Music Activity Preferences of Elementary Students

Abstract

A questionnaire regarding music classroom activity preferences was administered to 2,251 kindergarten through fifth-grade students. Students stated whether they liked to participate in 13 traditional music-classroom activities and eight music-programrelated activities, and they identified theirfavorite activity among six. Students preferred playing instruments above all other activities within and across grade levels, and 50% reported instrument playing as theirfavorite activity. Singing and listening were about equally liked within and across grades. Students preferred creative movement over dance within and across grades; first graders responded less positively to dance than to any other activity. Positive attitude toward composing declined with advancing grade level. Eighty-one percent liked to perform in music programs, and more than half liked to perform in small ensembles. Students responded very positively to attending concerts and having performers come to the classroom, but were less positive about participating in music contests. Chelcy L. Bowles, University of Wisconsin-Madison Music Activity Preferences of Elementary StudentsEducators have long realized the importance of engaging students in highly interesting activities to motivate learning. Music educators have considered the role of initial student interest in motivating students to learn skills and concepts that are considered primary music objectives but may or may not be valued by the student. At the 1981 Ann Arbor Symposium on the Applications of Psychology to the Teaching and Learning of Music, educators discussed the application of motivation theory to music teaching and learning. In the documen- tary of Session III of the Symposium, Motivation and Creativity, Raynor (1983) states that teachers "can influence intrinsic motivation bychoosing the tasks and materials for learning or performance that have been found to provide substantial inherent interest for the particular persons in question" (p. 18). Raynor further states that it is the responsibility of the teacher to discover those activities that are of high intrinsic value and to involve students in these activities. Eccles (1983) suggests that the music educator should find out what students like to do and should use preferred activities to help build a sense of mastery over material to be learned. Chelcy L. Bowles is an assistant professor of music in the Department of Liberal Studies and the Arts,In comparing the attitudes of teachers and students toward selected music objectives, Murphy and Brown (1986) found significant differences between students and teachers for 10 of 20 proposed objectives. The authors suggest that student rating seemed to reflect the attitudes toward the music activity ("methods of implementation") rather than toward mastery of the concept proposed in the objective. The results of this study imply that students have preferences for particular music classroom activities and that objectives may be achieved more readily by engaging students in activities they prefe...

A Case Study of Preschool Children’s Musical Interests at Home and at School

“…When comparing the results of the present study with the results of the mentioned studies (Bowles 1998;Temmerman 2000), where the children likewise expressed greater interest in activities such as playing instruments and movement to music, one can conclude that music activities enabling the child to move freely to music, singing (reproduction) and experimenting with sounds from instruments are far more favoured among the children than activities which are ''passive'' in nature, like, e.g. listening to music.…”

“…For this reason it is important that children are offered a variety of musical experiences already in the preschool period so that they can form a positive relationship toward music. In her extensive research involving children from kindergarten level to the fifth grade of primary school, Bowles (1998) finds that the children's interest in music activities decreases with age. Younger children showed greater interest in music activities than older ones.…”

An investigation of the music activity preferences of pre-school children

“…Such studies have found that regardless of gender, country of origin and socioeconomic background, perceptions about preferred activities are remarkably similar. Findings from these studies indicate that practical classroom musical activities that promote student involvement are most preferred, and that playing instruments is regarded more favourably than any other activity (for example, Nolan, 1973;Forsythe, 1977;Murphy & Brown, 1986;Temmerman, 1995;Bowles, 1998). …”

“…Speci®c attention is given to determining whether preferences exist for particular areas of activity, namely listening, singing, moving/dancing and/or playing instruments. The results demonstrate that although pre-school age children appear to respond favourably towards involvement in all musical activities ± a trend which appears to decline with increasing year level ± preferences do exist for speci®c types of activity (Vander Ark, Nolin & Newman, 1980;Bowles, 1998).…”

“…According to Temmerman this will go a long way to ensuring that children develop a positive attitude to music. More recently Bowles (1998), in her large-scale investigation conducted in Minnesota and Texas into the attitudes of school children (from Kindergarten through to ®fth grade) towards class musical activities, also found that students nominated playing instruments as their preferred activity from among singing, dancing/movement, listening, composing, playing instruments and talking about music. She also found`higher percentages of kindergarteners reported overall positive responses to most activities, and ®fth graders reported lowest percentages for all activities compared to students at other levels' (Bowles, 1998: 198).…”