Download Traditional Approaches to Assessing Classroom Music Achievement

Assessing Musical Behavior
By: Meredith Jackson
Why Assess Students?
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Determine students’ achievements
Gather feedback
Identify areas of additional instruction
How something is taught vs. how something is
assessed
– Teachers should not be motivated to “teach to”
tests
What is Assessment?
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Include both measurement and evaluation
Formal and informal
Teachers assess students daily
Evaluation includes both measuring and
judging outcomes of instruction
– Most music education is not easily measured
• How do you evaluate music instruction?
Some Measurement Theory
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How do you get an accurate measurement of musical behavior?
So many sources of error, it’s hard to determine accurate measurement
Reliability
– Concept of reliability focuses on consistency and stability of a test or scale
– Three types of reliability
Validity
– There are several ways to test for validity
– Three categories
The Relationship of Reliability and Validity
– If a test shows inconsistent results, if it’s not reliable, it’s not considered valid tests
Aptitude Tests predict future achievement
• Music Aptitude Tests
– Music Aptitude Profile (MAP) – Developed by Edwin Gordon and published in
1965
– Primary Measures of Music Audiation (PMMA) – Developed by Edwin Gordon
and published in 1979
Traditional Approaches to Assessing
Classroom Music Achievement
Objective Testing
Subjective Testing
• Multiple choice, matching,
true or false, short answer
• Why is this preferable?
• Essays, Short Essays
• Why is this preferable?
– Easier test to take
• What does it test?
– Large amounts of information
in a shorter amount of time.
– Facts
• Disadvantages
– Takes time to make
– Focus on objectives at lower
levels of cognitive processing
– Easier test to make
• What does it test?
– Critical thinking, organization,
clear thoughts
– Opinion
• Disadvantages:
– Takes a longer amount of time
to grade
– Various ways to assign grades
– Not everybody is a writer
Traditional Approaches to Assessing
Classroom Music Achievement
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Measuring Effecting Outcomes of Instruction
– Verbal measures,
– Behavioral measures
– Observations of several different behaviors
– Likert Scale
– Behavioral Assessments
• Physical Signs
• Expressive Movement
• Physical Location
• Language Behavior
• Time Duration
Measuring Music Performance
– Psychomotor area has least developed assessment techniques
– Strategies
– Comparisons
– Rating scales
Alternative Approaches to Assessment
• Educational reform of the 1980s
– Similar to the Scholastic Aptitude Tests (SAT)
• Combine assessments with learning
– Portfolios:
• Three components: Production, perception, and
reflection
• Process Portfolios vs. Production Portfolios
Program and Teacher Evaluation
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Assessments schools and school systems
Traditional evaluations
Program evaluations are often done
“Connoisseurship and Criticism” Evaluation Model
MENC (aka NAFME) have 7 evaluation instruments for grades K-12
The National Assessment of Music
– National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)
– Grouped into five sections: Music Performance, Notation and Terminology,
Instrumental and Vocal Media, Music History and Literature, Attitudes Towards
Music
– The First Music Assessment
– The Second Music Assessment
Teacher’s attributes
“Screen” teachers’
– Background checks
– Entry tests
– Teachers are evaluated after they secured the job
• Not every teacher teaches in the same way
Summary
• Effective teaching directly correlates to the results of
not only a teacher’s evaluation, but the results of the
students’ progress in a classroom or on a test.
Evaluations and assessments are done to ensure
objectives and goals are being reached as stated in a
curriculum. It is important to have evaluations and
tests to cover every aspect of music education and to
provide accurate and valid results, however there is no
one test that is applicable to every situation a music
educator and student will face. Music teachers can use
many forms of tests including multiple choice, truefalse, short answer, or essay when testing a students’
knowledge, and ranking, checklists, and rating scales
when evaluating a student’s music performance
progress.
Questions?