound can be associated with symbols starting around age 5 (Miyamoto, 2007) • Children are still in an improvisatory stage at age 7 (Miyamoto, 2007) • Beginning around age 6, children should begin to use musical notation (Kenney, 1997) • Research suggests the following developmental sequence in children 5 and older: volume, timbre, tempo, duration, pitch and harmony (Miyamoto, 2007) • Conservation (the ability to coordinate different aspects) begins after age 7 (Davidson & Scripp, 1988;Warrener, 1985) • Elementary school age children often understand musical concepts but lack the vocabulary to accurately described them (Hargreaves & Zimmerman, 1992) Middle childhood: 7-11 years • Children develop the ability to concentrate on nondominant aspects of music around the age of 10 (Warrener, 1985) • Research suggests a music creativity growth stage between Grades 2 and 4 (Kiehn, 2003) • Aesthetic responses to music at this stage are similar to adults (Paul, 2008) • Beginning around age 7, children can incorporate more than one element of music at the same time (Davison & Scripp, 1988;Warrener, 1985) • Use musical notation as early as second grade to more quickly facilitate accurate performance of patterns (Reifinger, 2006) • Preference for popular music begins around age 8 (Gembris, 2006) • Stabilization of many musical concepts appears to occur around age 9 (Hargreaves & Zimmerman, 1992), and most children understand transformation by age 10 (Serafine, 1988) • Children have the ability to classify music beginning around age 10 (Sloboda, 1985) Adolescence: 11-20 years • Technical, expressive, and structural control develops around age 13-14 (Swanick & Tillman, 1986) • Adolescents can critically and analytically think about music (Frostik et al, n.d.) • Starting around age 15, adolescents develop a growing sense of music's affective power (Swanick & Tillman, 1986) • Adolescents demonstrate an increased ability to articulate about music (Frostik et al, n.d.;…”

Η Διδακτική Της Μουσικής Με Τη Χρήση Νέων Τεχνολογιών Σε Μαθητές Πρωτοβάθμιας Και Δευτεροβάθμιας Εκπαίδευσης

“…Σύµφωνα µε την Paul (2008) (Kersten, 2006, Loveless, 2004 (Geringer, 2004). Έχει χρησιµοποιηθεί ευρέως σε παιδιά προσχολικής και πρωτοσχολικής ηλικίας για να εξεταστεί η προτίµηση τους και η πρόσληψη στη µουσική (Byrnes, 1997;DeNardo & Kantorski, 1995, 1998Fredrickson, 1994;Parisi, 2004).…”