A comparison of the effects of verbal instruction and nonverbal teacher-student modeling on instructional effectiveness in instrumental music ensembles.

Abstract

This study concerns the comparative effects of verbal instruction and modeling instruction on instructional effectiveness in instrumental music classrooms. Although a small body of research strongly suggests that modeling is an effective educational strategy, other research shows that modeling is infrequently used and that the verbal behavior of teachers takes up 40 percent of a typical secondary instrumental music rehearsal. It is argued here that a teacher's use of modeling tools, such as his or her major instrument, synthesized harmonic and rhythmic backgrounds, and taped music selections for rhythmic movement, in conjunction with modeling strategies involving cyclic or concurrent teacher demonstration-student imitation, will result in greater instructional effectiveness than will typical verbal instruction. The primary hypothesis maintains that modeling is more effective than verbal instruction. Four middle school b and classes, two taught for ten weeks with verbal instruction and two with modeling instruction, were pre- and post-tested for ear-to-h and skills, kinesthetic response skills, and music discrimination skills. Videotapes of classes were analyzed to compare the efficiency of the two methods and to verify the absence of researcher and teacher bias. The two classes receiving modeling instruction demonstrated significantly greater ear-to-h and skills and kinesthetic response skills, although not general music discrimination skills, compared to the two classes receiving verbal instruction. These findings suggest that the use of modeling strategies and devices such as melodic echoes and rhythmic movement to music can lead to increased ear-to-h and skills and kinesthetic response skills. This finding implies that modeling strategies and devices should play a more prominent role in instrumental music pedagogy and should thus be addressed in pre- and inservice instrumental music teacher training. Follow-up studies are needed to address the issues of retention, impact on music reading, generalization to students at other levels of development, and generalization to other musical phenomena.