Everyone Can! Elementary Children's Perceptions on Singing

Abstract

Whenever people ask about my profession as a music educator, the first thing I’m typically told is: “Oh, I can’t sing!” The purpose of this study was to explore how selected 2nd, 4th and 6th grade students’ attitudes towards themselves as singers form, and how these perceptions and behaviors were interpreted by the teacher-researcher. Research questions that guided this study were a) How do students describe themselves as singers; b) How do parents describe themselves and their child as singers; and c) What are the comparisons between the teacher-researcher’s perception of them as singers versus their own perceptions? This research used purposeful sampling. Students were chosen based on how they answered ‘I can’ statements on a singing survey distributed to all 2nd, 4th and 6th grade students at an elementary-middle school on the West Coast of the United States. Participants chosen were mostly those identifying themselves as ‘non-singers’ who I, the teacher-researcher, identified as having singing skills or students who identified as singers and possessed a lower singing accuracy than their peers which I weighed through classroom observations and previous singing assessments. Following the basic qualitative research design, data collection included surveys, interviews, and recordings from both students and parents in addition to a teacher log. Data was transcribed and coded for themes. The themes that emerged from the data collection were a) insights from the student, parent, and teacher-researcher on perceptions of the child’s singing and b) parent and child experiences that aided in shaping singing perceptions. From this research, I found that elementary-aged students mostly perceived themselves to be capable of singing, and felt more confident when singing alone or with an individual or group of individuals that they trusted would support and give them positive feedback. With practice, five out of six students believed that they could continue to improve their singing skills and confidence levels. Parents shared these same views about their children.