Chapter 7 and 8: Psychology

1. What do psychologists think about musical ability? Is it inherited or developed? What is the relationship between intelligence and musical ability?

Musical ability has been researched and questioned for the past half century. Music aptitude tests have been developed and refined but are still questioned because of the many conflicting results that are generated from these tests. These aptitude tests assess the basic aspects of sound such as pitch, time, intensity, and timbre.
Music psychologists believe that music ability is a single ability and that the individual either has this talent of they are ‘unmusical’.
Another debate on musical ability is the nature vs. nurture question. Early psychologists studied the musical skill of prodigies and felt that musical ability had to come from the individuals inherited abilities. During the 1950s many psychologists began disagree with the concept of musical ability having anything to do with genetic influence or inheritance.
The relationship between intelligence and musical ability in not clearly cut. Musical savants are a rarity but they support the arguments of people with low intelligence and high musical ability. Psychologists Radocy and Boyle conclude that “all highly musical people appear to be highly intelligent, but not all highly intelligent people are musical” (1988, p. 303).

2. Summary Piaget’s stage theory for child development. Take a musical concept and discuss how such a concept could be taught to students who are in preoperational stage, the concrete operational stage, and the formal operational stage.

Piaget presents a four-stage theoretical structure for understanding the developmental process of children.
The first stage is the ‘sensorimotor stage’ and this stage begins from birth and ends around two years old. During this stage children tend to rely on what ‘is’ and that if the object cannot not be apprehended through one of the senses, then the object does not exist. Gradually children learn to interact with their environment at a basic level and these early strategies are called schemas. Children cannot be told what anything is ‘like’ and they must learn on their own using firsthand information. They must interact with their environment and see, taste, smell and touch everything in order to place some description to this ‘thing’.
The second stage is the ‘preoperational stage’ and lasts from ages two to seven. In this stage children develop language and are able to use words to represent what they have learned and stored in images in their minds. Children in this stage still interact with the world primarily using their senses but the ability of language allows children to label and classify items by common attributes. The musical concept of playing a basic percussion instrument on downbeats could be taught at the ‘preoperational level’. Students would be shown how to play their instruments (triangle, small cymbals, tambourine…) and then the teacher would demonstrate that the instrument could also be played on every downbeat and also line up the downbeats with every step forward. This simple exercise demonstrates that the students are able to correctly play a musical instrument and also perform an improvisatory parade around the classroom.
The third stage is the ‘concrete operational stage’ and this stage lasts from ages seven to eleven. During this stage students will be able to comprehend and perform more mentally complex actions such as describing the differences between loud, louder and loudest. Before the descriptions might only be loud and not loud. Students during this stage have the capacity of answering a question that requires a simultaneous understanding of a part of the whole and the whole. Sloboda (1985) states that children around the age of eight are capable of perceiving and remembering invariant aspects of otherwise different patterns. Students during this stage are able to associate many different elements of playing music at the same time. For example, a student during this stage is able to identify a note, place their fingers on the correct string, place their bow on the same string, and place the note in correct tempo and time. A musical concept that students could comprehend at this stage could be identifying the duration of a note by demonstrating the note length. The teacher could have students sit with a pencil and then the teacher would start the metronome. The teacher could play up to ten different examples of different note lengths without too much variety all while the metronome is playing. This would allow the students to associate the length of the note against the time being beaten by the metronome.
The final stage is the ‘formal operational stage’ and this stage occurs during the ages of eleven to sixteen. Students in this stage are evaluating different solutions to problems where a seven year old child might come up with one solution without reviewing the other possibilities. The individuality of each student is developing rapidly during this stage along with value systems and future goals. Teachers interacting with these students are not only teaching them their academics but also how to handle a cognitive thinking process that most closely resembles the basic thought process of an adult. A musical concept to teach for students at this level would be the ability to critique a performance. Earlier in their youth these student might have only described a performance simply as ‘good’ or ‘boring’ but now these students have the vocabulary to not only critique the musical performance but also to create teaching techniques that might improve or change the performance. Students at this stage would be required to write a descriptive analysis of the musical performance and also rehearsal techniques that would be needed and how they would be administered to the ensemble.

3. In what ways are the cognitive, affective, and psychomotor taxonomies useful to music teachers?

The cognitive taxonomy is organized as a hierarchy of questioning, with each question being successively more in depth and requiring the skills of the previous questions. The cognitive taxonomy would be helpful to a student that needs structure during for their practicing. The students would not only have a set of guidelines on what to practice but as the practicing continues they can evaluate and question their musical choices on shape of the line, clarity of articulation, notes missed/cracked…etc.
The affective taxonomy is organized in a hierarchy based on internalization defined as “acceptance by the individual of the attitudes, codes, principles, or sanctions that become a part of himself in forming value judgments or in determining his conduct” (Good, 1959, p. 296). Music teachers that are able to get their students to behave in a way that reflects the later levels of the affective taxonomy will become more resistant to change and is likely to be more lasting. As these values become completely internalized, the behaviors reflecting these values become consistent and characteristic of the individual.
The psychomotor taxonomy is organized by complexity; objectives classified at the lower levels are generally easier to carry out than those at the upper levels. The psychomotor taxonomy can be useful to music teachers that are teaching beginner instrumentalists. As these students grow in size and musical maturity they are able to gradually combine their skills into an efficient performance of motor skills such as playing at triple forte or a difficult passage of sixteenth notes.

4. What are the essential components of an educational objective that is stated in behavioral terms? What are the strengths and limitations of behavior modification in managing students in music classes?

The first objective of an instructional system is stating the educational objectives. These are a clear description of what the student is expected to be able to do after the instructional process. Teachers need this step because without it teachers have no means to determine what the educational process accomplished.
The second objective is developing instructional material to assist the student in meeting the objectives. The instructional material provides students with information to complete the objectives and will aid in the effectiveness of the instructional process.
The third objective is assessing the students’ success in reaching the stated objectives. This step provides teachers with information regarding the progress of individuals and it provides the teacher with information on the effectiveness of the materials and methods.
The fourth objective is revising the instructional materials based on the results of the assessment process. The ability of the system and teacher to make instructional revisions is the key to having an effective instructional system.
The strengths to using behavior modification in managing students are that students are able to define their own successes and failures. Students have a structured set of objectives to complete and will gain experience and skill through these premeditated methods.
The weaknesses to using behavior modification in managing students are having a defined set of terms or language that can be used to accurately define this medium. Defining particular standards in music is also difficult. Other subjects in education can easily define standards of success but defining music standards is like defining which state is best. Each will have their own set of distinct qualities that cannot be fairly compared to another. Another limitation is that music education cannot have a means-ends model of thinking. Music is an activity that most effectively takes the form of exploration; meaning one finds success and failure through many different situations.

5. Why is assessment in the affective domain more difficult than in the cognitive domain? Please also include your own experiences in responding to this question.

Assessment in cognitive domain is driven by the ability of the teachers to evaluate the thought processes employed by their students when performing instructional tasks. This is directly related to effective instruction by the teacher. By using the cognitive taxonomy, music teachers are likely to provide more systematic and effective instruction.
Assessment is more difficult in the affective domain because the development of aesthetic sensitivity to music is frequently a major affective component. The ability of teachers to meet the goal of developing an aesthetic sensitivity relies on their ability to develop and assess affective behaviors. If teachers do not assess the affective outcomes of their outcomes, they have no guidelines to determine the effectiveness of the curriculum and no evidence on which to base modifications. I have felt the difficulties with assessing the affective domain with my own students that I taught last year. During the second semester band auditions, there were clearly laid out instructions as to what passages were to be played and the tempo that they were to be performed. Many students did not come close to meeting my expectations and I questioned my teachings from the previous semester. Did I set up my students for success with the proper practice techniques so that they would be prepared for this audition? Did they practice over winter break? What else could I have done to help them? I spent more time the next semester in sectional time teaching students how to practice rather than how to play a passage of the current band repertoire.