Creative musical response: The effects of teacher-student interaction on the improvisation abilities of fourth- and fifth-grade students.

This study investigated the effects of teacher-led verbal interactions with modelling techniques on student creative musical responses in melody-completion activities and tasks involving creative uses of sound. Teaching materials from the Margaret Murray edition of the Orff-Schulwerk, Volume One and Orff-related teaching procedures were used. A pilot study of fourth-graders (N = 40) indicated that limited instructional treatments had no effect on creative thinking scores, as measured by Webster's Measure of Creative Thinking in Music, Version 2 (MCTM-II) and the researcher-designed Measure of Instrumental Creative Musical Response (MICMR). Reliability coefficients and content-, construct-, and criterion-related evidence of MICMR's validity were collected through its use in the pilot study, a test-retest reliability study, and the main investigation. Results showed good test reliability and validity with children ages nine through eleven. The main investigation, a test-retest design, included a twenty-three week instructional treatment with fourth- and fifth-grade students (N = 129). Analysis of data indicated that teacher-student interactions as defined by this study neither aided nor hindered students' creative musical responses as assessed in melody-completion activities, as measured using MICMR, and in creative uses of sounds, as measured by MCTM-II. MICMR scores and music aptitude, as measured by Gordon's Intermediate Measures of Musical Audiation (IMMA), showed a significant positive relationship. Other results showed that instructional treatments had no significant effect on IMMA scores. Interest in music and family background showed no clear relationship to creative musical responses. There was an apparent increase of students' interest in music as a result of the treatments. Changes in interest levels and reactions to treatments indicated the need for further investigations regarding motivational and affective responses in students as a result of teacher-led verbal interactions with students.Ph.D.Music: Music EducationUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/104585/1/9542792.pdfDescription of 9542792.pdf : Restricted to UM users only