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GOALS AND SELF-ASSESSMENT IN THE MIDDLE
SCHOOL LEARNER: A STUDY OF MUSIC
PRACTICE HABITS

 

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Steven Rex Oare

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GOALS AND SELF-ASSESSMENT IN THE MIDDLE SCHOOL LEARNER:
A STUDY OF MUSIC PRACTICE HABITS

by

Steven Rex Care

A DISSERTATION
Submitted to
Michigan State University
In partial fulfillment of the requirements
For the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
Department of Music Education

2007

ABSTRACT
GOALS AND SELF-ASSESSMENT IN THE MIDDLE SCHOOL LEARNER:

A STUDY OF MUSIC PRACTICE HABITS

By
Steven Rex Oare

With the intent of improving the teaching of practice strategies to young
musicians, the purpose of this multiple case study was to discover how students use goal
setting and self-assessment within their personal practice sessions and how these self-
regulative components affect strategy choice and motivation. The specific questions were
as follows: a) What goal setting and self-assessment comments do novice, adolescent
instrumental musicians make during instrumental practice? b) What goal setting and self-
assessment strategies do novice, adolescent instrumental musicians use during
instrumental practice? c) Are there differences in practice strategies found among
students when they are deliberately involved in goal setting or self-assessment compared
to times when they are not setting goals or self-assessment? and d) What strategies do
students use to address various technical aspects of performance?

This study entailed the observation of middle school aged instrumental music
students (N=6) during their individual practice. Two students were in eighth grade and
four were in seventh grade. The students played flute (N=2), clarinet (N=l ), saxophone
(N=2), and trombone (N=1). Data was collected via field notes, videotape analysis of
three practice sessions per student along with concurrent and retrospective verbal reports,
focus group interviews before and afier the observation cycle commenced and concluded,

and an interview with the students’ band director.

Data were analyzed within cases and across cases for emergent themes. Four
themes were found to describe a cyclical practice process in which students moved from
motivation. to goal setting, to strategy use, to assessment, and back to motivation. Each
stage of the cycle seemed to drive other stages. Students with learning goal orientations
seemed to practice more effectively than students with performance or time orientations.
Student goals tended to lack specificity, which negatively influenced student choice of
practice strategy and self-assessment.

Three external factors were found that had a strong influence on the practice
cycle, including teachers, musical aural image, and learning development. These three

factors wove their way through all four stages of the practice cycle.

Copyri ght By
Steven Rex Oare
2007

DEDICATION

This dissertation is dedicated to my wife and best friend, Frances Oare, and to my
children, Jacob and Rebecca, in gratitude for their love, patience, support, prayers, and

assistance throughout my doctoral program. I am truly a blessed man.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The completion of this dissertation could not have been accomplished without the
help and encouragement of a great many pe0ple. I would first like to convey my deep
gratitude to Dr Mitchell Robinson, my advisor, for his encouragement, wisdom, and
incredible editing prowess. Thank you for going above and beyond. I also would like to
thank the rest of my committee, Dr. Cynthia Taggart, Dr. Judy Palac and Dr. Kevin
Sedatole for their insight and advice in the completion of the document

I am deeply indebted to the teacher and students who allowed me to look inside
their minds. Ms. Zingerman is truly a fine teacher who deeply cares about the students in
her charge. It was a thrill to be able to observe her work with her middle school bands
and even more of an honor to get to know her more.

I owe a great deal to Mr. John Terris, my high school band teacher and mentor,
who inspired me to become a. music teacher, His dedication to his students and. selfless
sacrifice of time and resources were a model I will always strive to follow.

I would also like to thank my son Jacob and my daughter Rebecca for their
support and love and for forgiving my mistakes. They have taught me a great deal about
how children learn music. I am proud of them.

I would also like to thank my wife, Frances for her support, encouragement, and
sacrifice in allowing me to pursue my studies Further, I would like to thank her for
reviewing my work, allowing me to share my ideas, and providing insight that only
comes from a master teacher.

Finally, I would like to thank my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ who makes all

things possible. Joshua 24:15.

vi

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION... .. .. .. ....
Rationale for the Study...
Self-regulated Learning
Deliberate Practice...
Goal Setting... .
Assessment and Evaluation
Strategies to Develop Performance Skill
Summary...
Purpose of the Study

Chapter Summary...

CHAPTERII

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE...
The Use of Verbal Protocols in Music Education Research .................
Music Research Using Verbal Reports......

Summary of Verbal Protocol Research

Studies inthe Development ofPractice Skills
Researchin Practice with Instrumentalists...
Self-assessment Research in Musical Performance...
Chapter Summary

CHAPTER III
ResearchersLens
Purpose...

Chronology and Setting

Data Collection Techniques
Procedure...
DataAnalysis .
Verification and Generallzabrlrty

CHAPTER IV
MEET THEPARTICIPANTS: WITHIN-CASE ANALYSIS...
Scott
Matthew...... ..

vii

xi

hoaxes-—

ll
.....15
.....17
19

. 2O

21

21

.23
.31

.32

46

.56

65

..67
.67
....70
.....72
75
......79
.....82
..87

89

.90

102
113

.124
.136
.. 144

Summary

CHAPTER V

COMMONALITIES: CROSS-CASE ANALYSIS
....155
.....155

.. 157

Goal Setting...
Types of Goals Students Set
What They Play...

Time vs. Improvement........................................
.....165
166
.....167
167
.....168

.. 171

Priorities.
Assessment...

Evaluation vs. Assessment

”teacher tntluence... ..

Detection (and Non-Detection) of Mistakes

Diagnosis...

Strategies... .
Teacher Iiis’u uc‘tiorin

StrategyRepertoire.......................................................
Non—playing...............
Aurallmage.
183

..184

Motivation... . . .. . . . .
Goal Ori entatiori

ChapterSummary... . .

CHAPTER VI

SEWINGITUPzTHREADSANDIMPLICATIONS.............................
Motrvatron
Goals
Strategies
Assessment.............
FurtherThreads
Teacherlnfluence........... ..

209

216

220

. 222

Aural lrnage...

Development... ..

A Model of the Development of Practice Skills

Conclusions...
CHAPTER VII
SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS, AND SUGGESTIONS FOR FUTURE
RESEARCH...

Summary

Conclusions

Suggestions for Further Research

Epilogue...

viii

When It s Leanied weir Enough

152

154

164

172

1"!

.. II.)

177

181

181

188

191
191
194
198
202
203
204

223
223
225
227

. 229

APPENDIX A Parent Consent Form

APPENDIX B. StudentAssent Form......

APPENDIXC.TeacherConsentForm.................

APPENDIX D. Student Focus Group Questions

APPENDIX E. Teacherlnterview Questions

APPENDD( F. SchoolApproval Letter...

APPENDIX G Code Stmcttire

ix

231

233

234

7.36

237

238

239

242

I .IST OF TABLES

Table 1. Taxonomy of practice objectives... . .

Table 2. Example ofa Concurrent Report Transcrmtion... ..

Table 3. Example ofo Retrospective Report Transcription

Table 4. Scott—Practice Session #2

Table 5. Amy —Practice Session it 2...

Table 6. Amy - Practice Session ti}

Table 7. Nick— Practice Session #1 ..

Table 8. Nick—Practice Session #2

Table 9. Mandy ~ Practice Session #1

Table 10. Mandy~Practice Session #1 ... .

Table 1]. Mandy «Practice Session #3...

..28

84

85

.92

107

-108

.114

123

.126

128

129

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure l. Self-Regulated Learning Cycle Phases......... 10

Figure2 Model ofPractice Skill Development .......221

xi

CHAPTER]

INTRODUCTION

Mr. T erris, the band teacher at Lakefield Middle School, was
disappointed with his students ’ performance on their latest playing tests.
He knew they were capable of playing the assigned excerpt, but few of the
students were able to play it at an acceptable level. Afler discussing their
performances with the students, he noticed a number of reasons for the
poor performances. Nathan stated that he was able to play it the night
before but, when further questioned, admitted that he played it correctly
only twice in nearly twenty attempts. Adrianne stated that she spent no
time practicing the assignment until she crammed for it the night before
the test. Cassie was unaware of the mistakes she had made during the test,
and Ben was unable to recognize that the diflicult technical passage was
simply the some C minor scale pattern they had been playing in warm-
ups.

When Mr. T erris asked others to tell about their practice habits
leading up to the test, they were unable to articulate the goals they had set
or the strategies they had used. Instead, it seemed that their practice
sessions could be more accurately described as, “play through sessions, "
in which students simply played from the beginning to the end of each

piece without goals or plans for improvement.

Mr. T erris noticed another troublesome anomaly between amount
of time some students practiced and their performance. Each week,
students in the band were expected to turn in practice reports that
recorded the number of minutes practiced each day. Though Monica was
one of the best trumpet players in the band, she consistently earned Cs on
her practice reports because she only practiced 15 minutes per day.
Lindsey, on the other hand, recorded 90 minutes of practice every day, but
was a weak clarinetist.

In the past, Mr. T erris believed that performance was directly
linked to talent and the amount of time one put into home practice, but
evidence was beginning to show him that other factors might be involved.
Students needed to know how to practice effectively and efliciently in
order to become independent musicians. Therefore, he needed to show
them how to practice more eflectively. The problem was that, though he
had some assumptions, he had no reliable knowledge of what they were
actually doing at home when they were practicing. If only he could be like
afly on the wall and observe his students as they were practicing. . .
Maybe then he would know what to do to help them to work smarter

without having to work harder. . .

Though the previous vignette is fictional, it is loosely based upon my own
experiences with students during my years as a band teacher. It expresses concerns I have

had with my ability to teach effective practice habits, as well as my desire to know the

thought processes used by my students as they practiced and how their modes of thinking
translated into their actions. The vignette also reflects comments made by my colleagues
regarding the abilities and inabilities of students to practice efficiently on their own.

Success in musical performance is dependent upon both the time spent in practice
and the effectiveness of each practice session (Ericsson, Krampe & Tesch-Romer, 1993).
Individual practice is a vital part of developing performance skills in instrumental
musicians. Sloboda (1991) found that musicians often spend over 15,000 hours of
practice over a span of more than 10 years in order to develop the skills and
understandings needed to become experts at their art. Others have found that expert
musicians systematically approach their practice, using problem identification, creative
strategy planning, imagery and self-assessment as key components of their practice
(Hallam, 2001b; Nielsen, 1997, 2004).

Researchers have found that expert musicians demonstrate high levels of
reflective learning (i.e., metacognition) as they identify their strengths and weaknesses,
choose appropriate learning strategies, and monitor their progress (Chaffin & Imreh,
2001; Hallam, 1997; Nielsen, 1997). Others have discovered that novice musicians
demonstrate fewer characteristics of this component of self-regulation, resulting in slower
musical progress. Students tend to lack a systematic plan in their practice, ofien moving
from one selection to another with little apparent reason and without discemable
improvement in performance (McPherson & Renwick, 2001; Pitts, Davidson &
McPherson, 2000). Barry’s (1992) comparison of videotaped practice between middle
school students engaged in structured and unstructured practice showed that, during free

practice, students tended to play their music faster, use a metronome less, use mental

practice strategies less or not at all, and identified trouble spots less than the students
engaged in structured and supervised practice. Though Care (2006) and Leon-Guerrero
(2004) found that students demonstrated a variety of practice strategies with and without
playing their instruments, the students in Oare’s (2006) study demonstrated a lack of
ability to effectively use the strategies they knew.

Because novice musicians tend to lack efficient practice skills, giving instruction
in appropriate practicing techniques is an important task for music teachers (Barry, 1994;
Ericsson, Krampe & Tesch-Romer, 1993; Jorgensen, 2003; McPherson, 1995;
McPherson, Davidson & Pitts, 2000). Lehmann and Davidson (2002) state that, “learning
to practice is in itself a skill that needs to be acquired. Therefore, teachers should take
great care to teach their students how to practice correctly.” This explicit instruction and
supervision of practice methods should provide individualized diagnosis of errors,
informative feedback, and training in remedial practice techniques (Ericsson, Krampe &
Tesch-Romer, 1993 ).

While research suggests that instruction in practice skills is important,
investigators also report that these skills ofien are not taught to novice musicians.
According to McPherson (2005), “Despite the importance for children to develop an
armoury of task-appropriate strategies to aid their performance, evidence suggests that
school teachers do not sufficiently emphasize this in their teaching, particularly during
the early years of schooling.” Barry and McArthur (1994) report that most teachers,
“always or almost always discuss the importance of practice and specific practice

techniques with students,” while Kostka (2002) found that, although the teachers in her

survey stated they taught practice strategies, only 67% of their students reported that
practice strategies were ever discussed.

The disconnect between what should be taught and what is being taught may be
due to a lack of information about effective ways to practice. Music education researchers
have recently begun to address this, as research in practice strategies and the development
of expertise has rapidly increased since the early 19905. Researchers in this field have
studied expert musicians with the hope of transferring what is learned from their practice
skills to novice students (Ericsson & Lehman, 1997; Geiersbach, 2000; Hallam, 2001a &
2001b; Nielsen, 1997, 1999, 2001 & 2004). Others have studied the effects of supervision
and structure upon student practice effectiveness (Barry, 1992; Coffman, 1990; da Costa,
1999; Davis, 1981; Maynard, 2006; Rosenthal, 1984, 1988; Rosenthal, et a1. 1990),
parental involvement in beginning music students (McPherson & Renwick, 2; Pitts,
McPherson & Davidson, 2000; Zdzinski, 1994), the strategy use of novice musicians
(Barry, 1992; DaCosta, 1999; Leon-Guerrero, 2004; Hallam, 2001b), goal setting
(Austin, 1991; Geiersbach, 2000; Lehmann, 2003; Smith, 2005), and student self-
assessment skills (Bergee, 1993,1997; Bergee, Cecconi-Roberts, 2002; Hewitt, 2001,
2002, 2005). Some researchers have described general learning theories as they relate to
the process of music practice (Lehmann & Ericsson, 1997; McPherson & Zimmerman,
2002), while others have grounded their research upon these theories (Giersbach, 2000;
Leon-Guerrero, 2004; Hallam, 2001; Nielsen, 1997, 1999, 2001, 2004). Finally,
researchers have studied ways in which private instructors teach students to practice

(Barry & McArthur, 1994; Kong, 2001; Kostka, 2002). Yet, teaching students to practice

efficiently remains a task that many teachers do not do with sufficient success (J orgensen,
2003).

Little research in instrumental music practice has been conducted that focuses on
the use of the self-regulative characteristics of goal setting and self-assessment within
instrumental music practice. Geiersbach (2000) studied the types of goals made within
the practice sessions of advanced musicians, while Austin ( 1991) and Smith (2005)
investigated the effect of goal orientation upon achievement in band. Hewitt (2001, 2002)
and Demorest and Montemayor (2004) investigated the effect of self-assessment upon
achievement in musical performance. Other researchers in fields outside of music have
studied the effect of goal setting upon self—regulation (Radosevich, et al., 2004; Schunk,
2001)

Rationale for the Study

The rationale for this study is based upon a developing understanding of self
instructional theories as they relate to music practice. Discussions of predominant
theories related to music practice, including self-regulated learning, deliberate practice,

and cognitive learning will be introduced.

Self-r ated Learnin

One goal of teaching is for the teacher to be rendered obsolete by helping students
to become proficient with their subject to the point that the teacher is no longer needed
In the current information age, students must learn to teach themselves in order to be self-
sufficient in learning fast-changing information and skills. Unfortunately, researchers

have found that few teachers encourage students to establish specific goals, teach explicit

study strategies or ask them to self-evaluate their work or estimate their competence on
new tasks (Zimmerman, Bonner, & Kovach, 1996).

Self-teaching, also known as self-regulation, includes planning, doing, and
evaluating oneself (Jorgensen, 1995, Zimmerman 2000, and Hewitt, 2001). Multiple
modes of metacognition are engaged as one engages in self-regulation. Zimmerman
(2002) states that self-regulation of learning involves the self-awareness, self-motivation,
and behavioral skill to implement knowledge appropriately and the selective use of
specific processes that must be personally adapted to each learning task. The component
skills include: (a) setting specific proximal goals for oneself, (b) adopting powerful
strategies for attaining the goals, (c) monitoring one’s performance selectively for signs
of progress, ((1) restructuring one's physical and social context to make it compatible with
one's goals, (e) managing one's time use efficiently, (f) self-evaluating one's methods, (g)
attributing causation to results, and (h) adapting future methods. A students' level of
learning has been found to vary based on the presence or absence of these key self-
regulatory processes (Schunk & Zimmerman, 1994; 1998).

Self-regulation in music is a paradigm that describes how learners acquire the
tools necessary to learn necessary musical skills on their own. McPherson and
Zimmerman (2002) describe it as the processes and skills that students adopt or acquire
as they mature into independent learners. Self-regulation is a cyclical process in which
feedback obtained from prior performance helps learners to adjust their performance and
future efforts. These feedback loops allow learners to adjust factors related to the

environment, their own behavior, and their own cognitive and affective states.

According to McPherson and Zimmerman (2002), students undergo a
socialization process that facilitates the development of self-regulated skills. Through this
process, students learn to develop self-motivation, task strategies, time management, and
self-control, while also learning to structure their learning environment and seek
appropriate sources of help. As students learn these skills, they pass through the four
developmental levels of observation, emulation, self-control within structured conditions,
and finally self-regulation.

Zimmerman (1998 in McPherson & Zimmerman, 2002) developed a three phase
cyclical process that self-regulated learners use to direct their learning (Figure 1). In this
model, learners develop goals and self-motivation in the forethought phase, that proceeds
to a perforrnanoe phase in which they use self-control to maintain their focus and provide
self instruction. The self-reflection phase follows, in which the learner evaluates the
quality of work, determines the causes for the results, and reacts to the results. This phase

then leads back into the forethought phase for the next logical step in learning.

Deliberate Practice

The field of expertise theory has produced a large body of research that describes
how experts in various fields develop their high capabilities. Multiple researchers have
stated that expert musicians develop their skills over a period of at least ten years and
accumulate over 10,000 hours of practice time in the process (Ericsson, Krampe, &
Tesch-Romer, 1993; Sloboda, 1996; Jorgensen, H. 2003). Because practice time is an
important piece of the puzzle in the development of expertise, Ericsson, Krampe, and

Tesch-Romer (1993) state that students must be taught how to practice by teachers who

aid in the diagnosis of errors, and provide informative feedback and remedial training.
They also found that improved instruction appears to benefit learners with lower
cognitive ability more than high-ability learners.

Figure I. Self-Regulated Learning Cycle Phases.

 

PERFORMANCE]
VOLITIONAL CONTROL
PHASE
Self—control
Self-instruction
Imagery
Attention focusing
Task strategies
Self-observation
Self-recording
Self—experimentation

FORETHOUGHT SELF-REFLECTION
PHASE PHASE
Task analysis Self-judgement
Goal setting 4—— Self-evaluation
Strategic planning Causal attribution
Self-motivation beliefs Self-reaction
Self-efficacy Self-satisfaction / affect
Outcome expectations Adaptive / defensive
Intrinsic interest / value
Goal orientation

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ericsson, Krampe, & Tesch-Romer (1993) have developed a model of deliberate
practice that is similar to the self-regulation model, and is based upon research in
expertise and self-regulation. This model describes the type of practice that has, “the
primary purpose of attaining and improving skills” (p. 367). It requires a well defined
task with an appropriate level of difficulty, informative feedback, and opportunities for
repetition. Motivation for continued practice is found in the desire for improvement. The
process includes three self-teaching activities: planning and preparation, execution, and

observation and evaluation. Metacognition is also a key factor in the model, as with the

self-regulation model, as the practitioner uses his repertoire of strategies and monitors
and controls their use.

This type of practice does not consistently occur. Deliberate practice can only be
sustained for limited periods of time because it requires great effort and concentration
(Lehmann & Ericsson, 1997). Also, the primary purpose of practice is often for
enjoyment and play as opposed to improvement. Therefore, to engage learners in more
deliberate practice, it is necessary to help them to discern the difference between the two

and to provide structure and supervision to encourage deliberate practice.

Goal Setting

Schunk (2001) states that effective goals are specific, proximal and appropriately
challenging. They are involved across the different phases of the self-regulatory process
and enhance self-regulation through their effects on motivation, learning self-efficacy and
self-evaluations of progress (Schunk, 1995). Schunk (2001) states that effective goal
setting requires that people set a long-term goal, break it into short-term, attainable sub-
goals, monitor progress and assess capabilities, adjust the strategy and goal as needed,
and set a new goal when the present one is attained This process of setting remedial
goals enhances motivation by encouraging positive self-efficacy and helping students to
attribute progress to stable factors within their control.

The process of setting goals is a key component of both self-regulated learning
and deliberate practice. Numerous researchers have found strong positive effects of goal
setting on motivation and performance achievement (Barry and McArthur, 1994;

Ericsson, Krampe & Tesch-Romer, 1993; Geiersbach, 2000; Pitts, Davidson &

10

McPherson, 2000; Lehmann, 2003). Ericsson, et al. (1993) state that goal setting is highly
predictive of self-efficacy. Students who do not set goals are less likely to develop
effective practice strategies and attribute performance failures to uncontrollable personal
sources, such as low ability, and fail to perceive their chances for future success. Pitts, et
al. (2000) found that students accomplish more and enjoy practice more when they
practice to accomplish goals rather than practice for a required amount of time.
Geiersbach (2000) developed a taxonomy of practice objectives designed to describe the
different levels of complexity in a practicer’s goals. Lehmann’s (2003) findings suggest
that practice behavior is commensurate with the students’ own goals. He also defined
process goals as those goals that help lead to the ultimate outcome goal, and stated that
self-monitoring of these goals facilitates self—controlled learning.

By setting outcome goals and the procedural goals needed to reach the desired
outcomes, students are engaging in metacognition. According to Hallam (2001b),
“Metacognitive skills are concerned with the planning, monitoring, and evaluation of
learning, including knowledge of personal strengths and weaknesses, available strategies
. . . and domain lmowledge to assess the nature of the task and evaluate progress toward
the goa .” As musicians become more proficient, they demonstrate an extensive use of

metacognitive skills (Hallam, 2001b; Geiersbach, 2000; Nielsen, 1999).

Assessment and Evaluation
Assessment, in the light of the current No Child Left Behind legislation, is often
seen as a summative tool to be used by teachers and administrators as a means of holding

students, teachers, and schools accountable for student learning. According to Black and

11

William (1998), teachers risk a number of negative consequences when the educational
environment focuses on evaluation in this manner. When the classroom culture focuses
on evaluation as a means to compare students or provides extrinsic rewards to those who
achieve at a certain level, students tend to focus on obtaining the best scores rather than
on improvement. They spend time and energy looking for the right answer instead of
assimilating the information into their own mental schema. This is rectified, according to
Black and William, when assessment is looked upon as a formative tool, the student is
the key assessment user and when students receive and produce feedback that describes
the quality of their work, avoids comparison with others, and leads to the production of
new goals.

While Stiggins (2001) recognizes the value in assessment as an informative tool
for others, he promotes the paradigm of the student involved as an assessment user.
Viewed from this perspective, student-involved assessment is used as a tool to provide
direction, communicate progress, and convey a sense of ownership for one’s own
learning. Students who take part in showing evidence of their progress develop a greater
sense of self-efficacy and learn to attribute assessment results to their own effort, while
focusing on improvement as opposed to gaining rewards or avoiding failure. The
experience gained through their involvement in their own assessment allows them to
develop the skills necessary for them to become self-regulated learners.

According to Chappuis and Stiggins (2002), when students learn to use
assessment for the purpose of learning, “students become self-directed learners by
developing their self-assessment skills.” The actual process of assessment becomes like

instruction, as learners use the descriptive feedback they receive to make adaptations in

12

their future work This reasoning for the importance of self-assessment is reiterated in the
writings of researchers in the field of self-regulation, as they describe development of
self-efficacy and the self-regulatory process of forethought, volitional control, and
reflection (Schunk & Zimmerman, 1994; McPherson & Zimmerman, 2002).

Self-evaluation is also a key component of both self-regulated learning and
deliberate practice in music because it provides students with feedback and spurs new
goals (Lehmann & Ericsson, 1997; McPherson & Zimmerman, 2002). Schunk (1983)
notes that students who have the capabilities to detect subtle progress in learning will
increase their levels of self-satisfaction and their beliefs in their personal efficacy to
perform at a high level of skill. Schunk (1994) and Zimmerman (1998) also found self-
recording significantly enhancing to the self-regulatory cycle. McPherson and
Zimmerman (2002) claim that students are inclined to evaluate their performances
according to one of four criteria, including mastery, personal improvement, normative
criteria, or collaborative criteria. Students who are mastery oriented tend to be more
motivated in their practice because they generally feel a stronger sense of control over
their own learning.

While it may be important for students to self-assess, novice instrumental students
tend to have difficulty assessing accurately (Hewitt, 2001). Self-assessment, like other
practice skills, develops with experience and maturity (Hallam, 1997, in McPherson &
Zimmerman, 2002). Novices who have not yet developed strong aural schemata are often
unaware of their own errors, while more capable musicians are more aware of their
strengths and weaknesses, know more about the nature and purposes of different tasks

and adopt a larger range of strategies to meet their needs (Barry & Hallam, 2002).

13

Finally, Barry and Hallam (2002) claim that novices first focus on pitch as they assess
themselves. As they develop their assessment ability, they begin to focus on rhythm,
followed by other technical aspects of playing, and finally dynamics, interpretation, and
expression, suggesting the existence of a hierarchy of self-assessment skills.

Researchers in the music community have used self-assessment in a variety of
ways. Self-assessment has been used in conductor training (Yarbrough, 1979 & 1987;
Byo, 1990; Johnston, 1993), in the context of self-advisement within college music
programs (Brown & Darrow, 1989), in teacher effectiveness training (Rosenthal, 1985;
Madsen, Cassidy & Standley, 1989; Barry, 1994; Colwell, 1995;) and in music
performance (Davis, 1981; Kepner, 1986; Bundy, 1987; Sparks, 1990; Bergee, 1993 &
1997; Byo & Brooks, 1994; Aitchison, 1995; Kostka, 1997; Sheldon, 1998; Hewitt, 2001,
2002 & 2005; Morrison, Montemayor & Wiltshire, 2004). The studies by Yarbrough
( 1979 & 1987) and the study by Johnston (1993) each measured improvement of
conducting skills as students self-assessed videotaped conducting assignments while Byo
measured student self-assessment of intensity contrasts in conducting gestures. The
Madsen, Cassidy & Standley (1989) and Colwell (1995) studies both used self-
assessment as a tool to teach teacher intensity within laboratory teaching experiences.
Rosenthal used a case study method to study the effect of self-assessment on teacher
effectiveness, and Barry’s action research used self-assessment as one of six factors to
promote reflective thinking in an elementary music education course.

Self-assessment research in the field of instrumental performance has enjoyed a
great deal of expansion within the last decade. Researchers have attempted to discover

the effect of self-assessment on the improvement of performance within an ensemble

14

(Byo & Brooks, 1994; Sheldon, 1998; Caliendo & Kopacz, 1999; Benton, 2002;
Morrison, Montemayor & Wiltshire, 2004) and alone (Davis, 1981; Sparks, 1990;
Aitchison, 1995; Kostka, 1997; & Hewitt, 2001,2002 & 2005), while others have
compared self-assessments with those of experts and peers (Kepner, 1986; Bundy, 1987;
Bergee, 1993 & 1997; Hewitt, 2001,2002 & 2005; & Oare, 2005). Hewitt’s (2001, 2002
& 2005) studies along with the study by Morrison, et. al (2004) observed the effects of
modeling combined with self-assessment on student learning and Davis (1981) studied
the effects of student performance when self-assessment was combined with singing.
Studies by Kepner (1986), Bundy ( 1987), and Care (2005) have examined the differences
in live versus recorded self-assessments. Finally, many of the studies have measured the
effect that self-assessment has upon student attitudes in practice and in music (Davis,

1981; Sparks, 1990; Aitchison, 1995; Kostka, 1997; & Hewitt, 2001, 2002 & 2005).

_S_tr_at§gies to Develop Performance Skill

When considering practice strategies, ones must consider how students learn
before deciding which strategies should be used. Researchers in the field of neurology
have discovered a number of aspects about memory that influence learning (Wolfe,
2001). First, the brain automatically filters out competing stimuli to aid in focusing on the
most relevant sensory information. This helps to explain why novices often have
difficulty paying attention to the most important information during new experiences
(Barry & Hallam, 2002). Once the brain chooses what to focus on, the stimulus remains
in the working memory for only 15 to 20 seconds unless it remains as the focus of

attention. This information becomes retained in long term memory through elaborative

15

rehearsal and consolidation, which is enhanced when the learner associates the new
learning with past experience or when it is connected to strong emotions (Watson, 2006;
Wolfe, 2001).

Sanders (2004) described a schema theory of motor learning in which learners
develop a motor schema for related actions. This schema, also called automaticity, is a
learned relationship in which similar actions are remembered as a single unit of
kinesthetic thought. Watson (2006) explains that, the more ofien a pattern of neurons is
activated, the more efficient the synapse becomes, causing the responsibility for the task
to move from the conscious to the subconscious. Technical exercises of various types,
including those based on scales, are designed to inculcate such motor subroutines.
Sanders describes the process of developing this automatic action as one that begins with
verbalization of each movement and moves to a closed-loop routine in which the actions
are monitored by the learner until the skill finally becomes automatic. Watson states that
successive training sessions produce additional increments of improvement that become
progressively smaller until an upper level of proficiency and automaticity is reached that
may be retained for months or years.

Caine and Caine (2005) remind us that students learn more effectively when they
are involved in experiences that engage multiple senses. They suggest that students need
to use multiple strategies during learning. Nielsen (1999) found that advanced organists
spontaneously invented new practice strategies customized to their needs. Rosenthal
(1988) found significant differences in rhythm, phrasing, tempo, and dynamics when

students used a number of practice strategies. Others have found that practice strategies

16

tend to change as musicians progress through different stages of preparation of a piece of
music (Lisboa, T., Chaffrn, R., Schiaroli, A. & Barrera, A., 2004; Nielsen, 1999).

Caine and Caine (2005) also state that students increase learning when new
patterns are linked to what they already understand. By analyzing new material, one is
able to make connections with previous learning (Barry & Hallam, 2002). Geurrero
(2004) found that students would often draw on previous musical knowledge while
practicing. Others found that novice students are often unable to transfer theoretical
knowledge of music to the learning of the pieces they are playing (Barry & Hallam,
2002). Hewitt (2001) suggests that this is because they compartrnentalize knowledge
without being aware of the interconnectivity of theory with performance.

Many researchers have found that mental practice may accelerate the acquisition
of new motor skills (McPherson & Zimmerman, 2002; Watson, 2006). Others have
discovered that the process of mentally practicing specific skills activates some of the
same neural structures used for the actual movements (Barry & Hallam, 2002; Watson,
2006). Barry and Hallam (2002) suggest that mental practice is more effective when it is
combined with physical practice. It is also more effective when the learner has some prior
experience with the skill being practiced.

Summa_ry

Caine and Caine (2005) emphasized that learning is developmental in that
students develop new playing skills by building upon previous learning. The same is true
as they learn to practice. Just as teachers help them gradually develop their playing skills,
they must also help them gradually develop their practice skills. The more effective

educators are in this realm, the more students will become self-regulated learners.

l7

The theories of self-regulation and deliberate practice have provided an effective
beginning point for a number of music education researchers who are interested in
studying the practice of musicians, though relatively little of the research has focused on
novices. Hallam produced a number of articles based on a study in which she compared
the practice strategies used by novice and expert musicians (1995; 2001a; 2001b). Barry
(1992) studied the effects of practice strategies and cognitive style differences on
practice. Miksza (2005) assessed the effects of mental practice on performance
achievement, and Leon-Guerrero (2004) investigated the self-regulatory strategies of
middle school band students. Davidson, Sloboda and Howe ( 1996) looked at the roles of
parents and teachers in facilitating student success. Finally, McPherson, et al. have
published a series of articles based upon findings from a three year longitudinal study of
beginning instrumentalists from New South Wales, Australia (McPherson, 2005;
McPherson, Davidson, & Pitts, 2000; McPherson & McCormick 1999; McPherson &
Renwick, 2001; McPherson & Davidson, 2002; Pitts, Davidson & McPherson, 2000;
Pitts, & Davidson, 2000; Renwick & McPherson, 2002).

More research needs to be conducted that focuses on ways in which instrumental
music students use the self-regulation concepts of goal setting and self-assessment. While
a COpious amount of research in this subject has been conducted with experts, relatively
little has addressed novice musicians. Even less research has attempted to describe the
thought processes of novice musicians while they were engaged in practice. With greater
understanding of student thought processes as they set goals and assess themselves, it is
hoped that educators may begin to develop more effective methods for facilitating

efficient practice.

18

Purpose of the Study

The purpose of this study is to discover how students use goal setting and self-
assessment within their personal practice sessions and how these aspects of self-
regulation affect strategy choice and motivation. The information revealed in this study
will inform teachers of the capabilities of students to use self-regulatory skills and
strengthen their foundation for effective teaching of practice skills to young musicians.
The insight gained from this study regarding student use of goal setting and self-
assessment will serve to inform teachers about ways in which they can help students
make more effective use of their practice time and reach their musical potential.

Specifically, the research questions for this study are as follows:

1. What goal setting and self-assessment comments do novice, adolescent
instrumental musicians make during instrumental practice?

2. What goal setting and self-assessment strategies do novice, adolescent
instrumental musicians use during instrumental practice?

3. Are there differences in practice strategies found among students when
they are deliberately involved in goal setting or self-assessment compared
to times when they are not setting goals or self-assessment?

4. What strategies do students use to address various technical aspects of

performance (rhythm, notes, articulation, etc)?

19

Chapter Summary

Understanding how students think as they engage in practice is the first step
toward helping them learn to practice effectively. This study will examine the thought
processes of novice instrumental music students as they make decisions related to what
and how they practice. It is hoped that the information gleaned from this study will
inform music educators and suggest ways in which they can effectively facilitate learning
experiences that result in improved student practice.

The writings of McPherson and Zimmerman (2002) on self-regulated learning and
Sloboda (1996) and Ericsson, Krampe, and Tesch-Romer (1993) on deliberate practice
offer a basis upon which researchers can analyze how musicians learn on their own.
Further, the verbal report methodology described by Ericsson and Simon (1993) provides
an avenue by which researchers can discover the inner thought processes of student
musicians. Similar studies by Barry ( 1992), Geiersbach (2000), Leon-Guerrero (2004);
Hallam (2001a & 2001b), Nielsen (1997, 2001, & 2004) and McPherson, et al. (1999,
2000, 2001, 2002 & 2005) provide guidance and a foundation upon which this project

can stand.

20

CHAPTER 11

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

This chapter will present the findings from a number of studies related to this
dissertation. Related topics in practice research include the analysis of the practice of
expert musicians, the effects of structure and supervision in practice on achievement and
retention, and perceptions of practice education engaged by private instructors. I will
discuss the use of verbal report protocols in music education, and review studies related
to goal setting within a self-regulation context. Finally, I will review self-assessment

research in music education.

The Use of Verbal Reports in Music Education Research

Verbal reports, also called verbal protocols or think alouds, have been an
important part of psychological investigations since the advent of the science of
psychology. When used data gathering technique, participants are asked to essentially say
out loud what they are thinking in their head as they engage in various activities.
Richardson and Whitaker (1996) state that the verbal report method is a valid, rigorous
research technique that provides investigators information concerning the thought
processes of subjects as they complete a task. Verbal reports are a key source of data for
researchers in the fields of cognitive psychology, cognitive science and behavior analysis.
Recently, researchers have begun to use verbal reports in usability studies, as the verbal
report, or “think aloud” sessions inform computer programmers of the thought processes
computer users go through as they navigate new programs. Researchers in the field of

education have also begun to realize the wealth of information that can be gleaned from

21

the study of student thought processes while completing tasks in reading, solving
mathematics problems, and translating foreign languages (Kucan & Beck, 1997).

The value of the verbal report technique is that it provides researchers with
information regarding the thinking that occurs as a subject performs a task. Other
methods of research must rely on observation and the analysis of completed works. These
forms of research can then only infer what thoughts actually occur within the mind of the
subject.

Educators have found that verbal reports can improve teaching in a number of
ways. Kucan and Beck (1997) state that verbal reports can be used as a method of
inquiry, a mode of instruction, and as a means for encouraging social interaction. As a
method of inquiry, Kucan and Beck discuss the use of verbal reports while analyzing the
reading process during reading, during recall, and in error detection. As a mode of
instruction, they describe the use of verbal reports as a tool the teacher may use while
demonstrating the performance of a task.

Verbal reports have been established as a valid methodology for collecting data
related to understanding the thought processes of subjects while they are engaged in
various activities (Ericsson & Simon, 1993). However, researchers have only recently
begun to use this methodology within the discipline of music education. Researchers in
music education have used verbal report methodology in studying students while engaged
in composition (Younker, 1997; Younker and Smith, 1996) while others have used the
methodology to analyze conducting experiences (Hasty, 2004). Still more have had
participants provide verbal reports while listening to music (Bundra, 1993; Williams,

1997; Kerchner, 1998; Richardson, 1996). Finally, verbal reports have been used as key

22

data sources for the analysis of participant thought processes while practicing (Nielsen,
1997, 1999, 2001, 2004; Geiersbach, 2000; Leon-Geurrero, 2004).

Ericsson and Simon (1993) state that verbal reports are reliable when they focus
on subjects’ cognitive processes as they engage in activities that require their attention.
The key is for the data to be collected while the subject’s thoughts are still in short term
memory. Therefore, the most valuable reports are those that are given while the subject is
performing the task or immediately after the completion of the task. This is identified as

concurrent think aloud (CTA) and retrospective think aloud (RTA).

Music Research Using Verbal Reports

A number of studies have analyzed the thought processes of instrumental
musicians while practicing. Nielsen (1997, 1999, 2001, 2004) was among the first to have
used verbal reports as data in her research. Nielsen’s studies used CTA, RTA and
videotape analysis of first one, and then two advanced organists enrolled in a Swedish
conservatoire. She used self-regulation theory to guide her development of a coding
scheme for the analysis as she looked for apparent self-regulating skills used by the
participants during their practice. Conclusions from this study suggested that the students
proceeded through a number of stages as they prepared a piece of music for performance.
As the students moved from stage to stage, Nielsen found that the strategies used and the
aspects of music on which they focused changed

Nielsen’s (1997) case study analyzed the methodological issues of a single organ
student preparing a musical piece for performance. The purpose of the study was to

determine the value of verbal reports in the study of music practice. It describes how

23

verbal report analysis was modified in order to be used in a practice setting and details
how trustworthiness issues were alleviated Nielsen videotaped an advanced Norwegian
organ student while practicing. The student was asked to provide CTA while practicing
and then provided RTA while watching the videotape of the practice session. Through
this study, Nielsen found that concurrent and retrospective verbal report methods were
both effective techniques for gathering information about the thoughts of advanced
musicians during practicing and problem-solving.

Buoyed by the success of the first study, Nielsen (1999) analyzed the practice of
two advanced organ students in their third year of a Norwegian university while they
each practiced a different piece of music. The purpose of the study was to describe the
self-regulated practice strategies demonstrated by the students. Data included video
observation of practice on the first day, one hour of CTA while being videotaped during
the second practice day (students were asked, “what am I thinking or focusing on?”), and
RTA reflecting upon the initial practice stage and second stage. This data collection
occurred during the first two practice sessions of the first and of the second learning
“stages” for the new piece, though the stages were not defined. From her literature
review, Nielsen chose to focus on three types of practice strategies, focusing on the
selection of relevant information to master tasks, organization of information, and the
integration of these new droughts and skills with existing knowledge. Results from the
study show that an extensive repertoire of self-regulatory strategies varied slightly
between the students and by stage of preparation of each piece. The second stage of
learning used the same strategies as in the first level, plus the creation of various

exercises to help solve issues. Students spent more time selecting and organizing sections

24

 

needing work, practiced longer segments of music, and used multiple solutions for
problems at each stage of learning.

Nielsen used the same data in 2001 to analyze the students’ use of self-regulatory
skills within their practice sessions. The students demonstrated many skills related to
self-regulated learning as they set goals, planned methods of incorporating the new skills
into their playing, monitored progress of selected musical components, chose and created
practice strategies, and revised goals and criteria of performance. The skills enabled them
to optimize their learning and performances, taking into account interpersonal,
contextual, and intrapersonal conditions.

In 2004, Nielsen used a survey of first-year Norwegian undergraduate music
students to determine the cognitive and metacognitive practice strategies that were most
relevant to improving performance and to correlate their perceptions of self—efficacy to
these practice strategies. Self-efficacy was defined as "people's judgment of their
capabilities to organize and execute the courses of action required to attain designated
types of performances." Her review of literature emphasized that previous studies in other
academic areas have shown strong, positive relationships between self-efficacy beliefs
and the use of study and learning strategies, and also to persistence and performance.
Students who were confident about their academic abilities persisted longer and worked
harder.

The principal result of this study was the strong association between self-efficacy
and actual performance, and the clear superiority of self-efficacy as a predictor of actual
performance. Students who were confident about their ability to learn used more learning

and practicing strategies.

25

The male students in the study generally rated themselves as more efficacious and
made greater use of critical thinking strategies than female students. Female and male
students reported using the same range of learning strategies, though male students
reported making significantly more critical evaluations with respect to standards of
excellence than female students. The study indicated that most of the students used a full
range of strategies rather than one particular type, though they tended to use fewer help-
seeking and peer-leaming strategies than other strategies.

The study also reported that many music students enter higher education feeling
they have not been taught how to practice by their previous teachers. Nielsen also
mentioned that, though results of this study and others show the strong relationship
between self-efficacy and performance ability, little is known regarding the factors
involved in helping students come to believe in their own abilities to perform well.

Nielsen’s studies are valuable models for the present investigation. Her
establishment of verbal reports as a trustworthy method of data collection supports the
current method. Further, the delineation of goal selection, organization of strategies and
association of strategies, combined with findings of other research related to monitoring
of progress, provide a framework upon which an initial set of categories for analysis can
be constructed.

The purpose of Geiersbach’s study (2000) was to test a taxonomy of practice
objectives designed to describe different levels of complexity in a practicer’s practice that
he developed from his review of research. The taxonomy was based on Gruson’s (1981)
research and used five categories of goals: unpremeditated, repetitive, technical,

interpretive, and metacognitive (see Table 1). Geiersbach’s taxonomy, like Gruson’s,

26

used categories that describe levels that move from behaviorist activity into more abstract
means of practice.

The study investigated the practice of twelve graduate students, five male and
seven female, in music education. Each participant was videotaped as they practiced
pieces of their own choosing, in their customary practice environments, during three one-
hour practice sessions. Participants essentially engaged in concurrent think aloud (CTA)
as they described their philosophies of practicing and provided and their thoughts on their
own learning processes while practicing. Following their practice, participants reflected
on their work in video stimulated retrospective think aloud (RTA). Geiersbach also
collected data through interviews and analysis of the practice videos.

He found through his analysis that the participants used each level of his
taxonomy of objectives while focusing on technical and interpretive aspects of playing.
Participants concentrated on three key components of practice objectives, including goal
setting, playing, and reflection. Higher order thinking was reflected in goal statements
and reflections that transcended technical concerns and instead focused on abstract
interpretive aims. Lower order thinking was illustrated in practicer verbalizations, which
suggested repetitive or technical aims.

Table 1 .' T mommy of practice objectives

 

1. Unpremeditated Describes practice without goals, analysis, reflection, or wait time
between repetitions and lots of stops and starts

 

2. Repetitive General plans are apparent with repetitive goals, little analysis, still
little wait time, repetition of incomplete musical units, and simple
observations generally concerning errors after playing

 

 

 

3. Technical Plans are in regard to technical accuracy and analysis, repetition and
self-critique occurs at only a technical level, wait time is irregular.
4. Interpretive Plans are related to expressive playing, analysis is extensive and

uses theory terminology, reflection is concerned with expression,
wait time is at regular intervals, and repetition is of complete
musical units.

 

 

27

 

Table 1 con ’1

 

 

5. Metacogrritive Plans are expressive in nature, interpretive and emotional goals are
stated, extensive score analysis uses theory and stylistic
terminology, reflection is empathetic, wait time is common,
repetition is of complete musical units and uses a high degree of
self-awareness, mostly exemplified by creative playing through
improvisation or composition.

 

 

The data analysis suggested that multiple benefits occur as one begins to organize
practice objectives. Participants who engaged in the higher order objectives developed
motivation for the process by acknowledging progress toward their goals, playing
uninterruptedly, evaluating the effectiveness of methods, and reflecting on playing in
holistic or expressive ways.

Leon-Geurrero (2004) studied the self-regulation strategies used by middle school
band students in their practice. She defined self-regulation as, “the process of improving
individual performance by self-monitoring during a given task Planning, organizing,
self-instruction, self-monitoring and assessment repeatedly occur through the task
completion process.” The participants for the study were 16 seventh and eighth grade
students who were enrolled in a band class taught by the researcher. The students in the
study were each videotaped while they practiced a given musical exercise during a 15
minute session. Students provided CTA while they practiced and, immediately after,
reviewed the videotape of their practice while engaging in RTA with the researcher.
Video analysis, along with the CTA and RTA, provided triangulation for the study.

The analysis of data focused on answering research questions aimed at identifying
the self-regulatory strategies reported by novice, adolescent instrumental musicians
during practice and after practice, as well as strategies observed through video analysis.

Leon-Guerrero also proposed to identify tendencies found in the self-regulatory strategies

28

 

used by musicians with different (a) years of experience, (b) gender and (c) instrument
played.

Data from CTA and RTA were transcribed. Video of each practice session was
transcribed in a five step process. First, CTA comments were recorded. Next, notations
were made regarding what the students played and when they stopped. The third stage
determined if student starts and stops were due to performance errors. Finally, non-verbal
gestures were analyzed, followed by a last review of the video to check the transcripts.

Leon-Guererro divided student comments into segments that included a single
complete thought She then assigned each segment a code based on the three categories
of problem recognition, strategy selection, and evaluation of performance, suggested by
Nielsen (2001), as well as a miscellaneous code for comments that did not address a
defined category. Next, she analyzed comments within the category of strategy selection,
and 24 different strategies were identified and then condensed into four broad categories
of strategy: musical elements, repetition, non-playing tasks, and non-specific tasks. She
then tallied codes in order to determine how often each code was used and how many
students used them.

Leon-Guerrero coded the video transcriptions using Chaffin and Irnreh’s (2001)
categories of “runs” (instances in which students played through their music) and
“works” (instances that students worked at improving isolated chunks of their music) at a
macro-level and then coded the data at a micro-level using codes suggested by
McPherson and Renwick (2001). These codes initially included playing only, moving,

counting, thinking, singing, and fingering; but more specific codes were added as data

29

were analyzed. These codes were then tallied in order to determine the frequency of each
code during student practice.

Finally, Leon-Guerrero used demographic data supplied by a questionnaire to
analyze her final question regarding tendencies of self-regulatory strategies used by
students of different genders, instruments, and years of experience. The CTA, RTA and
video analyses were then re-examined by groupings: male/female, brass/woodwind, and
seventh grade/eighth grade. Numbers of comments and numbers of students using the
comments were then tallied and compared across groups.

As she tallied her codes, Leon-Geurrero observed 15 types of self-regulatory
strategies. The most common was restarting a measure (41%) and was seen in all 16
participants. She found that repetition was used in over half of the codes in the video
analysis and was the most common code in CTA analysis, but was second to musical
elements in the RTA analysis. This suggests that a disconnect may exist between what
the students know they should be doing (as expressed during the RTA) and what the
students actually do (as witnessed by the CTA and video).

Leon-Guerrero found that repetition was the predominant approach to practice
and that it can be applied in multiple ways. Gruson (1988) and Hallam (2001) also found
that students frequently use repetition of short segments, measures, and single notes as a
practice strategy. Also, students were found to draw on previous musical knowledge
while approaching practice, which is similar to findings of Chaffin & Inrreh (2001). They
also demonstrated musical awareness and the capability of incorporating musical
elements into their performance. Student use of non-playing strategies also demonstrated

that some students were capable of planning as they approach practice.

30

Nine of the 16 participants tended to practice in sections while the rest tended to
practice from the beginning to the end of the piece, illustrating a common problem in
student practice habits. One reason for this could be that the piece could have only been
minimally challenging for some of the students, therefore requiring larger chunks of
music to be practiced.

This study provides a base for the current project. First, the CTA & RTA data
gleaned by Leon-Guerrero indicate that novice, adolescent musicians are able to provide
informative verbal reports of their self-regulating strategies during music practice. Next,
this study serves as a model for assignment of a multi-layered set of codes that are
initially based on prior research and then modified to fit the current situation. While her
results provide a new perspective regarding how novice musicians practice, Leon-
Guerrero did not address why they make their decisions. It is my belief that, by analyzing
the goals students have in their practice and their assessments of progress, I may be able
to learn more about the underlying reasons that inform students’ decisions about what

they practice and how they practice it.

Summary of Verbal Report Research

Verbal report have become an important tool for educational researchers. It is
gradually becoming a more common data source for researchers in music education. The
use of verbal reports provides a deep, rich perspective into the thought processes of
participants. When combined with other research tools based on observation and the

analysis of artifacts, researchers can use verbal reports to gain a more complete

31

understanding of the thinking that takes place inside the heads of musicians. This, in turn,
will begin to suggest new, more effective ways of teaching.

The number of research studies in music education that use verbal reports as data
is relatively small, and there is room for more research using this methodology. One topic
in which verbal report data may be appropriate is the study of the decision making
processes related to the development of daily practice goals. Verbal reports could also be
used to understand how students assess themselves and how they use the resulting
information. Other studies can analyze the ways in which students remediate their own

learning.

Studies in the Development of Practice Skills

The following studies have each investigated multiple factors that effect self-
regulated instrumental music practice. When taken as a whole, three key concepts
emerge: motivation, goal orientation, and strategy selection. Other concepts, such as
structure of practice, self-monitoring or self-assessment, supervision, and the
development of practice skills also emerge within these studies, but to a lesser extent.

Ericsson, Krampe, and Tesch-Romer’s (1993) seminal article was a review of
literature that focused on the role of “deliberate practice” in the acquisition of expert
performance. Their review of the development of expertise found that, to acquire top
levels of performance in most domains, one must deliberately practice their skill over a
long period of generally more than 10 years. Also, they found that experts in their chosen
field tend to start their learning at a young age and spend 2 to 4 hours per day in

deliberate practice.

32

They differentiate “deliberate practice” from other types of practice by explaining
that one engages in deliberate practice when he places a great deal of concentration into
the practice process. This practice is constrained by resources, effort, and motivation, and
they found that people can effectively engage in this type of exercise for limited periods
of time. Deliberate practice considers motivation, previous experience, feedback,
repetition, and strategies. Without it, learning and improvement are significantly slowed.

Ericsson, et al. (1993) found that students who reach a plateau in their skill
development must increase their effort in order to rise to the next level in their
performance. To do this, they must change their training methods and use multiple
activities that promote the acquisition of associated skills needed to propel them to a
higher level. Students become motivated to practice deliberately by considering long-
term effects. Whereas work and play create extrinsic or short term rewards, students who
engage in deliberate practice are able to accept delayed gratification in order to enjoy the
long term benefits of their effort.

Ericsson and Lehmann (1997) examined the implications of the deliberate
practice model for the education of amateur musicians and music students. They listed
the key characteristics of deliberate practice as feedback, goal setting, and monitoring,
and emphasized that practice must be deliberate and thoughtful in order for learned skills
to be applied to new experiences. They recommended peer assessment, because this
provides feedback for the performer and helps students learn to monitor and internalize
their personal goal setting. Various forms of supervision, such as using peers as practice

partners, asking for advice from more advanced musicians, and self-supervision using a

33

practice diary were also recommended as means to enhance feedback, goal setting, and
monitoring.

Ericsson and Lehmann warn of the hazards of over-repetition. They acknowledge
that repetition leads to increased automaticity that requires the performer to exert less
effort to obtain the results. But, this phenomenon leads to improved performance only if
the level of effort put forth by the musician is maintained by attending to more elements
of the music being performed. According to them, “Building mastery in a domain and
finding the least effortful method to attain a specific performance goal are different
activities. This distinction is crucial for separating a performance that has been
entrenched through mindless drill from one that is flexible and adaptable through the use
of mental representations - a hallmark of expert performance” (p. 49).

Chaffrn and Imreh (2001) studied the practice of a concert pianist (lrnreh) during
her process of preparing the Presto from J. S. Bach’s Italian Concerto for performance.
They made video or audio taped recordings of 57 practice sessions, totaling over 30 hours
of data During each session, Imreh commented on her actions and thought processes and
gave appraisals of her progress at the end of sessions 12 and 24. The researchers
transcribed each practice session by recording the measures in which each practice
segment started and stopped. A practice segment was defined as a section of playing that,
“was not continuous in the score.” The researchers found high correlations (.8 and .9) in
their transcriptions by independently transcribing a number of same practice sessions and
correlating the number of starts and stops and repetitions of practice segments for each
measure. They were then able to construct graphic representations of practice segments

related to each bar of the composition. Next, the researchers transcribed Imreh’s

34

comments and correlated them to their appropriate measures. Chaffin and Imreh
identified a total of 20 codes, organized into four broad groups: basic (fingering,
technical difficulties, and identification of patterns), interpretive (phrasing, dynamics,
tempo, and pedal use), performance (memory, attention, musical structure, and score
use), and metacognitive issues (self-assessment, descriptions of plans, learning process,
etc.)

The first three sets of codes (basic, interpretive, and performance) served as
criteria for the analysis of performance features in each measure of the Presto. The
researchers used a regression analysis to determine if the number of performance features
per measure served as predictor variables for the number of starts, stops and repetitions
encountered during practice. This analysis of data suggested that the process of learning a
new piece of music can be divided into three separate learning periods in which the basic
performance features affected the first two periods and the interpretive features affected
the last two periods, while the performance features were apparent throughout the
process.

The researchers found that the pianist’s verbal reports showed “striking
correspondence” (p. 65) between the amounts practiced in two sections of music and the
number of basic features identified in each section. The regression analysis also related to
the pianist’s practice goals in comparison with the frequency of comments of basic,
interpretive, and performance dimensions.

Chaffin and Inrreh found that the analysis of practice and verbal reports did not
correspond in cases. At times, verbal comments did not acknowledge potential practice

areas, though analysis of practice demonstrated that these were, in fact, being isolated for

35

practice. The researchers listed a number of possible explanations, including the
observation that some features of practice were routine and did not attract comment. By
finding slightly different perspectives in their analysis of practice and of verbal reports,
they suggest that it may be necessary to obtain multiple sets of data in order to fully
describe practice. This observation is substantiated by Ericsson and Simon (1980).

Lisboa, Chaffin, Schiaroli, and Barrera (2004) conducted a study similar to that of
Chaffin and Imreh. In their study, an experienced cellist (Lisboa) was observed while
undertaking the process of preparing a new piece of music for performance. Over 17
hours of practice sessions were videotaped, and the cellist provided comments regarding
her thought processes. Data was transcribed similar to Chaffrn and Imreh. The purpose of
the study was to determine how the way a piece is practiced and memorized affects its
performance.

The researchers found that Lisboa, as did Imreh in the previous study, progressed
through three learning periods separated by intervals of time in which the piece was not
practiced. These three periods could further be divided into five or more different stages
of learning. Each stage was entered at different times for each section of the piece. The
first three stages, sight reading, exploring the music, and smoothing out, roughly relate to
the first learning period. The second learning period began part way through stage three
and continued through most of stage 4, defined as listening to the music, and the third
period began at the end of stage four and continued through stage 5, defined as trial
performance. The researchers anticipated that at least one further stage related to

polishing of the piece would be encountered as the project continued.

36

Both of the studies conducted by Chaffin, et al., as well as the recommendations
by Ericsson and Simon (1993) provide support for the methodology chosen for this study.
By observing practice from multiple viewpoints, it is possible gain a deeper
understanding of how one practices. While a researcher can only assume what is being
thought while observing practice, the concurrent think aloud can provide corroboration of
the researcher’s assumptions. On the other hand, it is quite common for some thoughts to
go unsaid by participants for various reasons. The analysis of practice aids in identifying
these non-verbal thoughts. Next, these studies strengthen the findings of Ericsson and
Lehmann (1997) regarding the necessity to change practice strategies in order to move on
to the next level in performance. Once a level of automaticity is attained, the musician
must use different practice strategies in order to move to the next level of performance.
This finding may inform the analysis of the current study as codes are developed for
repeated exercises separating purposeful repetitions from mindless or low effort
repetitions.

Gruson (1981) investigated the development of practice skills of Canadian
pianists who spanned a continuum of performance levels from novice to artist. Forty-
three piano students between the ages of 6 and 23 and three professional pianists were
observed over 10 practice sessions. Gruson scripted each practice session at five second
intervals and developed codes for the practice techniques that the subj ects used. In order
to gain an understanding of student practice behaviors, a number of statistical analyses
were performed, including correlations, descriptive statistics, and analysis of variance.
Students were all rated according to the Royal Conservatory of London evaluation

system. A subset of students at novice (Grade H), intermediate (Grade VI) and advanced

37

(artist) levels, along with the concert pianists were then interviewed in regard to their
knowledge about the strategies they used when they practiced. Gruson’s findings suggest
that, as students improve in performance ability, the size and complexity of repeated
musical sections increases. Advanced students also tended to pause and play one hand at
a time more, verbalize self-instruction more, and spend more time practicing a single
piece than less skilled students. Gruson also found that more competent practicers
developed automated skills, leading to less conscious control of motion. As a result,
mental slips tended to increase in frequency in advanced practice sessions rather than
decreasing with practice. This again corroborates the findings of Ericsson and Lehmann
(1997) which discuss the negative consequences of mindless practice once automaticity is
attained. Student interviews also corroborated Gruson’s observational findings, while
also indicating that more advanced students tended to demonstrate metacognitive skills
that were more articulated, varied, goal-directed, and cognitively complex than less
experienced students.

The purpose of Barry’s study (1992) was to determine the effects of field
dependence/independence and gender upon the technical accuracy and musicality of
student instrumental performance under both structured and free practice conditions.

F ield-dependence/independence was assessed by the Group Embedded Figures Test
(GEF T). The subjects for the study were 57 (34 male & 23 female) brass and woodwind
instrumental students enrolled in a summer music camp. The subjects, who were in
seventh through tenth grade, were equally divided according to the results of the GEF T
and then assigned to either a free practice group or a structured practice group. Students

in the structured practice group were supervised as they practiced and were asked to use

38

strategies such as mental practice, analysis of the music, and specific drills. Subjects had
four short practice sessions distributed across two weeks. Pre-test and post-test
performances were evaluated by three independent judges with a high degree of
reliability.

Independent variables for the study were the student practice condition, field
dependence/independence, and gender, while dependent variables included melodic &
rhythmic accuracy and musicality as measured by the improvement in scores from pre-
test to post-test. Barry used a 2x2x2 analysis of covariance to analyze the data and found
significant main effects for the practice condition for all dependent variables. The data
indicate that the practice procedures used by students in the structured practice group
were more conducive to improvement in musical performance than the free practice
techniques chosen by the students in the second group (p<.05). While this was true for
both girls and boys, Barry found that girls from the free practice group improved more
than the boys from the same group. These findings support prior research that suggest
that supervision of practice as well as an organized plan of practice is an effective means
of improving musical performance.

Barry also analyzed videotape recordings of each student’s practice. Students in
the free practice group were allowed to practice in any way they chose. Subjects in this
group tended to play the music over a number of times from start to finish, quietly
analyzed the music, break it into small chunks, write in fingerings, and identify difficult
spots. Comparison of the videotapes of structured and free practice variables showed
differences in tempo, metronome use, mental practice, and identification and correction

of trouble spots. Generally, free practice students tended to play their music faster and

39

use the’metronome less, while structured practice students tended to use mental practice,
tap rhythms and mark and correct errors.

Though Barry was able to identify a number of significant reactions, she was not
able to generalize the findings to a broad population. Because the study used a relatively
small sample of self-selected students involved in a summer band camp, the sample was
not sufficiently random. Also, the lack of training given to the experimental group limited
their ability to fluently use the practice structure in an efficient manner. Therefore, results
from further investigations of the same students may be significantly different as they
become more fluent in their ability to follow the given practice structure.

Hallam published seven separate articles based on the same study, examining the
nature of planning and metacognition in musicians and how they change as expertise
develops, though only three will be discussed in this review (1997, 2001a, 2001b). The
subjects for Hallam’s study included 22 professional freelance musicians and 55 novice
string instrumentalists, ranging in age from 6 to 18. All subjects in the study engaged in
send-structured interviews regarding their approaches to practice. Both expert and novice
musicians were asked what activities they would use to practice a specific piece of music.
The novice musicians were also tape recorded for ten minutes while practicing and
performing a short, developmentally appropriate piece of music. The final performances
were then assessed by two independent judges and interview data were independently
coded by three judges.

In 1997, Hallam used the data taken from interviews with the professional and the
novice musicians to analyze the strategies each group used for memorizing music. She

found that individuals used various strategies from a diverse array of options, depending

40

upon the nature of the material to be memorized. Subjects engaged aural, visual, and
kinesthetic modes of thinking to aid in memorization and simultaneously adopted several
other strategies to reduce anxiety related to performance. A key finding was that music
memorization strategies changed as expertise deve10ped. Professional musicians were
more likely to inform their memory through analysis of the score and design memory
devices to aid in differentiating similar passages.

Acknowledging that musicians require several metacognitive skills in order to
practice, Hallam explored the development of metacogrrition and performance planning
strategies used by both expert and novice musicians in her next study (2001a). She once
again used data taken from interviews, as well as data taken from the analysis of the
videotape of novice student practice. Her findings suggest that experts possess extensive
metacognitive skills, such as self-awareness of strengths and weaknesses, knowledge of
various techniques to address different tasks, and knowledge of self-regulative strategies
such as monitoring, adjusting and concentrating.

The professional musicians demonstrated that they have “learned how to learn,”
and extensively used metacognition in relation to their preparations for performance,
encompassing technical matters, interpretation, and issues relating to learning itself (e.g.,
concentration, planning, monitoring, and evaluation). In learning a new piece of music,
professionals generally progressed from an overview of the whole piece of music, either
through playing or score analysis, to identification of difficult sections. These sections
varied from person to person, based on their knowledge of their strengths and weaknesses

and the idiosyncrasies of their instrument. A number of strategies for addressing the

41

difficult sections were identified that fit within the two overarching categories of analysis
and repetition.

Although there were similarities in the strategies adopted, there was considerable
variation based on individual need. In the novice musicians, there was a complex
relationship between the development of expertise and the use of planning strategies.
Hallam saw qualitative change in practice expertise with older, more experienced
students. Also, as age and grade level of novices increased, total practice time increased
and, the length of practice sessions increased concurrently with level of expertise.

To analyze the planning novice and advance students undertake in relation to the
videotaped practice, Hallam set criteria to distinguish high, moderate and low levels of
planning. Criteria for high levels of planning included the completion of task
requirements, speedy identification of difficulties, emphasis of practice on difficult
sections, and integration of the sections practiced into the whole for performance.
Moderate level criteria were completion of task requirements, evidence of on-task
behavior but repetition of large sections of the work rather than a focus on difficulties and
no integration specifically towards performance. She described criteria of low levels of
planning as incompletion of tasks and considerable amounts of time off task. Eleven of
the advanced students exhibited high levels of planning in their recorded practice, while
five (12.5 percent) of the novices did so. Twenty—eight novices (70 percent) showed
moderate levels and seven ( 17.5 percent) demonstrated low levels.

Ten percent of the novices and 33 percent of the advanced students demonstrated
high levels of planning in daily practice, characterized by specified aims of practice, a

consistent order of practice, self-imposed organization of when practice was undertaken

42

and a tendency to mark things on the part. Sixty-five percent of novice and 66 percent of
advanced students demonstrated aspects of moderate planning, such as undertaking some
organization of practice, and organizing time. Twenty-five percent of the students were
categorized as having low planning skills. Characteristics of this group included not
having a consistent practice time, being in need of constant reminders to practice, wasting
time repeating unnecessary material and being disorganized in their work.

Hallam (2001a) found that students become familiar with specific learning
strategies in parallel with their development of musical skills and knowledge. She
suggests that a key component of this development is the cultivation of accurate internal
aural representations of the music they are learning (Hallam, 1994; 1998b). She
determined that repetition may be the most effective means of practicing in order to
develop a level of technical automaticity, and that students must develop rudimentary
playing skills before they can “learn to learn.” Teachers may facilitate this process when
they demonstrate practice skills with their students. She recommended encouraging
students to: consider personal strengths and weaknesses; assess task difficulties; select
appropriate practice strategies; set goals and monitor progress; evaluate performance;
develop musical interpretation; manage time; and plan strategies for memorization,
motivation, and time management.

Hallam (2001a) concluded that it is possible for teachers to teach their students to
practice effectively, once the students have developed a minimum level of proficiency on
their instrument. She found that planning mechanisms in music practice operate on three
levels. According to Hallam, planning relates to the ability to complete specific tasks,

plan and organize practice in an automated fashion, and consciously choose strategies to

43

compensate for deficiencies in self-regulatory mechanisms. Each of these levels of
planning is dependent upon the level of expertise held by the musician.

Metacogrritive skills are related to students’ ability to assess the level of difficulty
in tasks and select appropriate strategies, set and monitor goals, evaluate performance,
and develop interpretation. Further, knowledge of personal strengths and weaknesses,
memorization strategies, motivation, time management, monitoring concentration, and
dealing with performance anxiety were found to be key metacognitive skills. Hallarn’s
findings suggest that musicians use more metacognitive strategies as they gain in
expertise. She also found tlmt a key component of developing expertise is the acquisition
of appropriate aural schemata to facilitate the monitoring of progress and correction of
mistakes.

Finally, Hallam (2001b) considered the relationships between strategy use and the
development of expertise at varying levels of ability. Data for the study included the
semi-structured interviews and the tape recordings of the 55 novice string students while
engaging in a 10 minute practice session and performance of a short piece appropriate to
their level of skill development. Two judges evaluated the performance of each student’s
musical selection. Hallam found that students needed to develop an “appropriate aural
schemata” in order to effectively choose appropriate practice strategies and monitor
progress. Strategy development was closely related to the developing level of expertise.
She recommended that further research attempting to explain levels of attainment and
quality of performance focus on a multi-dimensional approach to the topic.

Hallam’s conclusions support other research that has found the development of

practice skills to be related to performance level (McPherson, 2005; Nielsen, 2004;

Gruson, 1988), and this holds several implications for music education. Primarily,
Hallam states that development of effective practice strategies and metacognitive skills is
directly related to levels of musical expertise and suggests that teachers should endeavor
to provide direction in the development of self-regulative skills in conjunction with the
development of performance skills. Further, she advocates providing students with aural
models in order to facilitate the development of appropriate aural schemata in order for
students to begin to identify and correct their mistakes.

The novice subjects within Hallam’s project were all string instrumentalists who
were engaged in private instruction in the United Kingdom. In order to provide more
information for school music teachers in the United States, it seems logical to conduct
similar studies using school band and orchestra students as participants. Further, Hallam
analde tape recordings of short, ten minute practice sessions. It may be beneficial to
use videotape recordings in order to include visual cues in the analysis as well as aural
cues. Also, students generally tend to practice for more than ten minutes at a time, so
more authentic information may be gleaned from longer practice sessions. Finally,
interview data for Hallam’s studies were based upon semi-structured interviews. While
this method offers a number of benefits, one may be able to gain a more clear perspective
of student thought processes through the use of verbal reports (Ericsson & Simon, 1993).

Harnann and Frost (2000) surveyed 512 string students in sixth through twelfth
grade in regard to their practice habits and attitudes toward music. Using chi-square
analysis procedure, the researchers found that the string students who studied privately
tend to be more professionally goal oriented, and practice longer, smarter, & more

efficiently than those who only studied in school orchestra classes. These students

45

practice daily at regular times, establish objectives and maximize time in shorter, though
on task, practice segments. They also find practice more emotionally satisfying than there
counterparts and experience anxiety, depression & guilt when they are unable to practice.
To these students, motivation is driven by a focus on improvement and a desire to show
their musical ability.

While Harnann and Frost were able to produce significant results in relation to the
practice habits of school aged string students, the nature of the study did not allow for a
deeper understanding of student abilities to set goals and self-assess. Furthermore, the
study was able to delineate the differences in practice between students who take private
instruction and those who do not, but the study did not focus on what the non-private

study students were able to do. The current study may help to address these issues.

Research in Practice with Instrumentalists

McPherson (1994, 1995, 1997, 2005; McPherson & McCormick, 1999; Pitts &
McPherson, 2000a, Pitts & McPherson, 2000b; McPherson & Renwick, 2001;
McPherson & Renwick, 2002; McPherson & Davidson, 2002) has conducted a vast
amount of research in the area of practice and skill development of school instrumental
music students. Most of this research took place in Australia. Topics of study have
included self-regulation in practice, the use of strategies in different performance types,
parental support, and factors involved in motivation.

In the first set of studies (1994, 1995, & 1997) related to the current project,
McPherson conducted a three year longitudinal study with a group of 101 high school

clarinet and trumpet students to examine the development of five distinct types of

46

musical performance. Subjects were administered the Watkins F amum Performance
Scale to measure their capacity to perform a rehearsed piece, sight read, play by ear, play
from memory, and improvise. Additional data concerning factors thought to influence
skill development were obtained in structured interviews and analysis of reflective
comments made by students immediately after completing each of the four measures.

Results from the 1994 study show a significant improvement in each of the skills
over the three years, as well as changes in the aural and creative activities in which
instrumentalists report engaging during musical activity. Reflective comments show
distinct differences in the types of strategies used by instrumentalists to perform on each
of the measures. McPherson (1995) found important differences between younger and
older students in performance of rehearsed music, sight reading, playing by ear, playing
from memory, and improvising, with strengthening correlations among these five skills
as instrumentalists mature. Findings from the 1997 study show that, in the beginning
stages of training, sight-reading skill is not significantly correlated with an ability to
perform a repertoire of rehearsed music for a comprehensive performance examination.
Correlations between these two aspects of performance appear to strengthen markedly as
instrumentalists mature. Consistent with other studies (Elliot, 1982), results show that
rhythmic errors recur more frequently than all other types of errors.

McPherson’s findings suggest two important points for my study. First, the 1994
study suggests that the development of practice strategies may be related to maturation
and skill development. This relationship of practice to maturity and skill implies that
teachers must develop a sequence of practice habits to teach instrumentalists that reflects

their capabilities as they progress in their musicianship. Second, McPherson suggests that

47

students learn five separate performance skills, including performance of rehearsed
music, sight reading, playing from memory, playing by ear, and improvisation. Each of
these skills requires a different practice strategy. Therefore, the analysis of student
practice must recognize the skill being practiced, and its associated goal, in order to
compare the strategies one chooses with their purpose.

McPherson and McCormick (1999) explored the ways self-regulation (cognitive
strategy use) and motivation (intrinsic value, anxiety, and confidence) might interact with
the quantity and content of a musician’s practice. Subjects for the study included 190
pianists who were taking the Trinity College, London, performance examinations. A
questionnaire exploring possible relationships between self-regulation and motivation and
the quantity and content of musical practice was completed by each subject before taking
the test. The researchers used a regression analysis to discover key components within
practice and motivation. They found that the quantity of practice was related to anxiety
toward the oncoming test along with the amount of technical work practiced They also
discovered that subjects who reported greater amounts of practice on informal, creative
activities (playing by ear and improvising), repertoire (new as well as older pieces), and
technique tended to be more cognitively engaged while practicing and expressed more
intrinsic interest in learning their instrument and that the quantity of practice in the month
before the performance exam was related to the amount of technical work the subject
reported practicing. Finally, they found that the level of cognitive engagement during
practice and achievement are related.

McPherson and McCormick found that pianists who take private instruction tend

to achieve more when their practice is characterized by creative and purposeful activities.

48

While the pianists were exposed to regular one-on-one instruction and guidance, school
band students often are left on their own to develop their own practice techniques. Little
research has been conducted regarding the purposiveness of practice activities within the
school band population.

McPherson, Davidson, Pitts, and Renwick conducted a three year longitudinal
study investigating the practice of beginning band students that generated a total of seven
journal articles. A total of 157 participants in third and fourth grade took part in the study,
and 107 children out of the initial pool participated throughout. Participants came from
eight different primary schools with an established teacher and band program in Sydney,
Australia. The subject sample controlled for a balance of gender, socio-economic status
and school background. Students were provided instruments and given the opportunity to
join band, with the promise that students who continued through the three year study
would be allowed to keep their instruments.

The researchers collected multiple forms of data, including playing tests, sight-
reading tests, performance from memory, performance by ear, and improvisation, along
with parent interviews regarding practice time and student interviews regarding practice
strategies. Parents, teachers and students were interviewed in relation to changing
perceptions, attitudes, and skills during the first three years of learning. A number of
students were periodically videotaped as they practiced. Parents were interviewed in
structured phone interviews after 1 month, 6 months, and 1 year, while students had
structured live interviews before beginning, and at 10 and 20 months. Many questions

asked of participants were consistent over the 20 month period, which allowed for a

49

number of comparisons. Students who discontinued their participation in band completed
a questionnaire.

Pitts and McPherson (2000a) studied factors related to the success and failure of
the participant over the course of the project. Comparisons were drawn between children
who maintained and lost motivation over that period, and between those who ceased to
have lessons and those who persevered. Data included the student and parental interviews
and exit questionnaires supplied by those who dropped out of the study.

The results of their analysis showed that highly motivated students were more
likely to focus on quality of practice instead of practicing for a set amount of time. They
found that parental support was an important factor in developing success and that
intrinsic motivation tended to be more related to success than extrinsic rewards. Students
who maintained motivation were more self-critical, reflective, and conscientious in
practice. All three of these qualities tended to decrease as motivation decreased.

Pitts, Davidson, and McPherson (2000b) conducted a set of case studies of three
of the participants in order to more deeply understand the cognitive strategies the students
used in practice. They related practice strategies and other factors, such as environment,
motivation, and general ability, to the progress that was made in the first six months of
learning. Data for this portion of the project included videotaped recordings of ‘normal’
practice at two to six week intervals.

Students involved in this portion of the study included a ten year old male trumpet
player, a ten year old female saxophonist, and a nine year old female flautist. Analysis of
the data was based on “systematic and repeated viewings,” and a number of salient

themes were introduced. First, each student in this study exhibited qualitatively different

50

strategies and dispositions toward practice. While the boy seemingly enjoyed his practice,
the saxophonist seemed to rebel against her mother’s direction to practice, and the flautist
seemed to passively accept practice as a duty that was “good for her.”

Next, students seem to all exhibit negative attributes such as a short attention
span, avoidance strategies when the music was difficult, and a lack of self-correction The
trumpet player spent significantly more time playing and doing things that he felt
confident he could play successfully. This seemed to be one way he could avoid the tasks
that were more difficult. Students also exhibited seemingly appropriate practice
strategies, such as singing and fingering the music, and using repetition, but they were
generally done without an understanding of why they were doing them.

The researchers found that students who can identify and imitate their teacher’s
practice strategies tend to use their time more productively than those who do not. Most
students tended to demonstrate few self-correction techniques, and played through their
pieces or exercises with little discernible self-evaluation. This finding is supported by
Hallam’s (1998) suggestion that teachers need to model and teach effective practice
skills, even though the development of practice skills seems to be dependent upon
musical development. The study also reinforced the findings from other studies that
stressed importance of parental support (Pitts, et al. 2000; Sloboda et al. 1996; Davidson
et al. 1996, 1997; O’Neill, 1997; Zdzinski, 1996). They state that parents need to
understand concepts related to practice, such as goal orientation, avoidance techniques,
and the importance of detailed practice, in order to help their children be more efficient.

They also emphasize that teachers should teach practice strategies to students by

example and explanation Parents, on the other hand, have a different function. They

51

should not be intrusive; instead they should focus on encouraging their children in ways
that develop intrinsic motivation. According to the authors, “Practice must, at some level,
be enjoyable if it is to bring musical development and satisfaction, and our cases
demonstrate this in that the trumpeter is the only one to maintain a level of interest and so
make discernible progress. . . Practice will only become purposeful and self-deterrnined
when the pupil has a range of ‘task oriented strategies’ to draw upon.”

McPherson (2000) analyzed student interviews immediately before beginning
instruction, in order to investigate their value motivations in music related to how long
they thought they would learn their instrument. Interview results show that the children
were able to differentiate between their interest in learning a musical instrument, the
importance to them of being good at music, whether they thought their learning would be
useful to their short- and long-term goals, and the cost of participation in terms of the
effort needed to improve. Children's expectancy and value beliefs were found to be
powerful predictors of achievement, as the children's commitment to learning their
instruments and the amount of practice undertaken were useful in predicting achievement
after nine months of study.

McPherson and Renwick (2001) analyzed regularly videotaped practice sessions
of seven of the participants over the whole three year period. Based on six dimensions of
self-regulation, behavioral coding was used to assess the content of practice, the nature of
errors and common features and individual differences in musical practice. They found
low levels of self-regulatory behavior in which students set goals and monitored their
own learning. Students seemed to play through songs rather than work on spots and

mistakes were generally ignored or corrected by repeating single notes. Learning

52

strategies consisted almost exclusively of playing through pieces once or twice. Most
errors were either ignored or corrected by repeating one or two notes.

McPherson and Renwick found that beginners tend to practice less, partially due
to the fact that they are unable to use self-regulating strategies as well as more
experienced musicians. The children tended to show little evidence of deliberate practice
strategies typically exhibited by expert musicians.

Renwick and McPherson (2002) also conducted a case study of one of the
students in the program. For this female clarinetist, interviews and analysis of videotaped
practice sessions were used to compare practice behaviors for teacher-assigned repertoire
and a piece she chose herself. The authors state that motivational research in academic
subjects has demonstrated that when students are interested in an activity and feel free to
choose whether or not to do it, they are more likely to engage in higher-level cognitive
functioning, find it easier to concentrate, persevere, and enjoy their learning. When the
student in this study practiced music of her own choice, she was more likely to engage in
strategies typical of more advanced stages of development, such as silent fingering, silent
thinking, and singing. She also spent more time practicing the piece and persevered when
faced with difficulties.

McPherson and Davidson (2002) studied mother and child interactions during the
first year of learning an instrument. All 157 mother and child interviews were analyzed
during the first year of training. The authors analyzed interactions in quantity and content
of practice, the mother's support and supervision, the relationship of previous exposure to

learning an instrument and consistency of practice. Differences in expectations and

53

practice habits of children who ceased instruction were compared to those who
continued.

Results show that the children's mothers were able to accurately anticipate the
amount of support their children would need. The mothers who were concerned about
helping their children practice consistently were more likely to have children who
eventually dropped out of band. These children typically set unrealistic goals concerning
the amount of practice they would undertake. After they started and they experienced the
challenge of playing, this group of children consistently practiced less than those who
continued in band.

Finally, McPherson (2005) examined the strategies employed by children in the
early stages of learning their instrument. Researchers administered playing tests at the
beginning and end of each school year to assess the five types of musical performance
suggested by McPherson (1994, 1995, 1997). The children were then interviewed at the
end of the school year to assess their use of a practice diary, their focus on improvement
in practice, and their strategies for self-correction, sight reading, and memorization.

Results of the tests show that the children tended to retain their position relative to
their peers across the course of the study. A high percentage of children who experienced
difficulties in sight-reading and ear-to-hand coordination dropped out. The sequenced and
orderly use of strategies was found to be more important in predicting achievement than
the amount of practice, with the highest achievers showing a more sophisticated use of
strategy.

McPherson suggests that the common forms of assessment (practice time and

performance of rehearsed music) are unable to provide complete, accurate feedback

54

regarding musical development. He proposed that teachers may gain a better
understanding of progress by observing the range of practice strategies children employ.
These strategies may be telling regarding why some students are able to progress
effortlessly while others struggle and fail. He proposes the need for instruction of
students in practice skills.

Numerous implications flow from the set of articles emanating from this project.
Primarily, the results of these studies suggest that students need to be taught how to
practice in conjunction with being taught how to play their instruments. The researchers
state that students must be taught and encouraged to focus on quality rather than quantity
in their practice. They stress the value of intrinsic motivation and the influence that
parents and self choice have in this process. Finally, the results suggest that the choice of
practice strategy is partially dependent upon the type of performance skill being
addressed.

The team of researchers used a number of data sources, including parent, teacher
and student interviews, student questionnaires, and video recording of student practice.
While their chosen sources of data were valid sources of information for their research
questions, the investigators were unable to gain a deeper understanding of student
thought processes while they were engaged with practice. The current study intends to
address this issue with the use of verbal reports. Also, the series of reports were focused
upon students in the first three years of instrumental study. The current study will have a
slightly different focus, as participants will be in their second and third year of
instrumental music and will be slightly older than the Australian students. Because the

students in this study started instrumental music in sixth grade, as opposed to initial

55

lessons in third grade for the Australian students, it is anticipated that the difference in

age may produce qualitatively different results.

Self-assessment Research in Musical Performance

McPherson and Zimmerman (2002) stress the importance of self-assessment
within the context of self-regulation, as does Ericsson (1996) in his description of
deliberate practice. The process of self-assessment has an effect on the diagnosis and
correction of mistakes and student motivation. An analysis of a number of seminal
studies on the self-assessment of musical performance may lead to the formulation of
implications for this research project.

Davis (1981) was among the first to study the effects of self-assessment in the
music classroom. His study looked at the effect of structured singing activities and self-
evaluation on performance, tonal imagery and attitude in an elementary band setting. In
his design, 93 fifth and sixth grade band students from three separate schools were
separated into 12 heterogeneous groups. The experimental groups engaged in structured
singing activities, practiced self-evaluation, or a combination of the two while learning to
play their instruments and the control groups learned in what was considered a customary
teaching environment. At the end of the intervention, students were given an attitude
questionnaire and a performance test in which their self-evaluations were correlated with
those of experienced music teachers. The data were analyzed using analysis of variance
and Pearson and Spearman correlations.

Significant results of this study showed that the self-evaluations of the combined

experimental groups produced significant correlations with the expert evaluations, fifth

56

grade students engaged in structured-singing activities scored higher on instrumental
performance, and sixth grade students engaged in structured singing and self-evaluation
practice, along with one of the control groups, scored higher in instrumental performance
and attitude. Through this study, Davis concluded that structured singing activities, self-
evaluation practice, and a combination of the two improve performance skills and, to a
lesser extent, attitude. He found that practice with self-evaluation improves correlations
with external evaluators and that neither of the interventions had an effect upon the
development of melodic tonal imagery. He also concluded that the customary approach
was an effective method of teaching for second year students.

Limitations of this study were that it used a relatively small number of subjects
and that the second year students had been conditioned to learning using the customary
teaching methods from the prior year. These two factors could have a significant effect
on his final conclusion. Davis’ study suggests that beginning instrumental students can
learn to self-evaluate, but it does not describe what evaluation skills they currently have.

Bergee’s (1993 & 1997) two studies focused on the reliability of self-evaluation
with college aged music students. In the first study, Bergee used a small number of brass
students and two panels of musicians as the subjects. Students were assessed by a panel
of faculty brass professors during their end of the semester performance jury using an
established brass adjudication form. A videotape was made of each performance and
students were given the opportunity to view the video and complete a copy of the same
adjudication form within one week of the assessment. A second panel, identified as the
peer group made up of college and professional level brass musicians, also viewed

student videotapes and completed the adjudication form. Bergee then correlated the

57

assessments of each group. The results showed that inter-j udge reliabilities were high in
both the faculty and peer panels and, while the assessments of the peer panel tended to be
higher than the faculty panel, there was a moderately high correlation between the two.
The self-assessment scores, on the other hand, had low correlations with both the peer
and faculty groups, confirming prior investigations that suggest that self-evaluation
generally correlates poorly with external evaluations. Neither of the three groups,
however, were trained in the use of the adjudication form. Training, discussion, and
practice using the forms may have had a significant effect on the results of the study.

Bergee’s second study was much like the first. The difference was that he
expanded the number of subjects and the range of performance idioms to include
woodwinds, brass, percussion, strings, and voice. To accomplish this, he used over 50
students and 26 faculty from three separate universities and adjusted the adjudication
form to accommodate the needs of the various families of instruments. His findings were
nearly identical to those of his previous study, but he also found that faculty inter-judge
reliabilities were uneven. This new finding led to a new research project studying faculty
inter-judge reliability, published in 2003. The assessment tool used in this study had not
been tested for reliability, and therefore it, along with a continued lack of training in the
use of the tool, could have attenuated the results of this study.

Bergee’s third and fourth studies regarding self-assessment evolved from the first
two (Bergee & Cecconi-Robers, 2002). In them, the researchers hypothesized that
participation in small, informal peer group discussions would have a positive effect on
the ability of undergraduate music students to accurately self-evaluate their performances

compared to faculty evaluations. In the first study, 14 students participated in small group

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discussions four times over a two week period prior to end of the semester juries. During
the discussions, students would perform for each other and critique the performances.
Students were then videotaped during their juries along with a control group (N=15).
Following the performances, each student viewed their video and assessed themselves.
Finally, assessments of the experimental group, control group, and faculty evaluators
were correlated. Results showed a small but significant difference (p<. 1) between the
experimental and control groups. The second study used 69 subjects following the same
hypothesis, but with a number significant changes in the design. First, during similar
discussion sessions, the experimental groups added an activity in which they listened to
exemplars of musical performances and discussed their qualities. Second, it was believed
that combining the first study with the high stakes realities of end of semester evaluations
may have had an effect on the results. Therefore, students performed in a non-graded
situation. Third, the researchers wanted to see if a change could be seen during the length
of the study, so students were recorded during each discussion session and evaluated
themselves, while the researchers served as the external evaluators. The control group
performed privately for the researchers an equal number of times. They also self-
evaluated, but did not participate in small group discussion or in listening to exemplars.

Data included five separate self- and external evaluations for each student, along
with peer evaluations for the experimental group. Data were correlated among the three
groups and compared the change within each student’s evaluation over time. A small
interaction was seen between time the initial ability of students to self-evaluate. Students
who were initially less able to accurately assess themselves showed a prompt

improvement, though the improvement decreased over time. No other positive effects

59

were found in this study. Again, students were not trained in the use of the assessment
tool; they were only provided extra experiences in using the tool with other non-trained
students.

Bergee’s studies show that self-assessments by college aged music students do
not tend to correlate well with the assessments of others. Logic would presume that, if
this is the case for college music majors, then self-assessments by younger students may
correlate as poorly or worse. Bergee’s studies did not describe what his subjects heard as
they assessed themselves or how they understood the criteria or what they were
comparing their grade to. The current study will attempt to discover possible reasons why
students assess themselves differently than others.

Aitchison’s (1995 ) study explored the effects of incrementally increased levels of
self-evaluation on the performance, self-evaluation accuracy, motivation and self-esteem
of 84 seventh and eighth grade instrumental students over an eight week period. Students
were separated into four groups regarding mode of evaluation: teacher-only, teacher-
driven, student-only, and student-driven. Students performed a one—page, teacher-chosen
etude and a self-selected piece of music representing their perceived performance level.
Data included pre-test, mid-test, and post-tests of the teacher chosen etude (teacher-
evaluated and self-evaluated), post-tests of the student-chosen etude (teacher and self-
evaluated), pre-tests and post-tests of interest and self-esteem, one measure of self-
evaluation accuracy, one of critical self-evaluation commentary and one for motivation to
continue self-evaluations. Aitchison used a split—plot ANOVA to analyze the data.

Results showed significant pre-test to post-test improvements in extemal-

evaluation ratings, self-evaluation ratings, self-evaluation accuracy, intrinsic interest,

self-esteem, and critical commentary. He also found medium high correlations between
external and self-evaluations for teacher selected music and medium correlations for
student selected music. Finally, analysis showed that self-evaluation positively influenced
intrinsic interest and perceptions of musical performance ability.

Like Davis, Aitchison suggests that students can be trained to assess themselves.
Aitchison went on to state that self-assessment may benefit intrinsic motivation and self-
efficacy. Once again, though, Aitchison did not discuss how students use self-assessment
when they are outside of the experimental group. A void remains in. the body of research
that describes this matter.

Hewitt’s (2001) study explored the effects of combinations of modeling, self-
assessment, and self-listening on the performance and attitude toward practice of junior
high band students. Using 82 subjects, Hewitt divided them into eight groups composed
of all possible combinations of the three independent variables and a control group.
Students were then released from class multiple times to practice a researcher-chosen
piece of music using their assigned practice method. Data included the amount of
improvement experienced between pre-tests and post-tests of student performances of the
assigned piece. The evaluators used an established music performance rating scale
(Saunders & Holahan, 1997), and students in the self-evaluation groups used a modified
version of the same scale. The results of this pretest/posttest 2 x 2 x 2 factorial design
showed that students who listened to a model and self-evaluated their performance as part
of their practice improved significantly more than the other groups in most dimensions of
the rating scale. Self-evaluation or modeling by themselves, however, did not seem to be

effective in improving student’s performance. Hewitt surmised that the lack of

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improvement of the self-evaluation group may result from a lack of student ability to
prescribe solutions based upon diagnosed strengths and weaknesses.

The interaction between listening to a model and self-evaluation was a significant
finding that led to Hewitt’s second study (2002). In this project, Hewitt attempted to
discover if self-evaluation with or without a model had an effect on self evaluation
accuracy and if a relationship existed between selfoevaluation accuracy and achievement.
A total of 41 subjects participated in the pretest/posttest 2 x 2 factorial design. Analysis
of the data suggested that student self-evaluation scores did not improve and increased
over time regardless of model-group condition. Student self-evaluations also showed no
correlation with expert evaluations in most dimensions of perfonrrance, which is
consistent with other studies (Bundy, 1987; Byo, 1994; Bergee, 1993, 1997, & 2003;
Kostka, 1997). The conclusions from this study were that the use of a model did not assist
students in their self-evaluation accuracy and that the process of self-evaluation had a
non-sigrrificant effect on self-evaluation accuracy. Based on his prior experience, Hewitt
expected different results.

There are a number of possible reasons for the surprising results of this study.
First, students used a rating scale that measured eight different dimensions of
performance. Gordon (2002) states that reliability is attenuated when evaluators assess
several dimensions all at once, because of the added complexity each new dimension
brings to the task. Second, students self-evaluated without teacher assistance and with
little training and prior practice in evaluation. Aitchison’s (1995) research suggests that

students need teacher instruction to improve assessment skill. Finally, students were not

62

given clear instructions in regard to what to listen for as they listened to the model.
Again, without teacher guidance, student achievement may be limited.

Hewitt’s most recent (2005) study attempted to discover if grade-level differences
exist on self—evaluation tendencies over time and on self-evaluation accuracy. Subjects
for this study were students enrolled in two summer band camps. The first camp was a
high school honors band, while the second was a camp for middle school students. The
two groups totaled over 140 students and the mean age difference was just under two
years with a mean difference in private lesson experience just over two years. Students in
both groups self-evaluated their ensemble’s performance during rehearsals, while expert
evaluators judged an individual final performance. Hewitt once again used the rating
scales developed by Saunders and Holahan (1997) and a modified version of the scales
for the students.

Results indicated that differences did exist in performance self-evaluations as the
week progressed in some sub-areas and that high school students tended to be more
accurate (defined as the difference between self-evaluation score and expert score) than
middle school students in all sub-areas except melody and rhythm, though the middle
school scores correlated more highly with the expert evaluators than did the high school
scores. The difference in self-evaluation accuracy may be due to a lack of variance in the
scores provided by the high school students. The two subareas in which the middle
school students were most accurate - rhythm and melody -— are also the two most
objective dimensions of the rating scale and logically the two areas that young students
may focus on the most, which may explain why the students were more accurate in these

areas. Also, both groups were most accurate in the evaluation of melody and least

63

accurate in the evaluation of technique/articulation, a result that was found in the
previous study (2002). These findings may suggest that a hierarchy of self-evaluation
subareas exists, that may also imply that, pedagogically, there may be an order in which
teachers should present self-assessment of musical performance dimensions.

While the value of self-assessment is well established, research is inconclusive
regarding its effect on student learning (Hewitt, 2001). Prominent educational theorists
expound the value of self-assessment as a part of a gestalt view of self-regulated learning
in which students set goals, monitor progress and assess their progress in a cyclical
process (McPherson & Zimmerman, 2002; Zimmerman, 2002). While some researchers
suggest that the reasoning for low correlations between self—assessments and teacher
assessments may be due to the cognitive immaturity of children that prevents them fi'om
accurate self-assessment (N icholls & Miller, 1983), another view could be that self-
assessment is part of a gestalt, and is therefore difficult to measure in isolation. Hewitt
(2001) and Aitchison (1995) both suggest that students seem unable to improve their
musical performance solely with the use of self-evaluation, but improvement is more
noticeable when the self-assessments are combined with exposure to a model or teacher
feedback.

Finally, one of the reasons for inconclusive results may be in the design of the
assessment methods themselves. Gordon (2002) warns evaluators of the dangers of
attempting to assess multiple dimensions of performance in just one listening attempt.
Each of the evaluation tools in the studies listed above rated multiple dimensions of
performance. Therefore, researchers risk poor validity when evaluators listen to

performances one time, and this is compounded in less experienced students who are less

capable of processing multiple thoughts (Kepner, 1986; Bundy, 1987; Watson, 2006).
Also, according to Stiggins (2001) and Black & William (1998), student-involved
formative assessment must include a clear goal, a clear description of current
achievement, appropriate feedback, and an implicit means of bringing achievement
toward the goal. The methodologies of the prior studies did not describe how students
were with this information.

While part of this lack of clarity is due to the ambiguous nature of the assessment
of the many dimensions music, it seems that researchers may benefit from a deeper
understanding of how students are monitoring their performance as they play. Extra
training may alleviate the problems encountered in a number of the studies, but educators
must first understand how students assess themselves before they can determine what
interventions need to be made.

Little research has focused on how students assess themselves or how they use the
information gained through self-assessment to direct their learning. Therefore, it is
difficult to identify the factors that have a bearing upon the generally poor relationships
between student and teacher assessments. Future research in music practice that
investigates student thought processes as they assess themselves and use their self-
assessments to inform their practice may provide educators with valuable information

that may lead to improved methodologies in teaching practice.

Chapter Summary

This chapter has presented a number of studies that look at instrumental music

practice through multiple and varied lenses. Through my analysis of each researcher’s

65

work, I derived six elements that seem to have an effect on the quality of practice,
including motivation, goal setting, strategies, assessment, structure, and supervision.
Each of these elements also seems to be interlinked with the others in a myriad of
different ways.

Many of the authors in this chapter stress the importance of teaching students how
to practice (Aitchison, 1995; Barry, 1992 & 1994; Hallam, 2001a; McPherson, 2005;
Nielsen, 2004). McPherson (2005 ) emphasized that, “children who applied musically
appropriate mental strategies early in their learning were more likely to succeed in
comparison with their peers.” It seems logical that, through the process of teaching
students how to practice effectively, more students will be able to apply the strategies
McPherson described, and consequently, more students will be able to make music at a
higher level. In order to begin to teach beginning and intermediate music students how to
practice more efficiently, teachers must first discover how students currently practice.
Educators cannot set appropriate teaching objectives until a baseline fiom which to work
has been set.

McPherson (2005) stated that, “little research to date defines and clarifies
children’s use of strategies when learning instrumental performance.” The few studies
that have attempted to address this need have generally focused on the strategies students
use in their practice and on their motivation to practice (Barry, 1992; Leon-Guerrero,
2004; McPherson 1997, 2000 & 2005; McPherson & Renwick, 2001 & 2002; Pitts,
Davidson & McPherson, 2000a & 2000b). Even fewer studies have investigated the

thought processes that inform and drive practice in novice students (Leon-Guerrero,

2004; McPherson & Renwick, 2002), and no study has examined the ways in which
students use goals and assessment in their practice.

Beginning instrumentalists’ practice may be characterized as inefficient (Barry,
1990; Gruson, 1988; McPherson & Renwick, 2001; Pitts, Davidson & McPherson,
2000a), but Schunk (1996a) states that the combination of learning goals and self-
evaluation can be powerful self-regulative tools. He further states (2001) that when
people set and meet goals, they build self-efficacy and begin to select newer, more
challenging goals. He found that learning goals combined with self-evaluation led to
greater persistence than the performance goals without self-evaluation (1994a). Further,
McPherson (2005), Pitts et al. (2000a), and Smith (2005) state that students who practice
to improve demonstrate more persistence.

The purpose of this study is to fill a void left in the extent research related to
student thought processes while they are engaged in instrumental music practice. By
understanding the reasons behind student choices related to goal setting and self-
assessment in the context of practice, we may begin to understand what steps must be

taken in the process of teaching them to practice effectively.

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CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY

The detailed plan for the design and analysis of this project will be described in
this chapter. I will describe the site and setting, discuss the teacher’s background, and
discuss the steps the teacher has taken with the objective of teaching practice skills to her
students. Next, I will discuss the validity of verbal reports as a reliable research
methodology and describe the student tasks used to create data. Finally, I will explain

how the data was analyzed and interpreted

Researcher’s Lens

1 was always a one of the top students in my school band. I was good because I
practiced more than anyone else. When I became a music major in college, I began to
realize that some of the other students were able to generate more quality from their
practice without putting in as much quantity of time as I did. My professor helped me
develop a practice routine, and I noticed an increase in my rate of improvement. As a
beginning teacher, I took a course based on Madeline Hunter’s instructional theory into
practice (ITIP), which focused on learning theory, and I found that much of the
information I gleaned from the course could be directly applied to my own practice.

Throughout my sixteen years as a music teacher, I maintained a small clarinet and
saxophone studio. One of my major objectives for my students was for them to learn how
to use effective practice strategies because I believed that my job was to help my students
to become independent learners. In essence, I considered myself successful when my

students no longer needed me to help them learn their music. This, of course, never

68

happened in the ultimate sense that students no longer needed some coaching, but I did
find that many of my students gradually became independent to some degree in their
playing.

As a school band teacher, I also found myself thinking of ways to teach my
students to practice “smarter, not harder.” From my ITIP course, I knew that setting goals
and knowing how well you were doing in relation to those goals had some role to play in
being a “smarter practicer.” Therefore, many of the practice assignments I gave my
students asked them to set goals and to evaluate themselves to some extent. I found this
strategy to work for some students, but not for all. I often found myself wishing that I
could be a “fly on the wall” while my students were practicing, so that I could know what
they did and how they were thinking during this time.

Since arriving at Michigan State University, I have had the privilege — and the
aggravation - of watching my two children practice violin. While I was teaching in the
public schools, my wife, who was also their violin teacher, helped to guide their practice.
Since entering graduate school, I have had more opportunities to be a “fly on the wall” in
my own home, as I watch and help my children practice. I have found that my son often
makes what I deem to be wise decisions related to his practice, but also makes decisions
that are contrary to the suggestions for efficient practice that I have given him, based on
what I have learned through reading the research. We have modeled and guided specific
practice concepts with him, only to find him reverting back to old habits.

The research questions for this project emerged over the past twenty years as I
have struggled with my own practice and the practice of my students. I believe that

students must learn to practice efficiently in order to become independent learners, and

69

they must become independent learners if they are to continue playing their instruments
beyond their school years. For this multiple case study, I have chosen to observe middle
school students who have one to two years of experience in school band. Because I was
an outside observer to the environment, students may have felt uncomfortable around me
at first, which may have attenuated the data. On the other hand, students also knew that I
had no power over them within the school setting, so they were free to act and to answer
questions in a more open manner.

My experience as a private teacher, band teacher, and as a father of young
violinists, along with my understanding of current theories related to practice, offers me a
unique perspective in understanding the decisions students make during practice. I have
been able to develop a personal philosophy about the development of practice skills; I
have taught these skills to many private students and band classes and 1 have observed
my children practice at home. Though these experiences aid in the interpretation of this
study, they also may have limited the study because of the opinions I have already
developed and attempted set aside in order view the data in an unbiased fashion. It is my
hope that this dissertation may answer a number of questions about how children practice
at home and why they make the decisions they make. From this data, new and more
effective methods of teaching practice may be developed leading to increased musical

independence.

Purpose

The purpose of this multiple case study was to describe the self-regulated practice

of middle school band students. Specifically, student use of goals and self-assessment

7O

was studied. The overarching research question guiding this study was, “What self-

regulated practice strategies are exhibited by intermediate level instnunental music

students?” More specifically, the key research questions were:

1.

What goal setting and self-assessment comments do novice,
adolescent instrumental musicians make during instrumental
practice?

What goal setting and self-assessment strategies do novice,
adolescent instrumental musicians use during instrumental
practice?

Are there differences in practice strategies found among students
when they are deliberately involved in goal setting or self-
assessment compared to times when they are not setting goals or
self-assessment?

What strategies do students use to address various technical

aspects of performance (rhythm, notes, articulation, etc)?

Because the research questions were focused upon the thought processes of the

participants, the answers to the questions were found using verbal reports. Therefore, the

data collection method for this study relied heavily on the work of Ericsson and Simon

(1993 ). Both concurrent reports and retrospective reports were used as key data sources,

along with video analysis of practice sessions, student interviews and teacher interviews.

This chapter will describe the methodology used in the collection and analysis of

data. I will describe the process that will be used to recruit participants and obtain

parental and school consent as well as student assent. A description of the setting will be

71

given and a chronology will be outlined that will describe when participants were
selected and when data was collected. Next, the data collection method will be explained.

Finally, I will discuss the method used for data analysis.

Chronology and Setting

A pilot study for this project took place in the spring of 2006. I used retrospective
think-aloud protocol and video analysis as the core data while investigating the practice
of three seventh grade students enrolled in a suburban Midwestern middle school, along
with two of my own private students, who were in eighth and ninth grade. The results of
this study, along with a further review of literature suggested the research questions for
the current study.

I sought advice from local music teachers regarding likely participants for my
project. Based on this advice, I contacted a highly recommended school band director
from a nearby school district to ascertain her interest in this research project and received
an enthusiastic “yes.” The teacher agreed to aid in recruiting students for the study,
provide a room on school property in which to videotape and interview students, submit
to an interview regarding the student participants, and obtain permission from school
authorities. Approval from the school district for the research study was obtained in
October of 2006. This approval was then submitted along with all required information to
the University Committee on Research Involving Human Subjects (UCRIHS). Final
approval was received from UCRIHS in December of 2006. Informational letters and
consent and assent forms were distributed following UCRIHS approval and data

collection began in January of 2007.

72

Participants for this study were seventh and eighth grade students enrolled in
Rutherfordl Middle School situated in a small, suburban, middle class, Midwestern city.
The population of the school is 738, while the band program boasts 180 students enrolled
in five bands, grades six through eight. The school operates on a six period schedule with
fifty minute classes. The band teacher, Ms. Zingerrnan, has taught at the school for seven
years. The students in this school district begin band in sixth grade.

The six students in this study were all enrolled in the seventh and eighth grade
bands. Ms. Zingerrnan and I addressed each of her seventh and eighth grade classes
regarding the study and asked for volunteers. Therefore, all of the participants were self-
selected. Due to the nature of this study, we limited the number of participants to six,
accepting the first six students who turned in their consent forms. All encounters with
students were conducted in empty classrooms situated within the school. In order to
comply with district policy, the teachers assigned to those classrooms remained quietly in
the room while I videotaped the students. Students were excused from their regular band
class to participate in this study. Students were excused from class five times over a two
month period. Three of the times, students participated one at a time in the practice
portion of the study. Students also participated in focus group interviews prior to and
following the practice sessions. Because the six participants came from three separate
classes, we were unable to have all six students present during the focus group sessions.
Instead, these sessions were conducted during each of the three classes. Therefore, the
two eighth grade students were in one focus group while three of the four seventh grade

students were in another. The single seventh grade trombonist was interviewed alone.

 

‘ The names of the school and all of the participants have been changed in order to ensure anonymity.

73

As I began the process of choosing and recruiting a local middle school teacher to
participate in the study, numerous university professors and school music teachers
suggested Ms. Zingerrnan due to her consistently outstanding bands, her cooperative
spirit, and her own inquisitive nature. Because I was assigned to supervise a student
teacher who had a partial assignment with Ms. Zingerrnan, I had an opportunity to visit
her class and watch her teach. After my observation I was convinced that I had found a
strong candidate for my study. Ms. Zingerrnan was encouraging to her students and the
bands were all developing good skills for their experience level. Most importantly, the
students seemed to have a large degree of trust and affection for Ms. Zingerrnan. This, I
believed, would be an important factor in helping me to recruit students for my project.

Ms. Zingerrnan and I seemed to have a similar interest in the development of
practice skills in novice musicians. She stated that she consciously teaches her students
how to practice, although she stated, “You know, I don’t have as organized approach as I
probably should.” (Ms. Zingerrnan Interview). Generally, this teaching happens during
“teachable moments.” The following interview excerpt is Ms. Zingerrnan’s description of
how she teaches her students to practice:

Mostly, we ’11 talk about practicing when we 're doing something in

class that is something they should be doing when they 're practicing. Like

if we take a section, and we slow it down Then we gradually speed it up.

Then I ’11 say, “hey guys, what did we just do? ” And now they know the

answer, and they say, “We practiced. ” And then I’ll say, “That is really

the best way to learn something like this. When you ’re at home, slow it

down, don ’t just plow through it. . .

74

When we 're doing the first scale of the day, which is a long tone scale,
I ’11 say, “what should you be thinking about? ” And then, “should you be
doing that when you 're practicing at home too? ". . .

I guess I just look more for teaching moments, more than approaching
it like, “we ’re going to talk about practicing today. ” Which maybe I need
to do, and just say, “we ’re going to talk about practice today, and here 'S

what we ’re going to talk about. ” (Ms. Zingerman Interview).

Students in Ms. Zingerrnan’s bands are required to turn in weekly practice sheets.
Grades are based on a combination of the number of minutes they practice per week as
well as the number of days on which they practice. She also scaffolds their individual
practice by giving daily assignments that are taken either from the students’ concert
music or from their technique book. She also informs the students of what they should
focus on as they prepare their music for the next day. Finally, Ms. Zingerrnan assigns
playing tests for lines from the students’ technique books that they have not practiced in
class. The students’ job is to learn the music on their own, providing Ms. Zingerrnan

information about each student’s musical independence.

Data Collection Techniques
Data was collected from five sources. I conducted focus group sessions with the
participants before they engaged in their first practice session and after the last practice
sessions. I also interviewed the participants’ teacher, Ms. Zingerrnan, after all of the

student data had been collected. Third, I collected video taped recordings of student

75

practice sessions. Fourth, as the students practiced, they were asked to provide verbal
reports of their thought processes. Finally, I reviewed the video each practice session
with the participants immediately after they completed their session and asked them to
provide retrospective verbal reports on their thought processes.

While verbal reports have been used for over 100 years, they began to lose favor
during the middle of the twentieth century as the behaviorist paradigm of research gained
dominance. Verbal reports were generally considered unscientific and at best were treated
as another form of verbal behavior. Ericsson and Simon’s (1980) seminal article Verbal
Reports as Data challenged the assumption of verbal reports as invalid and unreliable.
Their thesis was that, when collected carefully, verbal reports could prove to be a
valuable, valid and reliable method of data collection. To this extent, they promoted a
number of criteria gauged to ensure trustwothiness. This article then led to their text
Protocol Analysis: Verbal Reports as Data (1984 & 1993).

The central assumption regarding verbal reports is that it is possible to instruct
subjects to describe their thoughts in a way that does not alter their sequence of thoughts
while completing a task. Ericsson and Simon (1993) found no evidence that the
sequences of thoughts were changed when subjects thought aloud as they completed tasks
compared to subjects who completed the same tasks silently. However, some studies did
show that the think-aloud subjects would take somewhat longer to complete given
assignments.

Ericsson and Simon (1993) state that verbal reports are reliable when they focus
on subjects’ cognitive processes as they engage in activities that require their attention.

The key is for the data to be collected while the subject’s thoughts are still in short term

76

memory. Therefore, the most valuable reports are those that are given while the subject is
performing the task This is identified as concurrent think aloud (CT A). Ericsson and
Simon (1980) recognize that this type of data collection is not always possible because
some tasks take too short a time for subjects to talk about while they are doing it. Other
tasks take too much concentration to complete, such as juggling or performing a musical
instrument. Because thought can be accessed in short term memory for up to ten seconds,
Ericsson and Simon (1993) recommend that subjects discuss their thought processes
immediately after the completion of the task in what they call retrospective think aloud
(RTA). Other complex activities, such as skiing or performing a full musical piece may
not be accessible within this ten second time frame. Garner (1987) suggests that video
and audio recordings can be used in order to stimulate memory while the subject engages
in RTA.

While time is of the essence in obtaining reliable data, the type of thoughts
subjects are asked to verbalize also may taint the data. Ericsson and Simon (1993)
describe three types of verbal report and the effect they have on validity. Type 1 verbal
reports are described as ‘self-talk.’ In this type of verbal report, the subject simply says
whatever comes to mind. This is the most pure form of verbal report; but, because
thoughts often occur in chunks of words and concepts, the data in this type of report is
often fragmented and incoherent. Type 2 reports ask the subjects to describe their
thinking and label their thoughts. Finally, type 3 reports ask subjects to make inferences
in order to explain the reasoning behind their thoughts and actions. This type of verbal
report requires the subject to access information from long term memory that is usually

unnecessary for the completion of the task

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The prospect of human error in collecting verbal report data is great. Therefore,
Ericsson and Simon (1993) suggested a number of criteria that would aid in obtaining the
most reliable data possible. The first suggestion is that verbal reports must be given as
close to the completion of a task as possible. They believe that CTA is the most reliable
of all verbal reports, while recognizing that RTA is often the most practical. Second, type
1 and type 2 reports are considered much more reliable than type 3 reports because the
data created in types 1 and 2 are the truest forms of thought. Third, the prompts given by
the researcher can often hold bias and can influence the thoughts of the subject.
Therefore, it is suggested that prompts be scripted and neutral. Next, Ericsson and Simon
recommend that the setting of the experiment be as naturalistic as possible. Participants
may provide different data when they are in an uncomfortable or laboratory-like setting.

Activities that have become automatic in the participant are not conducive to
verbal report research because the participant does not access verbal thoughts in order to
complete them. Therefore, it is often more appropriate to obtain data from subjects who
are learning a new task instead of those who have become expert at the task. For
example, a novice clarinet player may provide more detailed data regarding the thought
processes involved in creating a characteristic tone than a professional, because the
novice still must think about the critical elements involved in producing a good tone. The
professional no longer needs to think about it.

Finally, Ericsson and Simon (1993) recommend that verbal reports be used as one
of a number of data collection methods. Through triangulation, researchers can obtain
more valid results. They recommend that other sources of data be accessed, such as

observation, artifact analysis, eye movement sequences, reaction time, and error rates. If

78

appropriate, multiple sets of data from the same subjects or multiple methods of coding
that data can also provide a more complete picture of a person’s thinking. The use of

peer-review is also highly recommended.

Procedure

My role during the data collection portion of this study was as an observer and
interviewer. I worked with Ms. Zingerrnan to schedule days and times to visit the school
and interview students. Further, I used a Canon Z60 video camera and Olympus DM20
digital recorder for data collection and again use the video camera to play back each
practice session for the students.

My initial encounter with the participants was in a focus group setting. The
purpose of this interview was to help students become comfortable with me and to allow
me to understand their knowledge of practice. I asked the students to describe their
practice routines and describe the practice strategies that they commonly use. Other
questions for the students focused on their musical backgrounds and long-term goals, as
well as their use of self-assessment and goal setting during their home practice. This
interview session was video recorded using a Canon Z60 mini dv video camera I
downloaded all video data onto my computer and rendered it into mp3 files. All data was
then stored on DVD.

Students were to be notified by Ms. Zingerrnan at least one day before they were
videotaped during practice. Students were asked to bring any music and practice aid
(metronome, tuner, etc.) from home that they were accustomed to using. On the day a

student was scheduled to participate in the study, he/ she was excused from the whole

79

music period. The student brought his/her instrument and supplies to an assigned
classroom within the school. These rooms were equipped with a chair, music stand, and a
Canon Z-60 video camera mounted on a tripod.

The student was then asked to practice for 20 minutes and to verbalize his/her
thoughts. My instructions to each student at the beginning of the first practice session
were, “Please practice your music for the next 20 minutes in the same way that you
would if you were at home. You may practice any music and practice in any way you
wish. I am interested in knowing what you are thinking while you are practicing.
Therefore, please say whatever you are thinking out loud. You do not need to explain
your thoughts or even speak in full sentences. J ust say whatever you are thinking.
Afterward, we will view the video of your practice together.” I then turned on the video
camera and took notes as the student practiced. Many times, students would forget to
think out loud. I would then prompt them by saying, “Tell me what’s on your mind,”
“What were you thinking about,” or, “What were you focusing on?”

After the student had practiced for 20 minutes, I re-wound the videotape, and we
watched the practice session together. These interviews were recorded using an Olympus
DM-20 digital recorder. My original plan for this stage of the data collection was to
instruct each student to explain what was happening and what he/she was thinking about
while the videotape was playing, in essence creating what Ericsson would describe as
Type 2 verbal reports. After working with the first two students, I found that I would
need to become much more involved in the interview process than originally planned.
The students were unable to add much insight to their thoughts without my aid.

Therefore, my plan changed while I worked with the third student and I began to engage

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in Type 3 verbal reports, in which I asked more pointed questions regarding what the
students were thinking as they played and why. The interviews concluded with a final set
of questions that I posed regarding the goals they had and the ways they used self-
assessment to guide their practice. Students answered other questions that were based
upon my observations of their practice.

Each student was to be videotaped in this manner three times at two week
intervals. Due to a snow day, an all school function, and meeting I had to attend, the
original schedule had to be altered and the third practice sessions started a week later than
planned. After all practice sessions had been recorded and transcribed, the students were
interviewed in their focus groups one last time. These sessions were also videotaped In
this interview, I asked students how their home practice may have changed over the
course of the study. I also asked students to clarify numerous questions that arose from
the analysis of the data.

I also interviewed the students’ teacher, Ms. Zingerrnan. The focus of this
interview was to obtain the teacher’s perspective of each student’s musicianship as well
as to gain an understanding of what training in practice strategies the students have had in
their band experience. Ms. Zingerrnan was asked to share her opinions of the students’
strengths and weaknesses as musicians. She was also asked to describe the learning
activities she has facilitated in order to help students develop practice strategies,

especially as they pertain to goal setting and self-assessment.

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Data Analysis

Creswell (1998) advocates a number of forms of analysis of case studies,
including the establishment of patterns in the correspondence of two or more categories.
Miles and Hubennan (1994) recommend that “investigators make preliminary ‘counts’ of
data and determine how frequently codes appear in the database” (in Creswell, p. 142).
Ericsson and Simon (1993) advocate the use of multiple forms of data analysis as a
method of improving trustworthiness, so I therefore chose to analyze the data in this
study by establishing patterns and making preliminary frequency counts. The video data
was downloaded and rendered using Windows Movie Maker and then burned onto DVD
using Cyberlink Power DVD. Audio data from the digital recorder was downloaded onto
a computer using Olympus DSS Player 2002 and then burned onto CD. This process of
downloading data served as a means of storing information and facilitated efficient
transcription of the data. Backup copies of the CDs were stored in a separate, secure area
and then destroyed upon completion of the study.

I transcribed the student practice video in two stages. In the first stage, I
transcribed student actions, and then transcribed the concurrent verbal reports. This data
was segmented into complete thoughts and placed in a parallel column to the scripted
practice, in order to roughly synchronize the two transcripts (see example in Table 2 and
3). Finally, I transcribed the retrospective reports in the same manner as the concurrent
reports to allow for side-by-side comparison of the three data sources. The initial and
final student focus group interviews as well as the teacher interview were separately

transcribed from the DVD recording. Comments were once again segmented into

82

complete thoughts. This meant that a segment would contain a single word or a number
of sentences, depending on the focus of the student’s comments.

These transcripts were typed into a table, using Microsoft Word in order to allow
me to sort items by participant, code, time, or data source (i.e., Concurrent Report,
Retrospective Report, focus group, Ms. Zingerrnan). After compiling the data, I had
collected 315 pages of transcripts and numerous pages of typed and hand written journal
entries based on my observations. As 1 coded the data, I compiled over 3500 coded
instances that I condensed into eight categories, the most common categories being
strategies, followed by assessment, goals, and motivation. Using the sort tool in
Microsoft Word, I was able to sort the data and codes in various ways to allow me to
recognize trends and tendencies within and among participants.

Ericsson and Simon (1993) recommend a system of coding in which broad
categories are developed prior to the initial analysis of data to “minimize the
contamination of data by ad hoc theory.” They state that decisions made in regard to
coding are based on a “specific body of knowledge,” external to the data, that is
generated from past research. Therefore, the initial coding process separated data into
broad categories based upon the five main themes that emerged from a prior pilot study
(Oare, 2006) and the body of literature related to self-regulated practice, including
motivation, goal setting, practice strategies, assessment, and supervision and structure.
Each broad category was then divided into a number of sub—categories that were derived
from the data For example, the theme of goal setting was further divided into specificity

of the goals, achievement orientation, element priority, practice time orientation, routine,

83

clarity of criteria, enjoyment, and challenge. As a third level of coding, I added comments
that seemed pertinent to each individual code (appendix H).

Furthermore, Creswell describes the analysis of qualitative data as “custom-built,”
in that the analytic procedures “evolve in the field” as the researcher engages in a process
of spiraling data analysis (Creswell, 1998, p. 142). This internal process of analysis
includes data collection, data management, reading and memoing, describing, classifying,
interpreting, and representing. As the researcher proceeds through this form of data
analysis, it is expected that disconfirrning evidence will arise, that suggest emergent
categories and themes that contradict or expand upon the external, a priori codes.
Therefore, while the initial coding process included external codes based on prior
literature, I also included another category labeled “miscellaneous” for any code that did
not seem to fit any of the external categories, with the expectation that one or more
internal categories may emerge. From this miscellaneous category, another category
entitled aural image emerged.

When identifying codes within the transcripts, I used capital initials to signify the
main category and lower case words to signify sub-categories (Table 2 and 3). I also
made necessary notes to further clarify each individual transcript segment. For example, a
performance of a scale as a part of a warm-up routine can be coded as “G: routine —
warm-up scale,” signifying that the incidence belonged in the goal oriented category (G),
it was based on routine, and it was a warm-up scale. This process of coding segments into
various levels of categorization allowed for concomitant analysis of the data at multiple
levels.

Table 2: Example (fa Concurrent Report Transcription

 

Participant Time‘ Data My Comments / Code

 

 

 

 

 

Nickl 1:54 I'll start with scales G: scales Warm-up routine

 

84

 

Table 2 con 'i

 

squeeks, restarts and plays Bb concert

A: non-detection

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nickl 1:56 scale 3rds and arpeggio G: Priorities — Bad Tone!
Turns the page
0k. Now I'll start with the line that
Nickl 2:26 was assigned for today G: Teacher assigned
Begins, playing 1 1/2 measures,
Nickl 2:39 stopping and restarting, S: single repetition: beginning
Nickl 3:06 plpys the wrong note in last bar, A: detection note
stops plays it again and finishes the
Nickl 3:06 song S: single correct repetition at the note
Nickl 3:10 OK. I'm going to do the Viciors G: play through vs practice
He plays, dropping two beats as he
Nickl 3:16 attempts low notes A: ignores rhythm mistakes
Nickl 3:49 Finishes the piece - S: play through vs practice
having dropped beats in 3 spots
Nickl 3:49 because notes didn't speak A: ignored tone issues
Tums the page looking for something G: no a priori - choosing whatever he
Nickl 3:50 else to play wants
Um, I'm going to play my honors band G: challenge — non-band music
Nickl 3:50 stufl 8: play through
Chromatic scale -plays it through G: play through vs practice
Nickl 4:15 once S: plaLthrough

 

* elapsed time displayed on the video player

ole of a Retroflnective Rqrort Transcription

 

Table 3: Exam

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Data/ Tune Oare Participant Comments/Codes
Part.
Nickl 4:07 Do you know what
you were thinking?
Nickl 4:11 1 was kind of stumbling on the . . .notes. A: detection - vague
Nickl 4:23 Oh. And you were
thinking that?
Nickl 4:28 A couple of times
Nickl 4:36 New tune?
Nickl 4:39 Yeah. This is #51 G: no purpose
Nickl 5:11 I stumbled right here. Ithinkl started in A: detection ~ vague
the wrong spot or something.
Nickl 5:19 Oh, and now you're
playing other song
from that other
University!
Nickl 5:25 (he smiles) I've mastered this song. I'm Mot: fim
smirking here 'because I could see you A: evaluation — what is his
out of the comer of my eye grinning definition of mastery? - lots of
bobbled notes
Nickl 5:44 It's really easy. And it's like line 60.
Nickl 5:52 Because it's in out
time.
Nickl 6: 18 So you pulled out

 

 

your chromatic. Do
you have a reason
why you're doing it?

 

 

 

85

 

 

Table 3 can 't

 

Nickl 6:21 Because that's what we're doing right 0: teacher assigned
now in the class. . . Well 'because I have S: play through

to do that for honor's band, and I pulled
it out because that’s our assignment now
in band. That’s what scale we're doing.

 

 

Nickl 6:38 Now what are you
thinking?

 

 

 

 

 

To answer question one, “What goal setting and self-assessment comments do
novice, adolescent instrumental musicians make during instrumental practice?”, I used
the concurrent verbal report data collected from the video of the three practice sessions of
each of the participants. 1 tallied the number of coded segments within the major themes
of goal setting and assessment and developed a second level of codes. These codes were
analyzed for quantity and quality of comments and I determined if other categories of
codes did exist, anticipating that the comments from the third level of codes may
illuminate salient points deserving further analysis.

To answer question two, “What goal setting and self-assessment strategies do
novice, adolescent instrumental musicians use during instrumental practice?”, I compared
comments made by the students regarding goals and assessment with the actions
observed in the video analysis. This allowed me to identify patterns that may have
suggested the existence of common practice strategies the students use when engaging in
goal setting and self-assessment.

I analyzed codes relating to strategies from the transcripts of the practice sessions
and the verbal reports in order to answer question three, “Are there differences in practice
strategies found among students when they are deliberately involved in goal setting or
self-assessment compared to times when they are not setting goals or self-assessment?”

Segments within the transcripts were identified by practice strategy used as well as

86

student use of goals or assessments. Segments that include codes for practice strategies
and either goal setting or assessment were compared to segments that did not refer to
goals or assessments. A tally was made of codes that describe practice strategies, and of
codes that combine strategies with goals and strategies with assessments.

To answer question four, “What strategies do students use to address various
technical aspects of performance (rhythm, notes, articulation, etc.)?”, I analyzed the data
from the recorded practice sessions and compared the stated or implied goals and the
strategies used to address the goals. I also noted the apparent efl‘ectiveness of each
strategy in attaining the corresponding goal. This was done by subjectively noting the
difference in the level of performance between the initial and final attempts of the section

being rehearsed.

Verification and Generalizability

Creswell (1998, p. 194) defines verification as, “the process that occurs
throughout the data collection, analysis, and report writing of a study.” He advocates the
use of the term verification instead of validity in order to emphasize the unique qualities
of the qualitative research paradigm and its differences from the quantitative paradigm.
He states (p.198), “The naturalistic researcher looks to confirmability rather than
objectivity in establishing the value of the data. Both dependability and confirmability are
established through an auditing of the research process.” The terms trustworthiness and
authenticity are used as concepts to establish the credibility of an investigation.

A key method of checking for trustworthiness in a study is by creating a form of

triangulation, in which the participant is seen through multiple perspectives.

87

Triangulation can be achieved through the use of multiple forms of data gathering or
multiple forms of data analysis. Triangulation was achieved in this study through both
means. I analyzed data obtained from the video observation of practice sessions,
concurrent verbal reports, retrospective verbal reports, focus group interviews, reflective
notes and teacher interviews. Further, the data was analyzed through the process of
counting the number of occurrences of each code and through the identification of
patterns and relationships between multiple codes.

Finally, trustworthiness was established through member checks with Ms.
Zingerrnan and limited peer review. I conducted informal “check-ups” with Ms.
Zingerrnan at the end of each data collection day. At this time, I related the events of the
day and asked for her impressions. I also recruited a fellow doctoral candidate in music
education and an experienced instrumental music teacher to review the coding scheme
and my assignment of codes to the data. I gave the peers copies of all of the transcripts
and asked them to each review one practice session, one retrospective report, and one
focus group session. Further discussion with my peers following this exercise helped to
clarify the definitions of secondary codes. Finally, I enlisted the help of my advisor,
through multiple meetings and discussions, to aid in the review of my interpretation of
the data

Qualitative studies are generalizable only to the extent that a future reader can
identify with the experience described in the study (Creswell, 1998). No attempt in this
study has been made to generalize results to all middle school instrumental students.
Instead, future readers may consider themes identified in this study and the similar

characteristics experienced within their own teaching situations.

88

CHAPTER4

MEET THE PARTICIPANTS: WITHIN-CASE ANALYSIS

The purpose of this study was to examine the decisions novice band students
make and the actions they take during their instrumental music practice. The original
research questions I brought into this study centered on the actions students take and the
comments they make regarding the practice goals they set and the ways in which they use
assessment to inform their practice. A secondary line of inquiry was intended to describe
the strategies the students used to achieve their goals. Through my analysis of the data,
another theme emerged that warranted further inspection. This theme describes the
influence of motivation upon the decisions students made in their practice.

The analysis of data in this study focuses on the activities and comments of the
six participants. In order to more richly understand the interpretation of the data, one
must get to know each child and attempt to see practice through each student’s individual
lenses. Each participant contributed unique, yet similar viewpoints of practice.

Three boys and three girls from a suburban Midwestern middle school
participated in this study. Four students were in seventh grade while the other two were in
eighth grade, and all six students were Caucasian and from middle class families. Two of
the seventh grade students and one of the eighth grade students were taking private
lessons at the time of the study. All six of the students began playing their band
instruments in sixth grade under their current teacher, Ms. Zingerrnan. In order to
maintain the anonymity of the participants in this study, the students’ names have been

changed.

89

This chapter will present a within-case analysis of each student as it relates to the
four external and internal themes of motivation, goal setting, strategy use, and self-
assessment. I will present each student as viewed through the lens of his or her teacher
and by viewing excerpts from his or her verbal report practice sessions. I will then relate
data obtained from the analysis of the practice video, the practice verbal report
comments, the Retrospective Report comments, and the focus group comments to each of
the themes. Chapter 5 will then present a cross-case analysis which will describe the
commonalities in the themes across all six cases (Creswell, 1998). In Chapter 6, I will
discuss three common threads that run through each of the themes and suggest a number
of general implications for teaching based on these threads. Finally, in Chapter 7, I will

summarize the study and provide a set of questions needing fiirther investigation.

Scott

Scott was a seventh grade trombone player and the lone brass player in this study.
Scott comes from a musical family. His father, his uncle and his grandfather all played
trombone while they were in school, and his aunt leads a church handbell choir. Slightly
over weight and awkward, he lives on a farm and made numerous comments about
feeding the cows, driving the tractor, and going hunting with his dad.

Scott is a happy young man with a great sense of humor who felt comfortable
working with me on a one-on-one basis. According to Ms. Zingerrnan, “He is. . . Quiet in
class. Not one to ask questions in class, but if he’s not sure of something, he will come to

9’

me before or after class maybe and ask. But not very often. .

9O

Scott became interested in composition earlier in the school year when Ms.
Zingerrnan’s student teacher began a composition club with some of his classmates. He
stated that the first thing he does when he practices is to spend fifteen minutes
composing. At the time of the study, he was composing a piece for brass quartet. Because
the practice sessions in this study were shorter than the amount of time he spends at
home, he only composed for roughly seven minutes during each one of the videotaped
sessions. His goal was simply to work on his composition, and this lack of goal clarity
could be recognized as he tended to bounce from part to part without finishing a phrase in
either the melody or accompaniment parts.

His discussion of his composing process provided a window through which I
could view his musical understanding. While Scott said the composition was written in
Bb major, there was no sense of a tonal center throughout the piece. He also stated that he
did not pay attention to beginnings and endings of phrases and admitted that they
sounded like run-on sentences. The rhythms he wrote were simple, consisting of whole
notes, dotted half notes, half notes, quarter notes, and eighth notes, and he accurately
transposed parts for french horn and trumpet, though his tuba parts were an octave too
high. Scott also demonstrated an emergent understanding of orchestration, as he adjusted
dynamic markings to bring out the melody and wrote in rests for the trumpet and hom,
“When the tuba has melody, so it doesn't sound overwhelmed.” (Scott, Retrospective
Report #2). He wrote a bass line that was essentially an ostinato that moved sequentially
downwards by step. He also wrote a “harmony” part for the inner lines, but stated, “I'm

not doing chords. I'm just doing the same note type of thing. That's because I lost my

91

sheet that has the chords on it, so I don't know the chords. So it's a lot safer to do it that

way so it sounds decent.” (Scott, Concurrent Report #1).

As a performer, Scott is a “strong section player.” Ms. Zingerrnan describes him

by saying,

Really, he ’s not a leader in there. He 's following a lot of the time. At
least, that ’s my perception. . . He 's one of those kids who’s kind of hit
or miss. It ’s either going to be there, or it 's going to be kind of odd,
which makes me think that he doesn 't always understand how he
should be counting or what he should be doing when he practices. . .
Really, I think his biggest problem is consistency of tone, which I don 't
think he focuses on that at all during his practice. . .

As a practicer, Scott can best be described as someone who tends to play

through his music with the goal of detecting mistakes and fixing them. He

admitted that he has difficulty detecting pitch accuracy and he plays with a very

weak, unsupported tone. Once he detects an error, the standard practice strategy is

to stop and start again from the mistake. A single correct performance is typically

considered to be sufficient. A better understanding of Scott as a performer and of

his practice habits can be seen in the following excerpt from the data sheet for his

second practice session with me.

Table 4: Scott — Practice Session #2

 

 

 

 

 

Time Data Codes / Comments

:01 “I'm going to start with a scale to warm up” G: warm-up — scale

:04 Begins playing Bb major scale (weak, unfocused tone)
:10 Begins playing the 3rds pattern — misses fa to la

 

 

 

92

 

Table 4 con ’t

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

:15 “dang it! I messed up on a note” A: detection - note
:18 begins again, playing the rising pattern accurately 8: single rep. at the phrase
:27 3rds going down, missing A (plays Ab) and stops A: detection — note
S: single rep. at the phrase
:29 begins again, playing Ab instead of A A: non-detection - note
:39 I-V7 arpeggios plays Ab instead of A and stops
:42 “natural” A: detection —- note
:43 Begins again, making the same mistake and stops A: detection — note
S: single correct repetition at
:47 Begins again, playing correctly, though Eb and C are sharp. the phrase
A: evaluate vs assess
:53 “Yeah!. . .” A: nondetection -— tuning
:55 “0k. Imperium” - pulls out concert piece G: concert tune
1:00 Plays the first note (high Bb) too low A: detection —- note
1:00 plays 2nd 3rd and 4th harmonic to find pitch S: use of overtones
Begins the section, playing a whole note too short, then counts
1:03 rests, plays, counts rests etc - with inconsistent pulse A: nondetection — pulse
G: play through vs
1:43 Begins the allegro section, and misses a pitch in the 2nd measure improvement
1:47 “Ah, dang it! " A: detection
1:48 Plays again, stops at the end of the 2nd measure S: repetition at the phrase
l :54 (Oare) - “What was going through your head?”
1 :56 “I messed up. That it sounds wrong. ” A: Detection — note

 

 

 

This pattern of identifying some mistakes and not detecting others, followed by single

corrected repetitions of the mistake continued. The following excerpt picks up after he

finished practicing this piece:

93

 

Table 4 can ’t

 

 

 

 

 

 

4:28 “That's better. " A: detection - notes
4:28 “I think I was too high on it. " (he was too low) A: diagnosis — incorrect
4:35 Oare - “What were you thinking about as you were playing? "

4:40 “Mainly, I was thinking about where I was getting stuff wrong. ” A: detection

 

 

 

Generally, the same type of practice occurred with the next piece Scott practiced.

After he finished practicing the song, the following comments were made:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

8:28 “Wow. That was bad. " A: evaluation
8:33 Oare — “What was bad? "
8:3 5 “The rhythm. That area I had to go back and fix a couple of
times. The (he sings the last rhythm pattern) That one. Because A: detection — rhythm
it has a quarter rest in the middle of the (sings - incorrectly) Dev: knowledge — lack of
part. So it's evil (chuckle). Because you wwrt to just have it keep understanding limits his
going, but it doesn’t. It stops and then it starts back up again. ” ability with the rhythm
9:03 Oare - “How did you fix it? "
9:05 “Go back and play it again until I got it right. " S: single correct rep.
Goal Setting

For Scott, as for all of the students in this study, goal setting is not something he

consciously does. He stated that he has not been overtly taught how to set goals in band,

or in any other school setting, and therefore the goals he does set are vague. When I

asked Scott to tell me what types of goals he sets when he practices, his reply was,

“Normally, I set a goal to practice it as good as possible. Like to get as much done as I

can -— and to please my dad. . . That's about as specific as it gets.” Though Scott was

unable to clearly state goals, he seemed to innately set nonverbal goals. His unstated

94

 

 

goals appeared through the choice of music he practiced and the musical dimensions he
focused upon while practicing.

Scott followed a consistent practice routine that suggested a number of unspoken
goals. At the beginning of each practice session, the first thing he did was warm-up by
playing the Bb major scale in quarter notes at a moderate speed, as written in his band
book. When I asked him what goals he has when he practices scales, he replied, “To learn
the scales good enough that when I can do a random scale and get it right from memory.”
This goal derives from his experience in class, as Ms. Zingerman regularly tests her
students on performing scales and their tonic-dominant arpeggio patterns by memory.

When I asked Scott why the Bb major scale was the first thing he played in each
of his three practice sessions, he replied, “Just to warm up. I never try to play without

first trying to play a scale.” I continued with the following line of questioning:

Oare What does it mean to warm up?

Scott Get your lips ready to play

Oare So did your lips feel significantly different than before you
played the scale?

Scott No. Not really, but — It just gets — Sometimes it ’s just getting

pitches in your head.

Scott said that he usually played three or four scales each time he practiced, but
he only played one or two in our sessions together. Following his warm-up, Scott would
begin to practice his band music. He stated that his method of choosing music consisted

of picking, “Whatever's farther forward in my folder. I just grab it and practice it for

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however long I want and I need to.” Though this seems like a completely random method
of choosing music, there is a pattern to his choices, because the music in the front of his
folder is generally the music he played in band earlier in the day. Therefore, Scott tends
to choose the music assigned by his teacher. This was verified as he chose to practice his
concert music and the daily assignment given by Ms. Zingerrnan on two of the three
videotaped practice sessions. He spent his third practice session playing through his
composition.

When I asked what his goal was for one of the pieces he played, he said, “The
main goal was to get it right.” This, according to Scott, is the goal for all of the music he
plays. When I asked if he had chosen a specific note or musical element to improve
within a piece he was working on, his answer was often “no.”

Though Scott tended to set vague goals as he chose the music he would play, he
was able to develop slightly more specific goals as he identified mistakes within the
context of his practice. His general plan of action for each song or exercise that be
practiced was to play through it and identify his mistakes, correcting them “on the go.”
Each time he was able to catch a mistake he would try to determine what he did wrong
and attempt to fix the problem. The majority of these ‘mini goals’ tended to be focused
on correcting wrong pitches, though Scott also attempted to fix some incorrect
articulations, dynamics, and rhythms. There were no incidences in which Scott attempted
to improve his tone quality, even though Ms. Zingerrnan consistently identified this
weakness on the feedback sheets he received after each playing test.

Though Scott did not verbalize definite goals in his practice, some goals may be

inferred by the analysis of what he focused on in his practice. In each practice session

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and Retrospective Report, I asked all six of the students to tell me what they were
focusing on as they played. I also asked the students to tell me which elements of music

they tended to focus on the most as they practiced.

Oare
I have 6 words for you to put into priority regarding what
you're thinking about in your practice: rhythm, tone, notes,
dynamics, style, and articulation. Which of those 6 do you
think you put most emphasis on while you're practicing?

Scott Number I is probably rhythm

Oare What’s #2?

Scott notes articulation and then all the others I pretty much try
to work at the same time

Oare What would you put last? T one, dynamic or style?

Scott Usually I work on the dynamics afier I've got everything

else down good. (Scott, Retrospective Report #1)

Scott later stated that the hardest part in learning a song is learning the rhythm.
“Normally a new piece is hard because of the notes and rhythms combined. . . I’ll often
notice rhythms before I’ll notice the notes.” (Scott, Focus Group #2). While Scott listed
rhythm as his primary concern in his practice, the analysis of the video suggests that he
places more emphasis on playing the correct notes. This was demonstrated by the fact
that the pulse was often sacrificed in order for him to move the slide of his trombone to

the proper position, and by the predominance of instances in which he was able to

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identify missed notes, but not detect incorrect rhythms. This difference between Scott’s
perception and his actions may be due to a lack of rhythmic ability. Though he is more
concerned with rhythmic issues, he lacks the requisite skill and knowledge to recognize
and confront problems, and he instead focuses on other issues.

It is also interesting to note that Scott places tone near the bottom of his priority
list. This is noteworthy because Ms. Zingerrnan considers tone to be Scott’s weakest
attribute and she consistently communicates this to him via a feedback sheet every time
he takes a playing test. It could be that Scott neglects to set goals to improve his tone in

his practice because of its position in his hierarchy of elemental importance.

Assessment

Scott’s method of practice could be characterized as a “search and destroy”
approach to learning his music. His approach to each new song or exercise that be
practiced was to find mistakes and then fix them. When asked what he was thinking
about during his practice, he replied, “Mainly, I was thinking about where I was getting
stuff wrong.” (Scott, Concurrent Report #2).

The vast majority of mistakes Scott was able to identify were note errors, though
there were still a number of pitch related mistakes that he either did not detect or simply
ignored. He admitted that he was weak in the area of assessment and generally relied on
Ms. Zingerrnan and his father to help him catch mistakes.

Scott did not seem to notice any problems with his tone quality or articulation.
Both of these areas in his playing were weak, as the quality of his articulation was

attenuated by the lack of air support in his tone. Scott also seemed to not notice that his

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pulse tended to be irregular, especially with pieces that he was just beginning to learn. He
often played haltingly as he proceeded from one measure to the next, much like an
emergent reader sounds as he reads haltingly from word to word, without sense of phrase.

It seems that Scott was most able to catch mistakes in pieces that he could
audiate. He made this point within the context of the second focus group session, as he
said, “It helps to know what it’s supposed to sound like. Because that way . . . if you play
it wrong, you hear it more than if you don’t know at all what it’s supposed to sound like.”
He seemed to need to hear rhythm more than pitch, possibly because he was able to
approximate the pitch without audiation by reading the notes and placing the slide in the
correct position.

This necessity to audiate the music in order to identify mistakes seemed to be
important for Scott and the other participants. He found that he could gain a better mental
picture of “how the music goes” when he heard Ms. Z play it for the class or when he
heard a recording of the music. “Last year, our books had the cd’s in them. And so you
could listen to the line and get it in your head. And then you could play it.” (Scott, Focus
Group 2).

Once Scott was able to detect a mistake, he often neglected to diagnose the cause
of the problem. He was capable of catching mistakes when his slide was in the wrong
position and he caught a wrong rhythm when he mistakenly replaced a half note with a
quarter note, but he often lacked the technical or musical knowledge or the audiation skill
to detect other types of problems. This lack of diagnostic skill made it more difficult to
correct his mistakes. The following concurrent report excerpt exemplifies this point.

Scott 0k Now that sounded really bad

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Oare Why? [He was playing on the wrong partial]

Scott Because I wasn't playing the right rhythm or notes. It was
supposed to be a lot different. I don 't know exactly what I
did wrong, but I know it was very wrong (Scott,

Concurrent Report 2)

Scott knew something was wrong, but was unable to diagnose that he had not supported
his tone with enough air or embouchure strength to play in the proper partials.

Scott ofien substituted vague self evaluation for self-assessment. Instead of
providing himself with specific information regarding what he did right or wrong, many
of his comments were “Pretty good,” or “That sounded bad” (Scott, Concurrent Report

2). This information provided insufficient information for developing further goals.

Strategies

Scott used a limited range of strategies to try to achieve the goals he had set. The
most common strategy he used was to stop as he heard a mistake and then start again just
before the nristake occurred in the music. He would continue repeating the music from
the same spot until he played it correctly one time, and then he would continue. Each
time he made a mistake, this pattern of identification and single correct repetition would
start over again.

Though he demonstrated an awareness of a variety of practice strategies, he
seldom used them. Through an analysis of video, I recognized one instance of

deliberately slowing the tempo for a small section of music. Another, accidental form of

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adjusting tempo occurred a number of other times, as he would play through his music
haltingly, as if he were decoding the notation. I also recognized one instance in which he
bummed his music, three instances in which he analyzed a small section and recognized
similarities in form or scale pattern, two instances of isolating a small chunk of notes, one
instance in which he referred to a fingering in his book, and one instance in which he
used a pencil to write in a reminder. Scott also mentioned that he constantly taps his toe
to help him perform rhythms correctly. As I reviewed the video recordings, I noticed that
his toe often did not tap, and that many times his foot tap would be unsteady. He does
have a metronome to help him, but he stated that he does not like to use it.

Though Ms. Zingerrnan consistently has her students count rhythm patterns in
class using the number counting method, Scott stated that he only “sometimes” counts
rhythms at home. His theoretical understanding of rhythm seems to be limited, as does

his ability to maintain a steady pulse, and these may be reasons for his lack of counting.

Motivation

Scott’s main source of inspiration and motivation seems to come fi'om his father.
“I decided to play trombone because my dad and uncle and grandpa all play trombone.”
(Scott Focus Group #1). He mentioned on numerous occasions during both focus group
sessions and during the Retrospective Reports that his dad is often in the vicinity when he
practices and helps him. He often relies on his father to help him identify mistakes.
According to Scott, “My dad often catches way more than I do. And it gets kind of
irritating because he's always like, ‘Wait. Go back. No, that wasn't right. ’” (Scott, Focus

Group 1).

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While pleasing his dad is a strong motivation for Scott, he also gets motivation
from learning. He enjoys being challenged, as long as the challenge is within his grasp.
He especially enjoys the challenge of composition and the opportunity to create
something new with his emerging musical skills. Frustration is a negative influence, but

he stated that he feels a strong desire to persevere when he encounters difficult music.

Summm

Scott is a likeable boy who enjoys playing in band. As a trombonist, he is a solid
section player, but not a strong musician. His ability to set clear goals and to assess his
playing is limited and this relates to his progress as a musician. It seems that Scott’s
ability to audiate the music he tries to play is a key factor in his performance. Ms.
Zingerrnan stated that, “once he’s got something, he’s got it. It just sometimes takes him
a little longer to get there,” suggesting that, in effect, Scott learns by ear, using music
notation as a form of memory device. While he has a varied repertoire of practice skills in
his knowledge base, the set of strategies he consistently uses is limited. It could be that he
will begin to utilize more of the strategies he knows as he develops more confidence in

their use.

Amy
Amy comes from a split family and has a step-brother who plays violin in the
orchestra. She alternates living at each parent’s home, causing some distraction with her
study routines. Tall and thin with sandy blond hair down to her shoulders and a retainer,

Amy is a seventh grade flute player. She is a social young lady who is concerned about

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appearance and where she fits in the social scene, especially as it concerns the “hot” boys
in the school. According to Ms. Zingerrnan, “She’s very social. Extremely social. And I
have a sneaking suspicion that she’s going to probably be in choir next year. She’s got
fiiends in there.”

As a flutist, Amy has difficulty with producing a characteristic tone and using her
air appropriately. This causes immense amounts of frustration. Ms. Zingerrnan describes
her by saying,

It ’s hard to say. Technical stuff, she gets pretty well. . . Tone & musicality,

are not there. . .She tends to occasionally be a little lost in class. Well,

part of it is she 's blowing into the tone hole instead of across. And I know

she gets frustrated. . . She ’s actually not going to be in band next year.

She ’s already decided to drop next year. Handed in her uniform and

everything. . .She gets frustrated because she ’11 come in and do her chair

test, and it will be — You know. Rhythm will be on, and notes will be on,

and she loses all these points on tone and dynamics and such and she gets

frustrated with what chair she ends up with.

Amy’s approach to practicing can best be described as time—oriented. Her key

concern is to record the required amount of time on her practice sheet, in order to get a

good grade.

Oare So how much time do you practice when you practice?
Amy half an hour or 45 or 15, or an hour. Or an hour and a half It

just matters if I fill up the week and [practice more than 3 days

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Oare so you're practicing for the practice chart?

Amy Just to fill up the week.

Oare Describe for me what a regular practice session would look like
if I were a fly on the wall and watching you.

Amy You'd see me watching TV and practicing at the same time
It helps me. I have a TV in my room at my dad's house and at my
mom's house I have a computer. So I '1] practice, and then I'll IM
(instant message), and then I '1! practice and then I'll 1M. 0r like
I'll watch some TVand then I '1] practice, watch TV, practice. . . It
all equals a half an hour.

Oare So your half an hour takes place over an hour of time?

Amy 45 minutes. Because I’m multi-tasking. (Amy, Focus Group #1).

Because this study was conducted in the school, I was unable to provide a natural
setting for Amy’s practice and she had no TV or computer to distract her. The practice
sessions I witnessed demonstrated a general lack of focus toward learning and a large
amount of frustration. The general default goal she had for most of her practice with me
was to play through the music she had been assigned to play. Her top priority was to play
the right notes, because, “That's pretty much what it's about!” (Amy, Concurrent Report

#2).

Goals

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Like Scott, Amy did not deliberately set goals for her practice. On multiple
occasions, Amy made statements such as, “I don't really usually have a goal” (Amy,
Concurrent Report #3). Other times, she would give vague comments regarding her
goals, such as, “Pretty much, just get what I can done” (Amy, Concurrent Report #1).
Because she had no clearly defined goals, most of Amy’s practice was simply spent
playing through songs and exercises. Little was accomplished to improve her
performance. At times, she would circle lines in her book that she needed to practice,
essentially setting goals for future practice.

Though Amy tended to set no goals, or vague ones at best, she did stick rather
closely to a routine. When asked to describe her routine, Amy said, “Let's see. . .First I do
my scales. Then I do a line fi'om the book - until I get it right. And then, I don't hardly
ever practice my concert music. It's too hard. And I don't want to” (Amy, Focus Group
1). After Amy played through her assigned music, she consistemly played random lines
in order to fill the time.

As I analyzed the videotaped practice sessions, Amy did practice her concert
pieces, but that may be due to the fact that she had no TV to distract her. It could also be
that the quote was taken at a time when the band had just been given new music. Because
it was hard, Amy may have chosen not to practice it until she learned how to play it in
class. The first practice session occurred two weeks after the focus group, which gave her
time to learn the music well enough to feel comfortable to practice it.

Amy’s choice of music to practice is greatly influenced by the daily assignments
given by Ms. Zingerrnan. One of the first things Amy practiced was her scales, because

Ms. Zingerrnan regulme assigns scales tests for the class. Though she practiced her

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scales, which also included patterns in thirds and tonic-dominant arpeggios, she did not
understand why it was important to learn them. I asked if she understood why she should
learn her scales. Amy’s reply was, “I have no idea why we do it. It's so boring.” (Amy,
Retrospective Report #3).

The other music that Amy consistently played at the beginning of her practice
sessions was the daily assignment from the book. Ms. Zingerrnan methodically helps her
bands work through their band books, assigning a new line on almost a daily basis.
Though Amy knew what line to practice, she was unable to be more specific, because,
“I'll practice the line she tells us, but then I don't remember what measure or anything or
what piece of music to practice. So I'll just practice all of them.” (Amy, Focus Group #1 ).

Amy, more than any other participant, placed an exceptional amount of emphasis
on playing the right notes, to the detriment of all other facets of playing. She knew that
her tone quality was the greatest weakness in her playing, but gave it a low priority in her
practice. This lack of emphasis on tone can be seen in the following focus group excerpt:

Oare Amy, you mentioned a concern for your tone — your air. Do
you ever do anything about it?

Amy Nope. No I don ’t. 1 don’t know how.

Oare If you ’re playing really an easy piece that you have down, do
you find yourself focusing on other elements like tone?

Amy No. Because I don ’t practice it if it ’s easy.

Oare What if it ’s a piece you ’re playing in band rehearsal? What
are you focusing on if it 's a real easy piece?

Amy I usually don ’t. (Amy, Focus Group #2).

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Assessment

Amy’s emphasis on playing the right notes and on practicing for a grade rather
than for improvement had a great impact on her ability to self-assess. The vast majority
of mistakes Amy detected were of the wrong note variety. This emphasis on correct notes

may explain why she missed a number of wrong rhythms, as shown in the following
example:

Table 5 : Amy —- Practice Session #2

 

 

 

Time Activities / Comment: Code

13:22 Hey Ho Nobody Home - dotted quarters are S: return to tough song
incorrect - again. A: nondetection — rhythm

13:42 “I got all the notes. . . ” (turns pages) A: evaluation — notes

 

British Grenadiers - No feel for the initial anacrusis S: raum to tough song

13:49 again. Stops alter the first phrase A: nondetection — meter/rhythm

 

 

14:01 “I'll do my concert stufi' now ” S: puts it off

 

 

 

 

Many mistakes also seemed to be ignored, possibly due to her desire to play through her
songs instead of working toward improving them.

Amy consistently played in a halting manner, much like a beginning reader who
spends a great deal of effort decoding words to the detriment of reading phrases. This
style of performance results in an underlying pulse that is inconsistent, if not absent
altogether. Amy never mentioned this problem in any of her three practice sessions or in
her Retrospective Reports. This lack of underlying pulse could also explain why she only
detected three of her many rhythmic errors. All of the errors she noticed were simple

rhythms, suggesting that her ability to detect mistakes is contingent upon her rhythmic

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understanding. One of the examples of rhythmic error detection seems to have been
caught and corrected without stopping, as the rhythm pattern in question was repeated
later on in the piece.

Table 6: Any — Practice Session #3

 

Trme Activities / Comment: Code

 

Nocturnal Dances - lots of rests and long notes are
cut short, except for the last note of the phrase (2 A: nondetection — rhythm

14:53 whole notes)

 

 

15: 12 Repetition of the section - better rhythm A: correction on the go

 

 

 

 

A great deal of Amy’s assessment comments were related to her sense of self-
efficacy as it related to each song or exercise. She made a number of comments regarding
pieces, such as, “Alright, I'm good at that one, so I'll play my F scale.” (Amy, Concurrent
Report #1). She also wrote evaluative assessments in her book next to various lines. Next
to one particular scale, she wrote “fair.” As I asked about its meaning, she replied, “Yeah.
I'm not very good at it.” (Amy, Retrospective Report #2).

Amy seems to have a small repertoire of diagnostic skills. I detected only one
example in which she tried to diagnose the cause of her poor tone, which was simply to
check that her head joint was placed correctly. When asked, she was unable to clearly list

any other factors that could have possibly affected her tone.

Strategies

Because Amy is more focused on putting in her required time than on
achievement, she uses few practice strategies. Generally, her approach to each song or

exercise she practices is to play through it and then move on to the next activity. When

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she makes a mistake, she deals with it quickly and incompletely and moves on. Her most
common overt strategy was to write notes to herself on the music. When I asked if she
purposely learned things in small chunks or repeated patterns correctly over and over, her
simple answer was, “nope.”

The correction of mistakes was usually handled in one of two ways. First, when
Amy detected a mistake that she felt she should address, she would stop and begin again
either from the missed note or from the beginning of the phrase. A single correct
repetition was sufficient for her to feel successful and to move on, even if she played the
note or phrase incorrectly multiple times before she could play it correctly. She never
seemed to think about correcting the mistake and then putting it into the context of a
larger section as a way to improve the fluidity of the piece as a whole.

The second strategy she used was to slow down the tempo in difficult spots.
Instead of playing a whole section slowly in order to maintain the integrity of the rhythm
and pulse, Amy would play what she could at a performance tempo and then slow down
greatly in the difficult spots. A typical example of this behavior could be seen when she
played the F major scale in thirds. She was relatively proficient with this pattern for the
first three pairs of thirds, but then needed to slow down once she reached the altissimo
register. In this range, Amy would stall after every two note pattem. As the exercise
moved back into her comfortable range, she immediately switched back into a
performance tempo. hrstead of repeating the exercise in order to improve fluidity, she
proceeded on to the next activity.

I recognized many times when Amy became frustrated with an activity. The

coping strategy she developed for this was to simply move on to a new song, putting off

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her work on the difficult piece until another time when she felt more ready to deal with it.
I also noticed a number of times when she came back to particularly tough assignments
later on in her practice, obtaining mixed results with her efforts.

Amy mentioned that Ms. Zingerrnan has the students count rhythms in band quite
often, “but barely anybody ever gets it.” I asked her if she used that strategy in her home
practice and she replied, “No. Because I know we're going to do it in class the next day.
So I just figure I might as well not” (Amy, Retrospective Report #3).

Amy seems to reject the process of using theoretical understanding to help her
perform rhythms in her music. Instead, she seems to learn by rote, using the music as
more of a reminder than as an original source of information. This became apparent when
I asked if she was counting the rhythms as she played one of her concert pieces. Amy
replied, “No. Just pretending I'm with the band” (Amy, Retrospective Report #3). This
strategy of audiating the full band seems to have provided both a rote experience and a
sense of pulse for her.

Though Amy exhibited limited use of practice strategies, I found that she had been
taught a number of strategies. Amy simply chose not to use them because she believed
that they would not help her.

Oare Has anyboay ever shown you how to take just a little bit and to
work on it until you could play it, and then take another chunk,
and then add?

Amy Yeah. Ms. Z but I don 't think of it that way. I think it 's just
better. . . You learn faster if you do just the whole thing, and

just. . . Fix the one part that you're worst at, because then if

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you do it part by part, then you're just going to forget. (Amy,

Retrospective Report #2).

Motivation

For Amy, her motivation to practice was primarily extrinsic. Her purpose for
practice was to put in her time. This was exhibited when I prompted her to say what she
was thinking during her verbal report session, and her reply was, “Just wanting to get it
done.” (Amy, Concurrent Report #2). Also, much of her choice was based on the
assignments Ms. Zingerrnan gives to the class. This motivation became apparent during
her second practice session, as she practiced a particularly difficult assignment. After yet
another mistake, Amy stopped, looked at the book in frustration, began to turn the page,
and then stopped and began practicing the assignment once again. This battle between
her frustration and her knowledge that she needed to practice the assignment
demonstrates the influence Ms. Zingerrnan has upon Amy’s practice choices and Amy’s
emergent control over her emotions and impulses.

Though she dutifully plays through the material she has been assigned, she also
demonstrates that she often does not understand the purpose behind the assignments. To
Amy, the scales she plays are synthetic, purposeless assignments, while the tunes she
plays are authentic learning. This became apparent as we discussed a section in her
concert march, “Bells of Freedom.” In the piece, the flute part repeatedly plays the first
five notes of an Eb major scale over four measures. Amy admitted that through learning
the song, her ability to play the scale was improved, though Ms. Zingerrnan taught the
scale prior to handing out the song in order to aid the learning of the song. Once she

learned the scale within the context of the song, the scale gained meaning. This seems to

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have increased her motivation to practice scales, if only slightly, because she mentioned
on a later date that she practiced her Bb major scale because it was the same key as many
of her songs.

Radosevich et al. (2004) has stated that, in achievement situations, individuals
tend to adopt either a learning goal orientation, through which individuals seek to
develop competence and task mastery, or a performance goal orientation through which
individuals are motivated to demonstrate ability or to avoid the demonstration of their
lack of ability relative to others. This orientation toward avoidance was especially
apparent in Amy, as expressed in the following focus group excerpts:

Oare What would you do if I gave you a piece that was too hard for
you?

Mandy I'd kill you.

Amy I wouldn't practice it. I'd say this is too hard. I don't play it. It 's
too hard and my brain would hurt.

Nick I'dplay it. I 'd get back in two weeks and play it for you. Done.
I 'm good.

Oare You like a challenge?

Nick Yeah! I'd rather do that than something that's at grade level.

Mandy I don 't want to do something that 's super easy, but I don 't want
to do something that's super hard.

Amy So, like something that I can do.

Oare So if it's music that's over your head (I move my hand above my

head, then chest then knees), right at your level, or too easy. . .

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Amy Right there (hand is belly button high). Yup

Oare Some people, if they have a challenge, are going for it, because
they want to prove they can do it. (Nick smiles and nods). Other
people see a challenge and they '11 run away fi'om it.

Amy That ’s me and Manny. If I know I can 't improve, then I 'm not
going to do it, because it's just like too hard, and I know I can 't
do it. So, like if I can 't do it, there's no point in practicing, so I

just get something else that I can do. (Focus Group #1)

Nick

Nick was a seventh grade baritone saxophone player who had also been taking
piano lessons since third grade. Nick expressed a passion for old time rock and roll music
and musicians such as Bob Seeger and Styxx, and said that he played keyboard, sax, and
bongos in a garage band With a medium build, straight brown hair over his ears, and
braces, he was bright and easy to talk with, and had a tendency to walk to the beat of a
different drummer.

Nick was not prone to focusing on details. Ms. Zingerman describes him as a
“bright kid” and as someone who is involved in class and has a strong desire to do well.
She said his biggest strength is his attitude, though, “Occasionally, his immature middle
school boy tendencies take over and he’ll just do dumb things.” (Ms. Zingerrnan
Interview). When discussing his musical achievement, Ms. Zingerrnan acknowledged that
he has difficulty with his tone, and attributed this to the fact that be practiced tenor

saxophone at home and that the difference in embouchure between the two instruments

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causes him to squeak on the baritone saxophone. She also expressed some concern about
his consistency in class.

That ’s another inconsistent kid! (ha ha) I wonder, honestly, if there ’s

some focus issue with this child, because sometimes we ’11 do something in

band and it 's right on. The rhythm ’s good and notes are good. Other times

. . .he ’s a finger bobbler. He '11 go to hit a note and wiggle around until he

lands on the right one. It ’s like, ‘it's in there somewhere. I ’11 just keep

wiggling my fingers until I find it. ' He ’s definitely putting enough air

through the instrument, because he 's got a big sound But that finger

bobbling thing drives me nuts! (Ms. Zingerrnan Interview).

As a practicer, Ms. Zingerrnan said, “He does not practice a lot at home. And I
think if he did, that would probably go away, because he is a bright kid.” Nick, on the
other hand, says he practices every day, but that a lot of the time he spends is playing his
bongos or playing rock times he downloads off of the Internet.

Nick’s practice can best be described as a value of quantity over quality.

The following excerpts may help to paint a picture of Nick at practice:

Table 7: Nick — Practice Session #1
Time Activities / Comments Codes

 

 

l :54: “I'll start with scales ” G: scales - routine

 

1:56 Squeaks, restarts and plays Bb concert scale, G: Priorities-Bad Tone!

3rds and arpeggio S: Single correct rep.

 

“0k Now I '11 start with the line that was

2:26 assigned for today" G: Teacher assigned

 

 

 

 

 

ll4

Table 7 con ’t

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2:39 plays 1 1/2 measures, stops & restarts S: single rep: beginning
3 :06 plays the wrong note in last bar, stops A: detection note
3:10 OK. I'm going to do the Victors G: play vs practice
3: 16 He plays, dropping two beats as he attempts the
low notes A: ignores rhythm mistakes
3:49 Finishes the piece - having dropped beats in 3
spots - notes didn't speak A: ignored tone issues
3:50 Turns the page looking for something else to G: no a priori — choosing
play whatever he wants
3 :50 I'm going to play my honors band stufl G: challenge —- non-band
4: 15 Chromatic scale -one time with many mistakes G: play vs practice

 

This type of practice, in which Nick simply played through songs and exercises, ignoring
most of the mistakes or simply stopping and starting again from the mistake, continued.

After 20 minutes of practice, Nick had played through 17 different pieces of music.

Immediately after the practice session, while the videotape was being prepared for

review, the following conversation took place:

Oare

Nick

Oare

Nick

What do you think about this practice session? What went well,

what didn't go well? What would you do next time?

I '11 bring more music next time because I ran out of music.

Because I 'll probably talk more then.

Did anything go any different than usual?

Well, usually I have more music, but. . .

Report #1).

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(Nick, Retrospective

 

Nick practiced in this way during all three of his sessions with me. He played
through between 13 and 17 songs and exercises in each session. Only in the third session
did Nick play something through a second time because the first time was not played well

enough.

_G_oal_s_

For Nick, goals are things you “do.” Almost every time Nick began to play a
piece, he said that he was going to “do” it or “play” it. I asked Nick if his goal in his
practice was to improve something in particular, to play for the amount of time that Ms.
Zingerrnan requires, or to play as many tunes as he could, and his reply was, “Kind of
like a combination of all three of those, because I need to do the time that she says, but I
want to get better at as many songs as I can within that half an hour.” (Focus Group #1).

Nick, like Scott, Amy, and the other students, does follow a loose routine. In all
three practice sessions, Nick began with a scale. He also played the line out of his band
book that was the assignment for the day. Next, he played through his concert music.
After that, Nick’s choice of music to play was totally random, as he played songs from
the book that he enjoyed playing. He said that in his practice at home, he plays through
the music that his private teacher assigns him, but he did not remember to bring that
music to school on the days he worked with me.

Nick said that he had not learned how to set goals in school. In band, he
mentioned that Ms. Zingerrnan “kind of says at the end of the day, ‘oh you got to do these
for tomorrow.’ But that's all.” (Nick, Retrospective Report #1). This may explain why

Nick was unable to set a clear goal in any of his practice.

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Instead of setting goals, Nick could identify the particularly difficult aspects of a
piece of music he was about to play, which did provide a vague focus of direction in his
practice. Nick realized that his tone was a continual problem and, in a way, he set a goal
to improve it “I was just trying to get rid of that squeaking noise over anything else
throughout the whole thing.” (Nick, Retrospective Report #2). Though he did have a goal
to improve his tone, he was unable to devise a plan to help him achieve it. Ms. Zingerrnan
has her bands play long tones every day as a way to develop tone, but Nick did not know
the purpose of these exercises and was unable to understand that they would help him
reach his goal.

Nick felt that he focused his attention more on dynamics and articulation during
practice than on any other elements. He said that he focused least on notes, because, “if
you put the right fingers down, then you'll get the notes out. So you really don't have to
really pay attention to that. And I've really got that down. But with the dynamics, I'm not
very good with the dynamics.” (Nick, Retrospective Report #1). Though be listed
dynamics as his top priority in his playing, analysis of his practice video suggests that this
may not be the case. My analysis of the comments he made throughout the study found
that Nick’s focus depends upon how well he has learned the piece he is playing. Initially,
Nick concerned himself with rhythm. Though Nick did seem to have a high concern for
playing the dynamics, he described the process of learning a new piece of music by
saying, “I'd probably do the thing without worrying about the dynamics much. And then
get the rhythm and the notes and everything good. And then do the dynamics. That's

probably the last thing I do.” (Focus Group #2).

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Assessment

Nick’s concern for playing through his music rather than practicing it had a
profound effect on his ability to assess himself. To him, a successful practice of a song or
exercise meant that he played all of the way through it When asked how he knew when it
was time to move on to the next thing in his practice, he replied, “Probably when I'm
good enough at that song, or I'm just getting bored with that song.” (Nick, Retrospective
Report #2).

More mistakes seemed to be ignored than detected. When I would prompt him to
tell me what he was thinking during his practice, he would make evaluative comments
regarding his performance such as “that was good,” or “that was bad,” rather than
prescriptive comments related to specific items that went well or needed attention. When
asked to be more specific, Nick would make comments such as, “Yeah. It was kind of
sloppy - that whole piece, pretty much.” (Nick Concurrent Report #2). When Nick could
audiate the song he played, he was able to assess accuracy more effectively, but he still
had trouble being specific. After one such piece, he said, “I did it more like the actual
song sounds like that time.” (Nick, Concurrent Report #3).

Nick’s problem with his tone was a major factor in each practice session and he
made comments about it each time. Though he knew it was a problem, he could not
diagnose the cause, making comments such as, “I was like really stumbling on the notes.
I don't know why, but today I have like bad soun (Nick, Concurrent Report #2).Even
though he made comments about his tone, it did not seem to register in his mind that is
was a constant problem that needed to be addressed.

Oare My question is, as you practiced, was there a general

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Nick

Oare

Nick
Oare
Nick
Oare
Nick
Oare
Nick

Oare

Nick

Strategies

mistake that tended to happen?

key signature.

Ok. If I was to categorize all your mistakes, there were key
signature mistakes. What other mistakes happened today?
Rhythm.

Rhythm. Anything else?

Articulation.

Is that it?

Those were the main ones.

What else?

Um. . . Dynamics, rests, counting.

I’m curious. Why haven 't you put the notes that didn't speak
on your list yet? You even made a comment about it.

Yeah. . . Because I forgot about it. I don 't know

(Nick, Retrospective Report #3).

I found the fewest number of instances of codes related to practice strategies in

the data Nick produced. In this list of codes, I found instances in which he penciled in

reminders to himself, slowed the tempo (but only in the difficult spots), and repeated

sections multiple times. While the variety in this list seems good, I only noticed each of

these codes one time. This lack of strategy use could simply be because Nick took little

time to reflect as be practiced. He often began playing a song before the sheet of music

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could settle on the music stand, suggesting that he gave little thought to the music before
playing it.

The most common strategy code I found within Nick’s data was titled “correction
on the go.” For Nick, this code describes the multiplicity of examples in which he made
mental notes to himself to correct wrong notes, rhythms, articulations or dynamics the
next time he passed through the song.

Oare What do you do when you notice a mistake?

Nick Keep going, because I'm not going to stop. . .Because if] 'm
going to do a four line piece, and I mess up on the 3rd
measure, I'm not going to stop and do the whole thing
again. I'm going to finish it so I can go through it again and
notice all the mistakes I made and make sure to fix all of
them. Instead of going here and missing the same thing and
then the next line. (Focus Group #1).

This strategy did not seem to work well for Nick, because he played many of the
same songs in all three of the practice sessions, and he made many of the same mistakes
in the third practice session that he had made in the first. Though the strategy seemed
ineffective, Nick was certain that musicians need to play through a complete piece in
order to play it well. When asked why, he replied, “Because it’s easy if you start by
looking on that [wrong] note and you say, ‘oh that’s what I need to fix.’ But if you play
the whole thing, then you have to be ready for this note to come up.” (Focus Group #2).

Aside from the strategies listed above, Nick had a limited practice repertoire, and

he used many of his practice strategies ineffectively. Though Nick understood that

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repetition was an effective strategy, he generally repeated something correctly only one
time, if at all, and then moved on. On only one occasion did Nick play a pattern of notes
correctly three times in a row before moving on. When he would slow down in his
practice, it was only at the difficult spots in the music. Because he never mentioned
slowing down as a deliberate strategy, it may be that this slowing down was not a
strategy at all, but simply a demonstration of his emergent reading and technical skills.
When discussing his tone and control, Nick admitted that he had no strategies to
address the problem, stating, “I don’t even know one.” When asked if he ever thought of
playing long tones at the beginning of his practice to remind his embouchure of what they
need to feel like, he replied, “Yeah. I could do that. I never thought about that before
though.” (Nick, Retrospective Report #3). He also seemed to lack a firm understanding of
the rhythm counting method taught in class or an understanding of meter. Though he
lacks these strategies, Ms. Zingerrnan has stated that she has consciously taught these
strategies, and others, in class, but she admits, “I don’t have as organized approach as I

probably should.” (Ms. Zingerrnan Interview).

Motivation

Nick seemed to love the idea of making music. He said he practices six or seven
days a week on piano, sax, and bongo. He takes lessons on piano and saxophone and he
plays keyboards in a garage band. Ms. Zingerrnan also has stated that he has a terrific
attitude and loves band. On the outside it seems that Nick is a highly motivated young
musician, but as I studied his actions in his practice, I saw conflicting data. It is through

the analysis of the contrasts between challenge and priorities, between approach and

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avoid goal orientations, and student choice and assigned music that we may obtain a
better understanding of Nick’s motivation in music.

Nick expressed on many occasions that he enjoys a challenge. He pursued extra
challenges by attending band camp, playing with his garage band, and auditioning for a
regional middle school honors band. On the other hand, Nick consistently exhibited
sloppy performances with an uncontrolled tone and often a lack of a steady pulse. It
seems that his motivation was not to play his music flawlessly.

Oare You were able to tell me pretty accurately where the
mistakes were in each of the pieces you played Why didn't
you go back and fix them?

Nick I don 't know. Because these pieces are too easy. And yeah.
You could say. . . I don't know. . . It 's because it's like.

T hey 're too easy and I'm getting sloppy with them. That's
probably why I'm making mistakes. I need harder music.

Oare But yet there wasn't a piece that you played flawlessly.
Yeah ..... I don ’t know. Because you get kind of sloppy.

Nick Well 1 do. I get kind of sloppy. . . Like most of these songs
I 'm good at. And I 've mastered. So. . . . (Nick Retrospective

Report #3).

Instead, it seems that Nick may have been more motivated to have people say he can play

lots of music than to say that he actually played it well. As a seventh grade student, he

already has a reputation as a “band geek” among students such as Amy. This title could

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have been caused by his own self-promotion. Or, this lack of motivation to focus on the
details may be a developmental issue in which he is not yet capable of taking care of
details. He seemed unable to realize that his cognitive understanding of how to play his
music does not necessarily translate to performance achievement.

I witnessed both ego-approach and ego-avoid goal orientations at different times
with Nick. He stated during our first focus group that he was constantly competing with
another of the seventh grade saxophonists. He seemed to enjoy learning challenging
music, as long as he felt he could play it. But, if Nick had a low self-efficacy regarding
his ability to play a piece, he would avoid it. This can be seen in the following practice
session excerpt:

Table 8: Nick —- Practice Session #2

 

Time Activities / Comments Code

 

He begins Here We Come A Wasailing in the 2nd
phrase, with little mental or physical set up before Mot: avoidance of the 6/8 part he

10:01 playing doesn’t understand

 

10:35 Oare "Why didn'tyouplay the beginning?"

 

10:38 “I don't like the beginning part. I only like the end ” Mot: avoidance

 

10:42 Oare “Why don't you like the beginning? "

 

 

10:43 “I don't know. “ Met: doesn’t know

 

 

 

 

One reason Nick avoided the 6/ 8 section of the piece is that he felt uncomfortable with

the new time signature. This occurred in a small number of other songs from the book.
Finally, Nick showed varying degrees of motivation based on the music he

played. Nick was motivated to focus a small amount on exercises that were to be tested in

class. He also reacted productively, though reluctantly, toward the assignments his

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private instructor gave him, saying “I have to do it pretty much, because I'll get in trouble
if I don't.” (Nick Focus Group 2). On the other hand, Nick expressed a desire to play old
time rock and roll and stated that he practices that music at home instead of the band

pieces.

Summag

Nick likes to play songs his saxophone, but does not seem to practice with a
specific goal for improvement. Instead, Nick to plays through his music without giving it
much thought. Like the other students in this study, he places greatest priority on
producing the correct notes and rhythm, to the detriment of his tone and articulation. This
emphasis seems to attenuate his ability to assess other aspects of his playing. Nick has
firm beliefs in regard to how he should practice, yet he lacks specific practice strategies

that he could use to produce music more effectively.

Mandy
Mandy is the final seventh grade participant. She is girl of medium height and
build with straight sandy blond reaching just beyond her shoulders, a mouth full of
braces, and glasses. She had played clarinet since sixth grade and began taking clarinet
lessons in the fall of seventh grade. Mandy seems to want the identity of being in the
“popular crowd,” but, according to Ms. Zingerrnan, “I don’t see her as being in the same
social group with Amy. I think she’s one of those who wants to be in the popular group,

but isn’t quite. That’s how I see it anyway.”

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Mandy can best be described as a generally nice girl who can be negative toward
herself and others from time to time. This behavior became apparent many times during
our practice sessions together, through her distaste of songs she had to practice or her
lack of motivation to use practice strategies she had been taught, because she was, “lazy
with a capital L.” (Mandy, Retrospective Report #3).

Along with participating in band, Mandy took private clarinet lessons. She also
has been helped with her music in the past by her brother who plays trumpet in the high
school band, who Ms. Zingennan describes as an average to below average musician.

As a musician, Mandy is a steady section clarinetist who needs the support of
other students around her in order to be successful. According to Ms. Zingennan, Mandy
is:

Rhythmically very weak. . . It 's something her (private) teacher and I

have spoken about a couple of times. You 'd like to think that you can teach

that to every kid. But, I 'm not always sure. Pulse is an issue for her. Her

performance in class is alright. When she gets her fingerings down then

she ’s 0K in the section. She 's not going to stick out. . . She practices a lot

at home. At least she says she does. And she probably actually is putting

those minutes in. But 1 ’m sure she 's not focusing on what she ’s doing.

(Ms. Zingerrnan Interview).

Ms. Zingennan stressed that Mandy’s strength is her ability to play consistently

once she leams her part, suggesting that Mandy needs to hear her part multiple times

before she is able to hear it in her head. Ms. Zingennan explained, “She’s definitely not a

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leader. But if somebody’s playing her part next to her, she’s going to be just fine. It’s

kind of funny, because big brother was the same way.” (Ms. Zingennan Interview).

Mandy described her own practice as “totally random.” Though I agree that it

lacked clear focus in her choices, there were times when her ability to make effective

decisions began to emerge. Other times, it seemed that she lacked the prerequisite

knowledge for effective practice, or was unable to discipline herself enough to overcome

the urge to only play music that she liked and could be successful playing, as exposed in

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

this excerpt:

Table 9: Mandy — Practice Session #1

Time Activities / Comments Code

4:54 “I '11 play the line we ’re supposed to play in class. " G: teacher assigned - #74
Begins to play in triple meter - the first phrase is ok

4:58 rhythmically but missed the key A: non—detection — key

5:10 2nd phrase has problems with meter and rhythm A: non-detection - meter

5:27 “I think I played that A too long. ” A: detection - rhythm

5:29 Oare - “What were you focusing on? ”

5:32 “I don't know . . I don't like 3/4 time. " Met: don’t know

5:40 “You were playing the 3/4 line and not the 3/8? ” (Line 74a or 74b)

5:43 “3/4. I don 't even know how to play 3/8! " S: knowledge?

5:59 plays it again —it slips into duple meter A: non-detection — meter

6:08 “That's weird. ” Mot: external locus

6:44 begins the line again, playing 2 notes S: repetition - beginning
“I missed a quarter note. I'm going to do some other things A: detection - rhythm Mot:

6:49 now. ” avoidance

 

 

 

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Q9a_ls

Mandy seemed to have two mental agendas warring with each other during
practice. The default goal of the first agenda was, “do your assignments,” and the default
goal of the second agenda was “avoid failure at all costs.” Generally speaking, while
Mandy attempted to follow the first agenda, the second agenda won out in each of the
three practice sessions.

The key factors for the first agenda were the assignments given by Ms.
Zingerman, her private teacher, and upcoming concerts. Mandy began each lesson in the
same way as the other seventh grade students, by playing through her scales and her daily
assignments instead of deliberately practicing them. This may be due to a lack of
specificity in her goals. Each time I asked Mandy to tell me about her goals for each thing
she played, the answer was either that she had no goal, or that she wanted to improve
“everything.” In essence, the target Mandy aimed at was either hazy or nonexistent as
exhibited in this exchange:

Oare What will you do the next time you practice that piece?
Mandy Practice it.

Oare Just play?

Mandy Probably. And probably like slow it down.

Oare Anything specific you want to improve on it?

Mandy Not really. (Mandy, Retrospective Report #3).

This lack of goal specificity could possibly be the cause of Mandy’s lack of skill

in prescribing remedial goals when she was unable to meet the goals set by her teachers’

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assignments. Instead of creating secondary goals for the difficult music she played,
Mandy would try to meet the larger goal by playing through the music once or twice. If
she was unsuccessful, she would simply move on.

The second consequence Mandy encountered due to her lack of specificity was an
inability to persevere when she was unable to meet her goal. The less specific her goal,
the less time she seemed to spend on the activity. On the other hand, Mandy did
persevere with assignments that were to be tested and did spend more time attempting to
improve upon them. An example of this occurred during her third practice session with
an exercise that was to be tested to determine chair placement within her section. She
practiced the piece at the beginning of her practice time and moved on to other
assignments. After playing three other assignments, she went back to the first assignment,
saying, “I'll try to play my chair test one more time.”

The key factors for Mandy’s second agenda, “avoid failure at all costs,” were
avoidance and distaste. Mandy avoided the music she did not like. She had a strong
desire to play only the music she liked, and therefore spent little time on the rest,
explaining her actions by saying, “I don’t like that one,” or “it’s weird.” (Mandy,
Concurrent Report 3). It seemed that the music that made it into her list of enjoyable
pieces was the music that she could already play successfully. Therefore, Mandy’s list
was constantly changing. For example, during her first practice session with me, the
following series of activities took place:

Table 10: Mandy — Practice Session #1

 

Time Activities / Comments Code

 

7:52 “I think I'm going to try Imperium ” G: Teacher assigned

 

 

8:00 Begins Imperium, playing the intro

 

 

 

128

 

Table 10 can ’t

 

 

8:14 “hmm. . . Never mind. I don't like that one” G: random choice

 

 

 

One month later, during the third practice session, Mandy had this to say:

Table I l : Mandy ~ Practice Session #3

 

Time Activities / Comments Code

 

10:26: (Afier playing the D major scale) — “I don't like that one. Too Mot: efficacy / avoidance /

00 many sharps " - Turns Pages locus

 

10:30 Oare — “What do you like? "

 

10:33 “Lots of things! I like lmperium and Nocturnal ” Mot: success

 

10:39 Oare — “Why? "

 

 

10:40 “Because they're challenging, but not too challenging" Mot: challenge

 

 

 

 

One of the side effects of this form of choosing goals and what music to play was
that Mandy was more focused on playing her music rather than honing her skills.
Because she played through whole songs rather than spending the time to perfect sections

within her music, her focus turned more on putting in her time than on improvement.

Assessment

To self-assess one’s own performance requires the musical aptitude to audiate the
desired result and to accurately acknowledge the specific aspects of performance that do
not meet the target, while also requiring the desire to attend to the quality of the
performance at hand. Mandy was able to exhibit these requirements in some ways, but
was lagging in others. As I analyzed video and audio recordings, I found that Mandy
missed nearly the same number of mistakes as she detected. It seemed that four things
attenuated her effectiveness with her self-assessment: unclear goals, theoretical

misunderstandings, aptitude, and a lack of strategies to fix problems.

129

 

Mandy set few goals, and the goals she did set were generally unclear. Therefore,
she had no specific aspects of her playing to listen for. Because of this, a number of
mistakes related to dynamics, articulation, and rhythm went by unnoticed. The result was
a number of undetected mistakes and other mistakes that were detected, but too vague to
provide sufficient information to put her on the path to improvement. This lack of focus
also resulted in a number of generally negative evaluative comments that led to
frustration and were too vague to help guide finther goals. After she practiced a piece of
music, she also rarely spent time reflecting upon her progress, resulting in a continued
lack of goals.

Second, Mandy’s tonal awareness was weak, as was her sense of heat and meter.
Because of these apparent weaknesses in her musicial aptitude, she was unable to
recognize mistakes as she made them. In one particular instance, Mandy began playing a
song in the key of Bb major, and she continually played E naturals, never recognizing the
mistake. This may be due to an undeveloped aural schema that could consistently hear
tonality. She generally was able to decode notation accurately, though her accuracy may
have been due more to her decoding ability than her ability to audiate the music.

Mandy expressed little confidence regarding her rhythmic skill, possibly due to a
combination of a lack of rhythmic aptitude, as described by Ms. Zingerrnan, and a novice
understanding of rhythm notation. This was demonstrated many times as Mandy was
unable to maintain a steady pulse in her practice and did not seem to notice. Mandy did
not understand the difference between duple and triple meter, and therefore was unable to
perform with a sense of meter. She did not understand the value of a dotted quarter note

in relation to the other notes around it or the relationship of notes in a syncopated pattern.

130

She also had little experience, and even less self-efficacy with 6/ 8 meter. Because of
these deficiencies in knowledge, combined with her weak sense of pulse, rhythm
mistakes were the most common type of mistakes to go undetected in Mandy’s practice
sessions.

Finally, Mandy often seemed to ignore the mistakes that she was unable to
prescribe solutions for. When I asked what strategies she knew to help her fix rhythm and
tone mistakes if she did catch them, her reply was, “I don’t really have a strategy”
(Mandy, Focus Group #2). This was especially the case with her tone. During each of her
practice sessions, I noticed that she did detect tone problems near the beginning of her
practice time. She used no strategies to help her gain control of her tone, so the tone

problems continued, but she stopped detecting the problems when they occurred.

Strategies

Though I have decided to present the practice of my participants through the use
of four separate themes, it is important to remember that each theme has an effect on the
others. The goals one makes are ofien influenced by an assessment of which musical
element deserves the highest priority, and the strategies one chooses are influenced by the
chosen goals. The quality of assessment can influence motivation by creating hope or
dashing it, while motivation can influence one’s goals and the choice of strategies.

Mandy’s use of practice strategies is a good example of this principle. Because
she entered her practice with either vague goals or no goals at all, she was unable to
choose the appropriate strategy at the outset of her practice. When she had no goals, she

generally just played through her music, stopping and starting again when big mistakes

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happened, or slowing down when the music became hard and speeding back up again
when it was easy. When she chose to address what seemed to be her ‘default’ focus
(playing the correct notes), her unsteady tone caused problems. But, since she had no
strategies to deal with her tone, she was unsuccessful, causing frustration and engaging
her avoidance strategy. If she chose to focus on rhythm, her lack of understanding made
it difficult for her to detect mistakes, thereby negating her ability to set remedial goals to
address the problem.

Mandy did know of a number of practice strategies that she consciously chose not
to use. Her desire to play through the music superseded strategies that took place outside
of performance of the music. For example, when asked if she ever played long tones to
help focus her tone, she said, “I don’t do it consciously or unconsciously. 1 just don’t.”
(Focus Group #2). When asked if she ever practiced counting a rhythm before playing it,
she replied, “not usually.” (Mandy, Retrospective Report #1). When asked if she ever
practiced saying and fingering the note names of difficult sections, she said, “No. I just
won’t do it. . . it sounds weird and that’s one of the reasons.” (Mandy, Retrospective
Report #3). This lack of non-performance practice was not always the case. Mandy did
stop her play and analyze her music from time to time, as in the following example:

Oare Do you look for patterns at all?

Mandy Just notes.

Oare I noticed you analyzed the fingerings on the chromatic
scale. You stopped and you figured it out.

Mandy Yeah (smiles).

Oare Is that a pretty common thing you do?

132

Mandy Yeah.

The concept of practicing for the purpose of creating habits was new to Mandy.
As with all of the participants, when she would repeat some portion of her music, one
correct repetition seemed to suffice. Also, along with all of the participants, she used
aural imagery of the music as a leaming strategy. If she knew what the music sounded
like, she was much more accurate. This use of aural imagery was apparent when Mandy
said, “When I was playing this, I knew exactly what I was thinking. When I stopped I
was thinking like the bass clarinets and the bassoon ..... when I stop, they go 'whack
whack'. I was thinking that . . . whack whack! (said in time as she was listening to the
practice video)” (Mandy, Retrospective Report #1).

As Ms. Zingerrnan stated, rhythm is a challenge for Mandy, but she is beginning
to develop strategies that should begin to help her improve her skill. Mandy stated that
she does tap her toe to the pulse, “sometimes when I think I’m going to mess up.”
(Mandy, Retrospective Report #1). She was capable of keeping a steady beat with her
foot when playing simple rhythms, but when she encountered more difficult rhythms
such as dotted quarter notes or sync0pations, her foot tapping and her sense of pulse
stopped. She also stated that she does count rhythm patterns using the counting system
taught by Ms. Zingerrnan, saying, “I’m always counting in my head.” Again, this seemed
to be true with simple rhythms. When asked to count more difficult patterns, she lacked
understanding and therefore was unable to count as she played.

Finally, I found that motivation played a big part in Mandy’s use of practice

strategies. Mandy would not practice her solo music for me during our sessions, because

133

she would either leave her music at home or she did not feel comfortable playing the
music in front of people yet. During our final practice session together, I asked Mandy if
she practiced her solo music by playing straight through it, as she did with her concert
music and the music out of her band book. Her response showed that she did have a an
understanding of how to break a piece down into more manageable chunks, but that she
simply chose not to do it, except when the music had value to her.
Oare So if you take it down into smaller measures,. . . I haven 't
seen you do that in the book.
Mandy Because I don 't want to. Because I'm lazy with a capital L.
Oare Then why do you want to do it on this one?
Mandy Because I'm going to be playing it for solo (and ensemble
festival).
Oare Fair enough. So you have more buy in on this one.
Mandy Mm hmm.
Oare You do consciously do that? Play through this, play through
that, and with your solo say, ‘now let’s get serious? ’

Mandy Mm hmm.

Motivation

For Mandy, achieving success and avoiding failure is the key to her motivation.
Her “totally random” approach to choosing music to practice was often due to her search
for music that she liked. Usually she would play songs she liked over and over. But on

numerous occasions, she would play through a few measures of a piece, encounter some

134

difficulty, and then say, “I don’t like that,” and turn the page to find another song to play.
In some instances, she would return to the music she left later in her practice session,
once she felt more able to play it.

Frustration also seemed to play a large part in Mandy’s motivation. During her
second practice session with me, she chose to begin by playing a difficult assignment and
had an especially difficult time producing a steady tone. As we progressed further into
our time, her brows became more furrowed, her head began to fall, sighs came more
rapidly, and responses became short. She turned the page and began to play scales, but
her tone continued to cause problems. Finally, only eight minutes into our allotted time,
Mandy said, “I don’t know what else to play,” and the session ended.

Impending performances seemed to have a positive affect on Mandy’s motivation.
This can be seen in her more deliberate use of practice strategies in order to prepare her
solo for an upcoming solo and ensemble festival. Though she did not practice her chair
test excerpt as effectively as she said she practiced her solo, Mandy did play through it
more often than other songs that were not to be performed

Finally, the influence of her teachers and parents provided the direction and
motivation that she could not yet provide for herself. Mandy consistently practiced the
music assigned her by Ms. Zingerrnan or by her private teacher. Furthermore, the
encouragement she received from her parents, suggested by the provision of private
instruction, seems to suggest that the adults in her life had a strong influence, whether

intrinsically or extrinsically, upon her practice.

Summary

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For Mandy, seemingly more than the other participants, the themes in this study
are strongly interrelated. Her motivation to avoid failure has a strong effect on the goals
she makes and her choice of music. Her lack of focus with her goals led to unfocused
practice strategies and vague or negative assessments that had a negative impact upon her
motivation. Her practice seemed most focused and she demonstrated more perseverance
when she was guided by her teachers’ assignments and informed by an aural image of the

music she was playing.

Matthew

Tall and thin with braces and a slightly nasal tone in his voice, Matthew played
alto saxophone in the eighth grade band. Though he seemed slightly awkward in the
focus group sessions, I quickly found that Matthew felt comfortable in our practice
sessions together and was open about communicating his thoughts and beliefs on
practice. Ms. Zingerrnan said, “I love him to death. He’s the kid who sits next to the
chaperone on the trip. I think he relates to adults better than he relates to kids.” (Ms.
Zingerrnan Interview).

. Matthew usually had a steady tone and seemed to have good control of his
fingers, but my field notes were riddled with comments about his lack of a steady pulse. I
noticed that this was especially true as he played notes longer than a whole note or non-
melodic accompaniment lines within his band music. When describing Matthew as a
musician, Ms. Zingerrnan said,

The kid 's a scale fiend! . . . I don ’t know that he has that much of a sense of

internal pulse. I know that I ’ve worked on rhythm strfir with him outside of class

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as well as in class with him. . .Now, his performance in class is generally pretty
good. That sense of pulse comes into play occasionally. Until he knows a piece,
he '1] usually lag behind and follow whoever else has the part. But once he ’s got
it, he leads. (ha ha). But he ’s not the one teaching it to others. He definitely
practices at home. And, I think with the minutes based thing we have set up right
now, he is very determined that he is going to practice his 30 minutes every day.
He makes sure that happens. I don ’t think he ’s setting goals hardly at all.

Probably just running straight through stzfl (Ms. Zingerrnan Interview).

Matthew had definite views in how one should practice. During our concurrent
and retrospective verbal report sessions, he described his reasoning for the decisions he
made much more often and in more detail than the other participants. Often these
explanations contained bits of logic that were worded in a confusing manner. For
example, he once said, “And depending on the piece, after you‘re warmed up, you can go
back and practice through it to see if it sounds better or different than when you originally
started.” (Matthew, Concurrent Report #2). At other times, Matthew’s comments seemed
a bit odd. During the first focus session he explained that he uses the mirror in his
practice to look at his hands but not his embouchure because, “I think I heard this from a
guy. . . He said if you ever watch yourself on video, you'll see what you are really like or
something. It's not good. Don‘t watch yourself on video.” (Focus Group #1).

Ms. Zingerrnan was accurate to some extent in her assessment of Matthew’s

practice methods. He did tend to play through his music, but he also seemed to have some

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thoughts resembling goals when he practiced. He seemed to focus more on becoming a

better player than simply putting in the time.

_C_3_oal§

Matthew generally did not set specific goals with clear criteria or devise plans of
action to reach them, but he was able to say what he would focus on as he began
practicing a new piece of music. This focus was quite often on articulation and dynamics,
more so than seventh grade participants. When asked what he focused on the most,
Matthew said, “I think about tonguing and beat, but fingering, that was more like last
year and the year before.” (Matthew, Retrospective Report #2). On another occasion, he
stated that he tries to focus on everything and admitted that this may cause problems in
his playing.

Though Matthew stated that he focused on rhythm the most, he often had troubles
maintaining a steady beat and seemed quite surprised the few times I brought up this
difficulty. For example, during our final focus group session, I mentioned that he played
a song that was written in 4/4 as if it were written in 6/8. His response was, “I played it in
6/8? Wow! Oops! . . . Wow. I don’t know how you can play a 4/4 piece in 6/8 and still
have it sound good.” (Focus Group 2). Therefore, his lack of ability to assess the need
most likely had an effect on the goals he set.

Matthew seemed to have a routine in his practice. He started his first two
practices by playing scales as his way of warming up. Then he would play his daily
assignment, which was from one of his band pieces. This was followed by a difficult

piece of music and then a few other pieces he wanted to review. At some point in time he

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would “take a break” and either improvise or play a pop tune by memory. His
improvisations had no chordal structure or discemable meter and the pop tunes came
from a book of movie tunes he owned. He finished up his practice by going back to the
difficult piece.

Matthew made a number of comments regarding the need for an aural image to
help him know what a piece would sound like. As he began to play a pop song, he said,
“Sometimes, if you're playing different songs, it helps to know the words, so you know
exactly how it's kind of supposed to sound.” (Matthew, Concurrent Report #3). This need
for an aural image could explain why Ms. Zingerrnan stated that he is slow to learn his
music, but once he learns it, he plays it well. It was also apparent as be practiced his band
music. As an alto saxophone player, Matthew switched back and forth between playing
the melodic and harmonic accompaniment lines. I noticed in all three practice sessions
that his pulse and musicality were relatively fluid as he played his melodic parts, but be
consistently lost his sense of pulse and phrasing when he played accompaniment parts.

Matthew seems to be concerned with earning high grades. Therefore, his learning
goals were highly influenced by Ms. Zingerrnan, as exemplified by her comment that he
makes sure he practices enough to get an A on his practice sheets. Also, because scale
tests are important in class, Matthew has become a “scale fien

This desire to succeed and to show others how well he could play could be seen in
many comments he made. When asked to tell me what he thought the hardest part of
playing a difficult new piece of music would be, he replied, “What would scare me most
at the beginning would not be trying to get the notes and rhythms. What would scare me

the most would actually be . . . if I’m going to play it in fiont of someone. Is this actually

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going to sound good, or am I going to mess it up so bad that it doesn’t even sound like

anything.” (Matthew, Focus Group #2).

Assessment

Matthew was quite good at detecting note mistakes, along with problems related
to dynamics. Once he identified the mistakes, he was usually able to make quick
corrections and move on. On a number of occasions, he seemed to ignore note mistakes
and not fix them. When these occurred, he would miss a note and quickly flip his fingers
to get the right note to come out and then continue. These little bobbles happened most
often as he practiced his scales. Matthew also seemed to ignore a number of problems
with his articulation. In a number of instances, he had an excessive delay between the
attack of a note and the sounding of the note, causing him to wait for the note to speak
which then displaced the pulse.

It is difficult to accurately discern the reasons for his choice to ignore these
problems, since he could not give me an answer when I asked. There does seem to be two
viable possibilities though. First, Matthew may have simply felt that the mistakes be
ignored were simple things that he usually plays correctly and therefore he does not need
to work on them. Second, he may have chosen to ignore the articulation problems
because he had no ability to diagnose the causes of the problem or no strategy to use to
fix it.

Though rhythm was Matthew’s first priority as he practiced, he was unable to
detect multiple problems with rhythm, pulse, and meter. Between our first and second

session, Matthew received extra help with his honor band audition music from Ms.

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Zingennan. During this session she spent a large amount of time helping him learn to
play the rhythms correctly. This experience seemed to help him understand that he should
focus more on rhythm, since after this he often stated that he was attending to rhythm as
he played. This extra attention did not seem to help. I still recorded many instances in
which he did not seem to recognize that his pulse was undetectable, he was playing in the
wrong meter, or he misplayed a wrong rhythm. Even melodic sections in his music that
he could play relatively accurately lacked a firm sense of beat.

In one particular instance as we reviewed the video of his practice, I asked if he
noticed a mistake he had made. Matthew’s reply was, “Yes. I went down to the mezzo
forte and I kept the crescendo all the way going to the end.” (Matthew, Retrospective
Report #3). Aside from the dynamic mistake, Matthew had played a completely wrong
rhythm. When I showed the mistake to him, he said, “Yeah. I might be a little bit off.”
(Matthew, Retrospective Report #2). This inability to detect rhythmic errors may be due
to a lack of rhythm aptitude or to a lack of attention to rhythm due to his focus on
dynamics. He claimed that he was more able to detect mistakes of this sort when the band
played with him, similar to Amy’s strategy of hearing the band in her head as she played.
An assessment of Matthew’s rhythmic aptitude may shed light on his thinking, but this is

beyond the scope of this study.

Strategies

Ms. Zingennan’s assessment that Matthew most likely plays through his music

was quite accurate. Matthew’s most common practice strategy was to correct mistakes

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“on the go,” because he believed that, “if you make a mistake, keep going.” (Matthew,
Concurrent Report #1).

Matthew also demonstrated the use of slowing the tempo of exercises he played
and of repetition in his practice, but he seems to have a misunderstanding of the effective
use of both techniques. In order to develop a sense of automaticity in one’s performance,
multiple repetitions are required to begin creating the necessary neural pathways. Sanders
(2004) and Caine (2005) also emphasize the need to learn the same skills in a variety of
ways, in this case by slowing the tempo. Though Matthew mentioned repeating things
multiple times during our interviews, he would only repeat sections one time correctly
before moving on and slow the tempo only in the difficult spots of his music during his
practice. In the third practice session, he repeated some spots three times in a row before
moving on. I asked him why this was the first time I had seen him do it. He replied,
“Well, I'm starting to do more of it now. But for it to get my fullest attention on it, I
would probably have to screw up pretty badly on it.” (Matthew, Retrospective Report
#3).

Matthew also demonstrated some non-playing activities that helped his practice.
Again, he mentioned the value of hearing the band play in his head while he practiced.
He was also good at noticing when he might transfer past information to inappropriate
situations, saying, “It's also a little bit more difficult during songs, because some similar
rhythms might be a little different even though they look very similar, you might get
tripped up.” (Matthew, Concurrent Report #3). Finally, he said that he counted rhythms,

once saying, “Count your part carefully if it's one of the few parts in the piece,” but be

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did not do this out loud, and it seemed there was not enough time for him to have done it

in his head (Matthew, Concurrent Report #1).

Motivation

Matthew is a highly motivated young man who is motivated extrinsically and
intrinsically. He has a strong drive to do well in school and therefore completes his
practice assignments religiously. He seems to have the stereotypical ego approach
personality. Ms. Zingerrnan felt that Matthew does not learn his parts quickly in band, but
he works hard at it. He mentioned a number of times that he liked to play hard music
because, “it's probably better to make mistakes on the extremely hard piece you have
instead of on the easier piece that you might have gotten.” (Focus Group #1).

Matthew is also motivated to play music outside of his assigned band repertoire.
He has multiple books at home of pop and movie tunes that he plays, “either for fun or
I'm actually trying to learn it to perform for someone else and have them go, ‘hey that
sounds really cool. Can you play that again?” (Focus Group #1). He was also excited
about the opportunities to play in marching band and jazz band. During one practice
session, he played the Theme fi-om the Godfather out of one of his books. He liked to play
the piece because, “I heard this song at a really, really big marching band festival I was
watching on TV. It was really good. They were marching all across the field. They even
did the puppet hang and the dagger through the heart. That was sweet. I wanted to figure
out how I could play this.” (Matthew, Retrospective Report #3).

Matthew also enjoys playing with an accompaniment. Because he was unable to

play with the band at home when he practices, he mentioned multiple times that he likes

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to play with the cd’s that accompany the books he bought. When in passing I told him
about the Smart Music© program, he said, “we don‘t have internet at my house, so I can't
really do it. But it would probably help out a lot. I‘d probably be doing those pieces

almost every day.” (Matthew, Retrospective Report #2).

Summgy

Matthew was a go-getter who enjoyed a challenge. Though he had some innate
ability and a strong desire to succeed, some of the decisions he made in his practice
seemed to hamper his progress. Because he did not set clear tangible practice goals, he
often tried to focus on ‘everything’ and was consequently unable to properly assess his
progress or choose appropriate practice strategies. He seemed to realize that he needed to
focus on his rhythm as he played, but was unable to detect his mistakes and either chose
not to use or had no strategies that would help him with his problem. For Matthew,
having an aural image of the music he played seemed to be critical as it helped him to
have a target to shoot for, gave him a model to assess progress against and a tool to use as

an aid in leaming.

Sarah
Relatively short and petite, Sarah has a great deal of ability. Sarah played flute in
the eighth grade band, but had significant prior experience playing piano and taking
dance lessons before picking up the flute. She also began taking flute lessons as a seventh
grader. Her sister is also an accomplished flute player in the local high school band and

has served as a model. According to Ms. Zingerman, Sarah is, “Self motivated, as far as

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learning on her own. She comes into class totally ready for pretty much anything we have
to do. She’s probably the closest of any of them to having an idea of how to practice
anyway. . . . She takes lessons. The best I can tell, the teacher’s pretty good.” (Ms.
Zingerrnan Interview).

Sarah was easily the best musician in the group of participants for this study.
Hamman and Frost (2000) found that students who study privately tend to be more goal
oriented, practice longer, smarter, and more efficiently. They also establish goals and
maximize time in shorter, though on task, segments. This, in many ways, seemed to be

the case with Sarah.

Ms

Like all of the students in this study, Sarah did not set specific, proximal,
appropriately challenging goals as described by Schunk (2001), though she was able to
specify broad areas that needed work and choose appropriate elements of performance to
focus on. She was also the only student in this study who consciously chose the music
she would work on prior to beginning practice.

Sarah had a loose routine she followed in her practice. She began by playing a Bb
major scale because, “it’s so automatic. And I don’t do it for the notes. I do it for
warming my flute and lips up.” (Focus Group #2). Next she played the two octave scales
assigned by her private teacher and then began practicing her assigned etudes and solos.
Sarah hardly ever played her band music. This was because her performance level was

sufficiently high that she could sight read the majority of their music. In her third practice

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session, Sarah did practice her part in the Vaughan Williams Folk Song Suite that Ms.
Zingerman passed out as the band’s challenge piece for the year.

Sarah chose to work on her music in stages. She felt her first priority with new
songs was to focus on the notes and rhythm, saying, “When I'm first learning it, notes
take up like all of it. And rhythm. When I'm just sight reading it, that's all I'm thinking
about.” (Sarah, Retrospective Report #2). Once she felt comfortable with this basic level
of performance, she would focus on the other aspects of playing, such as articulation and
dynamics. It seemed that she continually focused on her tone. She said that her teacher

constantly worked with her on developing a full sound.

Assessment

Sarah’s ability to assess herself was much more effective than her peers and this
allowed her to make some decisions related to remediation. She was able to consistently
detect mistakes in all aspects of her technique, and was especially aware of fluctuations
in her tone, possibly due to the special emphasis given to tone by her private teacher.

Though Sarah only had a little more than two years experience on flute, she had
played piano since she was seven. This extra amount of time making music may have
helped her to develop a stronger aural schema than the other students (Hallam, 2001). I
detected an inconsistent pulse only for one brief time in her practice. She also had a good
feel for meter, although she did not seem to have a solid cognitive understanding of the
concept when I asked her about it. Sarah was also able to detect mistakes within major

and minor keys, showing that she understood the harmonic context of both modalities.

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Sarah was also aware of many of her tendencies in her playing. She often
mentioned tonal and rhythmic errors that she consistently made, and therefore had a
heightened sensitivity to the detection of these errors when she made them. This
development of prior knowledge enabled Sarah to detect mistakes that she could not have
detected in the past.

Because of her knowledge of her tendencies, Sarah also developed an
understanding of some of their causes. This, then, helped her ability to diagnose the
mistakes she made. For example, Sarah had difficulty playing in the correct partial in the
upper half of her Bb major scale during her warm-up. As we reviewed the tape, she said,
“I think I just have to get warmed—up. Because when I first play the scale it happens a
lot.” (Sarah, Retrospective Report #1 ). Later in this interview she again discussed issues
with her tone saying,

I think it's more of a safety thing. If 1 ’m playing something and I don 't

want to mess it up, then 1 pinch it of because I know it '11 come out. It

won 't sound very good, but 1 know it will come out and not go half and

half low and high. Because that’s just bad So, I think I do that just to

make sure it works. But it doesn 't sound very good. So that's what I should

work on

Sarah’s assessment of when she was ready to move on from the music she
practiced seemed to be based on cognitive understanding rather than her kinesthetic
ability. In other words, Sarah felt confident that her fingers knew the music when her
brain understood what to do, not realizing that motor skills often require more repetition

in order to develop automaticity. According to Sarah, “Well, I think - since I'm not

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memorizing this or anything - If I can read it, and know what it's supposed to be, then I
can play it. And I think I'll be able to play it next time.” (Sarah, Retrospective Report #2).
This seemed to result in mistakes that consistently happened each time she played
particular fingering patterns both as they reappeared in the music and as I observed her in
the following weeks.

As I observed Sarah during her third practice session, I noticed a peculiar pattern
that may merit further study. It seemed that Sarah’s mistakes consistently happened at the
beginning of phrases. For example, Sarah began playing an etude that she had been
working on for approximately three weeks. She played through the first phrase relatively
fluidly with only slight finger bobbles and then began the second phrase, making a
mistake in the first measure tlmt caused her to stop. She then began the second phrase and
played through it in the same manner as the first, only to make a major mistake at the
beginning of the third phrase. This pattem continued throughout the whole piece. It
seems that this pattern of making mistakes at the beginnings of major events ran parallel
to the pattern I noticed in Steven and Amy as they needed to stop at the beginning of each
measure to regroup. Perhaps Sarah’s pattern of mistakes is a more advanced version of
the less experienced students, in that Sarah is able to take in larger chunks of information

than the others, yet still needs to process transitions before she can move on.

Strategies

Sarah’s repertoire of practice strategies seemed to be significantly larger than the
other five students, especially in working with tone production. Once again, as with the

other participants, she consistently repeated spots in her music only one time before

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moving on. According to Sarah, “I don't have a set strategy of how many times I play it
or anything. I'm not that organized.” (Sarah, Retrospective Report #2).

Sarah seemed to own practice strategy precepts as opposed to concepts. She
naturally used repetition, adj ustrnent of tempo, analysis, and isolation of problems
without consciously knowing what she was doing. When I would ask her what strategies
she used at various times, she simply said “I don’t know” or gave me a confused look.
Many of these strategies were undoubtedly learned from Ms. Zingennan or one of her
private teachers, but only through example, not by explicit instruction. Therefore, she was
often unable to describe the strategies she used.

Sarah, like each of the participants, lacked an understanding of how the mind and
body learns. Therefore, she did not understand the motor skill principles that guide
repetition or the cognitive learning principles that support the concept of learning pieces
in chunks. When asked her teachers taught her to practice her etudes by learning a small
chunk each day and reviewing past chunks as opposed to daily playing through the whole
piece, she said, “Well, they probably have, but I don't usually do it. Because I don't think
it really works well.” (Sarah, Retrospective Report #2).

Magill (1998) describes the three stage, Pitts and Posner model of learning motor
skills in which the learner passes through cognitive and associative stages before arriving
in an autonomous stage, in which the learner develops a level of automaticity. As I
observed the process in her learning, it seemed that Sarah proceeded through these stages
in her own development. As she practiced the upper range in her chromatic scale, she
began to play the top three notes deliberately. When I asked her what she was thinking as

she played, she replied, “Really on the lower register and stuff that I play every day, just

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the note name. And for some of it even the - within the staff - I'm usually not even
thinking about it. . . But when it gets up higher, then I have to think about the notes and
the fingers.” (Sarah, Retrospective Report #3).

With her piano experience and private lessons on both piano and flute, Sarah has
developed a sizable knowledge base to draw from. She uses this knowledge to varying
degrees of effect in her practice. When asked if she recognized scale passages and
applied her ability to play the scale to the music, she said, “Well, no. I mean like I know
basically it's in a range of stuff and (sings a stepwise pattern). But I don't think, "Oh
there's a G scale." (Sarah, Retrospective Report #2). She also stated that she recognizes
formal structure in the same way, in which she notices similarities but does not

consciously label sections as same and different.

Motivation
I don 't want to go and play a piece that's too easy, because then it feels
like you're not good enough. You know? If you get a hard piece and you
end up at the recital and you play it fine and you play it right, you feel like
you accomplished something. I feel good. So then. . . it makes me feel

determined to do it. (Focus Group #2).

Sarah enjoys a challenge and is motivated when presented with one. Because she
is not challenged by her band music, she apologetically stated that she hardly ever
practiced it She stated, “Private lesson stuff always comes first. Because that’s what I

need to improve on most because it’s probably the hardest.” (Focus Group #2).

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Through her challenge, she can see her grth as a musician. This learning goal
orientation seemed to help her persevere and spend longer amounts of focused time on
each exercise she practiced. This was apparent as she consistently worked on fewer
pieces in each 20 minute practice session than any other participant. Also, because she
could identify progress rather than general success or failure in performing her music, she
seemed more able to deal with mistakes and fnrstration. When she repeatedly made the
same mistake, she simply stopped, regrouped, laughed at herself, and tried again.

Sarah was also motivated by preparation for performances and admitted that she
practices the music she will perform more carefully than etudes or other music that will
not be performed. She explained her position, saying, “I’m not saying it’s a good thing,
but if you’re not performing it, then you don’t have to practice it as much. I don’t.”
(Focus Group #2).

It seems that, because of her learning orientation, Sarah is able to focus on
improvement without worrying too much about the social consequences of her
performance. She was able to express her thoughts saying, “If you practice it and you
know it, then even if you do mess up, who cares? I mean I don’t want to mess up, but I’m

not going to be totally upset if I do.” (Focus Group #2).

Summgry

Sarah was a strong eighth grade flutist with a wide musical background. Still, as a
fourteen year old middle school student, she lacked some of the knowledge and
metacognitive development that older students have. She was not sequentially taught how

to set specific goals, but naturally had a way of understanding what aspects of her music

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needed to be focused on. She was accurate in her detection of mistakes and had a small
repertoire of strategies at her disposal to help her fix problems with all aspects of her
playing. Finally, Sarah’s focus on learning and her high self-efficacy allowed her to see
progress even when she did not reach her goals, allowing her to easily deal with any

frustrations that may occur.

Summary

All six participants in this study have their own unique methods, beliefs and
motivations that influence their personal practice, yet they have many things in common.
First, none of the students were able to set specific, proximal, and appropriately
challenging goals, and only Sarah, and Matthew to a lesser extent, seemed to be able to
break their vague goals down into remedial steps. At the same time, the students’ were
often unable to accurately assess themselves, which made it difficult for them to make
further goals. Furthermore, they generally had a small collection of practice tools which
were used with varying degrees of success. Finally, student motivation seemed to be
dependent upon their goal orientation. Amy and Mandy seemed to have a strong
avoidance orientation that resulted in less effort, perseverance, time on task, and
deliberate practice than their peers. Sarah seemed to be strongly learning oriented,
leading to more of these factors as well as slightly more specific goals.

The participants displayed different levels of music reading abilities. The seventh
grade students seemed to be at an emergent reading level in which they were unable to
fluently play long phrases. Instead, they seemed to be able to decode their music in a

measure by measure manner. Matthew seemed to be slightly further along in his reading,

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but still was unable to fluently play long portions of his music, while Sarah was able to
play much more fluently than the rest.

Each of the participants mentioned that they needed to have an aural image of the
music they were playing in order for them to play it well. It seemed that they needed this
aural image for rhythm more than for other musical elements. The tone of the seventh
grade students may also have been attenuated by a lack of an aural image of a
characteristic tone for their instruments.

The students were influenced by Ms. Zingerrnan and their private teachers in a
number of ways. Daily assignments and regular playing tests helped give students
direction in what to practice. Verbal feedback and feedback from test score sheets
provided helpful assessment. Teacher modeling of practice strategies facilitated the
development of personal practice strategies, and assignments provided external
motivation to practice.

By analyzing commonalities among the students in depth, it may be possible to
discern more implications for teachers in the field. This analysis and further discussion,

interpretations and implications will be provided in chapters five, six and seven.

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CHAPTER 5

COMMONALITIES: CROSS-CASE ANALYSIS

The process of practicing a musical instrument is a distinctively individualized
activity that is affected by one’s clarity, aptitude, prior knowledge, technical skill and
personality. The students in this study each approached their practice with a unique set of
skills, traits, and understandings resulting in differences in their practice. Though their
practice was not the same, there are a number of commonalities among the participants
that could be analyzed to illuminate the self-regulating process of novice instrumentalists.

In this chapter, I will present a cross-case analysis of the six participants,
examining four emergent themes and highlighting the similarities as well as some key
differences I found across the six individual cases. These four themes — goal setting, self-
assessment, strategies, and motivation — were analyzed using the constant-comparative
method defined by Creswell as the process of “taking information from data collection
and comparing it to emerging categories” (Creswell, 1998, p. 57). Three of the themes —
goal setting, self-assessment, and strategies —were external to the data, based upon the
initial research questions, while motivation emerged from the data.

This analysis will be supported with a number of examples taken from the
analysis of video recordings of the practice sessions and of the comments made by the
students and their teacher. In total, I collected 18 practice sessions that were each roughly
20 minutes in length, along with 18 Retrospective Reports that were 20 to 30 minutes in
length. I also collected data from two focus group interviews and from an interview with

Ms. Zingerrnan.

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Goal Setting

Goal setting is an integral component of selflregulation. Setting goals is
a generic strategy that can be applied in various domains. Eflective goal
setting requires that people set a long-term goal, break it into short-term,
attainable sub-goals, monitor progress and assess capabilities, adjust the
strategy and goal as needed, and set a new goal when the present one is
attained This multi-step plan is a key to promoting healthier human
functioning, higher motivation and perceived self-efficacy, and self-

regulated learning and performance across the life span (Schunk, 2001).

I aggregated a total of 45 goal oriented code possibilities from the data and
winnowed these into a list of 18 secondary codes. From this list of codes, three categories
of codes emerged relating to the ways in which the students dealt with goals in their
practice. These categories include the types of goals students set, choices they make
regarding what they play, and the conflict between playing to pass the time and playing

for improvement.

Types of Goals Students Set
Typical student responses regarding their views of goal setting can be seen in the
following excerpts from retrospective verbal report sessions:
Mandy Retrospective Report #1:
Oare Now you are looking around for something to play. Did

you have a goal in mind here?

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Mandy
Oare

Mandy

Oare

Nick

Oare

Scott

Oare

Amy

I don ’t think so.
Just play through it?

Yeah.

Nick Retrospective Report #1:
Did you have a goal for this? Any specific spot you wanted
to clean up?

Not really. Just this part right here a lot. Measure 1 9.

Scott Retrospective Report #1:
Why did you pick Bells of Freedom?

Because it was in my folder, and it was there. So, I played it.

Amy Retrospective Report #2:
As you were doing this, did you have any goals in mind?

Pretty much, just get what I can done.

The ability to set specific, proximal, appropriately challenging goals is a key

component of self-regulation (Schunk, 2001). As seen by the previous excerpts, the

students in this study set few, if any, goals that conformed to Schunk’s criteria. Generally

speaking, when the students did set goals, they tended to be vague, lacking specificity,

clear criteria, or a plan of attainment Their general plan of attack seemed to be to choose

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something to play, find mistakes as they play through them, and fix them as they
practiced.

Once students identified mistakes, they were more able to set goals. Sarah
emphasized this concept of “on the go” remedial goal setting by saying, “When I
practice, I sometimes mess up somewhere and say, ‘oh, I want to get this done.’ But
before, I don‘t say I want to get these 6 measures done. It's actually after I practice that I
think, ‘Oh that was good. I got that one part done.’ I think I did accomplish a goal, but

didn't set it.” (Focus Group #1).

What They Play

The first thing one must do to create a specific practice goal is to choose
something to practice. Codes that related to the goal setting of all six participants
centered on the music that the students decided to play and these decisions were based on

four factors: routine, challenge, concert preparation, and enjoyment.

Routine

All six of the students exhibited some form of routine in their practice that
consisted of scale work, work on teacher-assigned material, and, often, performance of
music based on student choice. In my analysis I also noticed a glaring omission in all of
the students’ routines. No practice sessions started with a deliberate focus on tone quality.
There were no long tones played by any student in any of the eighteen practice sessions
for the purpose of developing tone and only the two eighth grade students mentioned that

they listened to and adjusted their tone during their initial scale exercises. Not one of the

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seventh grade students deliberately focused upon improving his or her tone quality during
their warm-up.

This lack of focus could be attributed to a lack of an aural image of a
characteristic tone for their instruments. Because students have not listened to a large
amount of instrumental music in their past, they may not have heard enough examples of
characteristic tone to have developed an aural goal for how their tone should sound. Ms.
Zingennan continually tries to add to the students’ aural image through a daily listening
activity at the beginning of each class. Sarah, the student with the most characteristic tone
on her particular instrument, has an older sister who is also a good flute player.
Therefore, Sarah has continually heard a model of a more developed tone than hers since
before she started playing flute.

All of the students except Amy mentioned doing something in the form of a
warm-up, but none of the students seemed to have a clear and complete understanding of
the purpose for a warm-up. Scott described the purpose of a warm-up as, “to get ready to
play. Like, mostly get my lips ready and to get rhythms into my head that I might be
using.” Nick described it saying, “It’ll get your instrument warm and your notes set.”
Mandy said, “It gets your mouth warmed up. Because, depending on what your
instrument is, you have to have a different embouchure.” (Focus Group #2).

The students have been given daily direction in warm-ups. Ms. Zingerrnan has a
consistent warm-up routine and has her bands begin the day playing various scales in
whole notes. She acknowledged that her students often seem to not focus on the purpose
of the exercise and said, “I occasionally stop and say, ‘hey guys, what were you thinking

about when we were doing that? How many of you were on automatic pilot? Raise your

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hand. Alright, let’s do that again, and really think about your tone, and changing notes at

9”

the same time. (Ms. Zingennan interview). The purpose of developing tone through
long tone exercises as part of warm-ups seems to have been missed by the students.

The effective practice of scales is important in the motor learning of novice
instrumentalists, because this activity helps students develop general motor programs that
can then be transferred to music of the same key (Sanders, 2004). The students in this
study played through various scales as part of their practice in 17 of the 18 practice
sessions I videotaped. Upon further comparison of the cases, it became apparent that the
students chose to play their scales for slightly different purposes. Matthew, the student
Ms. Zingerman called a “scale fiend,” played eleven different scales in his first practice
session in order to be prepared for the final scale test at the end of the year. Scott and
Sarah played scales at the beginning of each practice session because that was what they
were taught to do. Amy stated that she had no idea why she was supposed to play scales,
but she played them because she was supposed to. Nick played scales that were to be
assessed in class and he played other scales seemingly as a way to pass away the time, as
did Amy. Mandy practice the fewest amount of scales. The scales she played were the
first two scales introduced in her book (Bb and Eb major) and the chromatic scale that
was soon to be tested by Ms. Zingennan.

A second consistent piece of each student’s practice routine included playing
through material assigned by either Ms. Zingerrnan or their private teacher. The students
are given a “daily assignment” to prepare for the next class. According to Ms.

Zingerman, “I’ll tell them which line we’re going to do out of the book, and they can

pretty much guarantee we’re going to do the scale (for that key) too. And usually what

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I’ll do with the concert pieces we’re working on, I’ll assign them a chunk of it and say
that’s what they’re supposed to work on.” (Ms. Zingennan interview). These daily
assignments occurred consistently and the students were given instruction regarding what
they should focus on as they practice. According to Ms. Zingerrnan, “if I see something
that might trip them up, I’ll point it out.”

The three students who take private instrumental instruction also practiced music
assigned them by their private teacher. Sarah does not practice her band music because it
is easy for her. Instead, at the beginning of each practice session, she took out her
“private lessons notebook” that included her weekly assignments and the concepts to
focus on with each assignment. Her assignments consistently include scale work, etudes,
and solos. Mandy’s teacher assigned lines from her band book and a solo that she played

for a solo and ensemble festival.

Challenge

Once the students played through their scales and assignments, their choices of
what to practice became more varied. One common factor in their choice of what to play
was the desire to be challenged to an appropriate degree. Each student seemed to search
for music that fit within their personal comfort level, similar to the concept of flow as
explained by Csikszentrnihalyi (Csikszentmihalyi, 1991). This comfort level was Lmique
for each student. While Nick stated that he relishes a challenge, Mandy said, “I don't
want to do something that’s super easy, but I don’t want to do something that's super
hard.” Amy wanted little challenge, declaring that she wanted to play, “something I can

do.” Sarah stated, “I don’t want to play a hard piece and play it bad But I’d rather play an

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OK piece that might be a challenge for me, but I can still play it well. I don’t want to do
bad at it. But I don’t want to play an easy piece” (Focus Group #1).

The students found their challenges in a number of ways. Nick and Matthew were
each involved with the challenge of auditioning for a regional middle school honor band
and were involved in practicing audition music during their first two practice sessions.
Sarah was consistently challenged through the assignments given to her by her private
teacher, as she practiced an etude from a high school level method book and a Baroque
sonata. Scott found his challenge in composition. Matthew also practiced from a book of
pop solos and the Rubank Concert and Contest Collection. Mandy and Amy, the two
weakest musicians, seemed to find sufficient challenge in the music from their band
book. Amy stated that she had a book of Disney songs, but she had never used it. Mandy
also played solos that were assigned by her private instructor, but she would not practice
them in our sessions.

Csikszentrnihalyi’s flow theory describes the consequences of working with
material that is not at the optimal challenge level (Csikszentmihalyi, 1991). Performing
overly easy tasks often causes boredom and a lack of effort, while performing overly
difficult tasks often causes fi'ustration and the tendency to quit. On numerous occasions,
both Mandy and Amy physically showed signs of frustration with the music they were
attempting to play, and many times, they quit practicing their music and moved on to
another task, saying things such as, “Never mind. I'll practice that later,” (Amy,
Concurrent Report #2). Nick felt that the music in the book was too easy for him and that,
“these pieces are too easy. And. . . I don't know. . . it's like —They're too easy and I'm

getting sloppy with them. That's probably why I'm making mistakes. I need harder music.

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. . . Because you get kind of sloppy. Well I do. I get kind of sloppy. . (Nick Reflective

Interview #3).

Concert Preparation

The students made many of their choices based upon various performances that
were on the horizon. In all but one instance, I witnessed examples of students practicing
the assignment that was due for the next rehearsal, the material that was to be tested,
concert music, or music that was to be performed as a solo. Scott’s last practice session
did not focus on performance. Instead, he spent the whole time (aside fi'om the gratuitous
Bb major warm-up) playing through the trombone and tuba parts of his composition.

Ms. Zingerrnan regularly assigns playing tests in her band classes that are either
lines selected from the students’ band book or scales and scale patterns. It seems that one
of her purposes for these tests is to assess how well students can learn music on their
own, because she purposely does not work on the test music in class, though she does
help them by focusing their attention on items that may “trip them up.” All of the
students but Sarah spent some portion of their three practice sessions preparing for an
upcoming test. Once again, though, they were unable to specifically explain what section
of the test or what aspect of playing they planned to improve in their practice.

Ms. Zingerrnan uses a “feedback sheet” as a way to inform the students of their
strengths and weaknesses after they take their tests. This sheet has space for comments as
well as numbers of specific comments for each instrument that she can simply check if it
applies to the student’s performance. This feedback then implies goals for students on

their futrue tests. Though Scott has been given this feedback, he seems to have not clone

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much with it. According to Ms. Zingerrnan, he “is inconsistent. He does not keep his air
moving. And he gets that comment back on every feedback sheet.” (Ms. Zingerrnan
Interview).

All of the participants also regularly practiced solo music or band music in
preparation for a concert. Without exception, this practice consisted of simply starting at
the beginning of the piece and playing through to the end Scott even counted all the way
through multiple eight measure rests during his practice of a band piece.

While their purpose was to improve their performance of the music, none of the
students was able to identify a specific spot in the music that they wanted to improve or
describe remedial goals that would help them reach the larger goal of performing the
music accurately. When asked, the students commonly stated that they had no goal as
they practiced their songs. Matthew provided the closest goal for a concert piece, saying,
“Here I’m working on overall key and style to make sure it sounds like it’s supposed to
and make the harmony parts sound like harmony and that I don’t try to take them over.”

(Matthew, Concurrent Report #2).

Enjoyment

Balanced with a desire for a challenge was a desire to play songs the students
enjoyed. These were generally the songs that they already knew and felt like they could
be successful at performing. This choice of ‘frm’ music could be explained in a number
of ways. For Mandy and Amy, the choice of fun music was often an avoidance strategy.
They chose easier pieces in order to obtain success. Matthew, on the other hand, chose to

play something fun as a way to give himself a break. This is in line with Ericsson et al.,

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who state that the process of deliberate practice requires an immense amount of
concentration that novice musicians can only sustain for short amounts of time (Ericsson

etaL,1993)

Time vs. Improvement

To the students in this study, it seems that the key unspoken goal in their practice
is to put in the expected time on their instrument. This unspoken goal was actually
affirmed by Nick as he declared that his practice goal was, “to play for a half an hour”
(Focus Group #1). Because a portion of their grade was based on the time they recorded
on their practice sheets, this was a necessary goal, even though the students all
recognized that the purpose of practice was to improve their skills.

This emphasis on time in the students’ practice may have an effect upon their
focus on improvement. When quantity is the factor being measured, the students were not
focused on improving quality in their practice. Therefore, improvement oriented goals
were not emphasized. Instead, it became apparent that practice could simply become
synonymous with playing through music. Quantity of time became equivalent to the
quantity of music one “plowed through” in a sitting. This is exemplified by the majority
of practice sessions in which students spent an average of less than two minutes on each
piece they practiced.

Students were more focused on playing through their music than on improving
certain sections. Students commonly stated that they were going to “do” or “play” a
certain song or exercise rather than “work on” or “study” their music. Consequently,

students began practicing every one of their pieces from the beginning. At no time did a

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student begin their practice of a song or exercise by first addressing an issue in the middle

of a piece.

Priorities

Generally speaking, the students in this study seldom talked about goals. Student
responses to my questions probes about their goals were either, “I don’t know,” or “I
don’t have a goal.” As I probed further, I found that the students have not been overtly
taught about goal setting in any of their classes at school.

Though they had no conscious goals as described by Schunk (2001), they were
often able to tell me what element of performance upon which they were focusing.
During the first Retrospective Reports, I asked each student to prioritize the amount of
emphasis that they tended to give to rhythm, tone, notes, articulation, dynamics & style.
Then, as we progressed, I continued to ask what they were focusing on in their verbal
report sessions.

The responses I received from the initial question were quite varied. Sarah and
Amy felt that they put more thought into playing the right notes than on anything else,
while Mandy and Nick felt they put the least thought into notes. Scott, Mandy and
Matthew felt they put more thought into rhythms while Nick said he paid most of his
attention to dynamics. Sarah rated tone as her third priority while the rest of the
participants placed tone in fifth or sixth place.

Through the analysis of the student’s verbal report comments, it seems that
student priorities are much more similar than originally reported. In essence, all of the

students gave top priority to rhythm and notes followed by articulation and dynamics.

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Tone and style consistently were given the least emphasis. Amy, Scott, and Mandy paid
little attention to any elements aside from notes and rhythms, while Nick also focused on
dynamics. Only the two eighth grade participants spent a significant amount of effort on
all six elements, suggesting that the ability to focus at a higher level may be related to
development.

Sarah, the most accomplished musician of the cohort, also spent by far the most
effort attending to her tone quality. The seventh grade participants spent little time
focused on tone even though a great deal of the troubles they encountered could be
attributed to unsteady tone quality. The importance of developing a steady, controlled
tone was emphasized by Ms. Zingennan as she stated, “But tone is always there. Even
from the beginning . . . I don’t really address it unless there’s a problem. I mean if they’re
playing with a good tone, I don’t say, ‘let’s think about tone.’ But if there’s something

that’s annoying me, I’m going to make them stop!” (Ms. Z Interview).

Assessment
I analyzed a total of 936 instances related to assessment fi'om 61 different codes. I
then winnowed these into a list of 22 secondary codes. From this list of codes, five
categories of codes emerged relating to the ways in which the students used assessment in
their practice. These categories include: student evaluation vs. assessment, teacher
influence, detection (and non-detection) of mistakes, diagnosis of cause, and deciding

when something is learned well enough.

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Eyaigzition vs. Assessment

The purpose of assessment is to provide specific, usable feedback to inform
teaching. Good assessments should delineate a target, provide feedback regarding where
a student is in relation to a target, and help students close the gap between target and
reality (Stiggins, 2001). Evaluations are designed to place value on performance, rank,
and sort and do not necessarily provide the feedback required to inform future learning.
In short, assessments and evaluations are not synonymous.

At times, the participants in this study evaluated their performance rather than
assessed it. A total of 40 instances coded as evaluation revealed comments such as “that
was good,” or “I’m not very good at it,” most of which were made by the seventh grade
students. These general, value-laden comments were given rather than comments related
to a specific dimension that needed work or was done well. These comments in turn did
little to help students set goals to address their performance. Instead, the students set

vague goals or set no goals at all.

lgcher Influence

According to Stiggins (2001), well designed assessments include clear targets
with defined dimensions of performance, appropriate assessment strategies, student
involvement, and effective feedback. Through the use of her feedback sheet, Ms.
Zingennan provided an effective source of information for the students. Students were
provided with feedback regarding their performance after each playing test. Students
were then able to refer back to this sheet during their future practice in preparation for the

next tests.

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When asked what mistakes he tends to not catch, Nick replied, “rhythm,
dynamics. Stuff Ms. Zingerrnan catches,” emphasizing his need for supervision in his
self-assessment. The students often used Ms. Zingerrnan or another more experienced
person to help them detect mistakes. Also, Scott often practiced near father and
mentioned that he would often detect Scott’s mistakes and help him fix them. Mandy

mentioned that her brother often helped her catch mistakes when she practiced at home.

Detection (and Non-Detection) of Mista_l_<gs_

This was by far the largest code in the data base. As I analyzed the data, I added
sub-codes including notes, rhythm, dynamics, articulation, and tone to many of the
instances that were labeled detection and non-detection. I also created another code
labeled ignored mistakes. I tallied 383 instances in which students detected mistakes. Of
those instances, 16 were coded as articulation, 10 were coded as tone, 7 were coded as
dynamics, 32 were coded as rhythm, and 186 were coded as notes. I also tallied 184
instances in which students did not detect what I felt were obvious mistakes. Of those
instances, 7 were coded as articulation, 12 were coded as tone, 3 were coded as
dynamics, 101 were coded as rhythm, and only 13 were coded as notes. Finally, I tallied
88 instances in which it seemed, by the students’ expressions, that they may have chosen
to ignore mistakes rather than not detected them. Many of these mistakes were tone
related issues in which tones squeaked or did not immediately speak.

It must first be stated that the instances in this study could be coded in multiple
ways. Therefore the accuracy of the numbers listed above can be questioned. They do,

however, point to two items that deserve attention. First, the priorities students place on

168

the elements of performance seems to affect the elements of performance that they are
able to detect. Students placed their greatest emphasis on notes and rhythm while they
practiced and consequently detected more note and rhythm mistakes than any of the other
elements.

The second point that needs to be made is that there were opposite and similarly
large differences between student detection and non-detection of notes and rhythms.
Students were much more likely to detect note mistakes than rhythm mistakes and much
more likely to miss rhythm mistakes than note mistakes. This is similar to McPherson’s
findings (1997) and could possibly be due to the nature of the two elements. First, the
students played instruments that would produce a relatively accurate pitch simply by
pushing the correct keys or moving the slide to the correct spot and creating the correct
amount of lip pressure without necessarily audiating the pitch to be made. This ability to
produce a pitch without actually audiating the pitch can serve as a support for musicians
who need help producing the correct notes.

The process of playing the correct note on some wind instruments can, in effect,
be more dependent upon decoding skills and tactile response than on audiation. The non-
detected note mistakes that did occur were usually missed key signatures as students
played the notes they cognitively knew, and lacked the aural syntax to detect notes
outside of the established tonality.

But, while students are provided an opportunity to produce correct notes without
audiating pitch, this is not the case for rhythm. They have no such means of support.
Students must feel an underlying macrobeat and microbeat in order to perform rhythm

patterns correctly (Gordon, 2003 ). In order for students to perform rhythm accurately,

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they must have the skill to decode notation, understand its relation to the pulse, and be
able to kinesthetically produce the accurate response in time. Because rhythmic
performance does not have the means of visual/kinesthetic scaffolding that tonal
performance has, students may not be capable of performing and assessing at as advanced
a level. Instead, they may have chosen to focus even more on producing the correct notes,
because they had the necessary tools at their disposal to be successful at that.

This point seems to be supported by the data from this study, because the majority
of the rhythm mistakes the students were unable to detect were the advanced rhythm
patterns, given the material being introduced in the students’ band class. The second most
common rhythm mistake students could not detect was inconsistent pulse. This can be
explained by examining the other factors students dealt with while trying to keep a steady
beat. Namely, students were focused on playing the correct notes, and because this may
have taken the majority of their attention, they were unable to notice what may have been
a simple mistake to catch. It could also be that the students consciously chose to sacrifice
a steady pulse in order to allow more time to perform the necessary actions to produce the
correct pitches.

Furthermore, the participants seemed to ignore a large number of mistakes, the
majority of which were problems with creating a steady tone. As I examined the practice
sessions of Mandy and Nick, I noticed that they both detected rhythm problems near the
beginning of their practice sessions and made comments regarding the difficulty of
“getting the sound to come out.” As they went deeper in their practice time, they began to
ignore these problems and focused on other issues. This may be caused by a lack of

strategies to correct the problem. Because they had no strategies to fix the issue, they

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simply ignored the issue and focus their attention on things that they could correct, which

was namely note issues.

Diagnosis

In order to diagnose the cause of a problem, one must first have a working
knowledge of factors involved in creating the desired product and also an understanding
of the factors that can create the problem. Diagnosis requires experience. In order to be
effective at diagnosis, the students need to develop an ability to anticipate possible causes
in various situations and understand personal tendencies. It is through experience that
these skills are built.

The students in this study made relatively few attempts to figure out why the
mistakes they made happened. The vast majority of diagnostic instances that did take
place came from Sarah and Matthew, the two most experienced students. Nick also was
able to diagnose the causes for some of his mistakes, and it should be noted that he was
the most experienced musician among the four seventh grade students, given his four
years playing piano, and he also had the benefit of a private teacher to help increase the
quality of his experience. The only diagnosis I saw from the others was when they
checked their instruments to make sure they were in working order.

Though Sarah, Matthew, and Nick were able to demonstrate some diagnostic
ability, even they were unable to get to the root of most performance problems. The
factor all three of them noticed the most was negative transfer. Typically, each of them
could diagnose when they played a pattern or phrase the same way as a similar pattern

they had previously played Sarah noticed this when she said, “I start playing the same

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thing over and over. I do that in piano a lot too. . . So if I know one part, I just keep
playing it. And it (the music) ends up changing and I don’t.” (Sarah Retrospective Report

#2).

When It’s Learned Well Enough

To the students in this study, success seemed to be determined by whether or not
they could play the notes of a piece. For the seventh grade students, it did not seem to
matter if they played haltingly in a measure by measure matter, as long as the notes were
played. For all the students but Sarah, their practice of a song or exercise was generally
completed once they reached the end of the piece. This finding is similar to other findings
that state that most beginning instrumentalists tend to play through entire pieces, rarely
stopping to correct mistakes or practice sections of a piece longer than one measure
(Gruson, 1988; Hallam, 1997; McPherson &Renwick, 2001; Pitts, Davidson &
McPherson, 2000).

Motor control theory states that initial leaming of a new skill requires a great
number of repetitions. As the skill develops, it is ideal to have fewer repetitions (Sanders,
2004). Therefore, students ideally should repeat sections of their music a number of times
before they move on Instead, the participants tended to correct mistakes by repeating
them correctly a single time and then moving on.

As already stated, a number of mistakes were not addressed at all. Nick especially
ignored mistakes he knew he made. According to him, he noted where he made his

mistakes and would fix them the next time he played the music. These mistakes never

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were corrected though, as many of the same mistakes occurred in each of the three
practiced sessions.

Students also decided to move on when they cognitively understood how to
correct the mistake, seemingly rationalizing that cognitive understanding is the same as
kinesthetic skill. Motor control theory, on the other hand, states that one must progress
through stages of verbalization, performance and feedback in a closed-loop mode with
many repetitions before one reaches the level of automaticity my participants assumed
(Sanders, 2004). The students did not seem to realize the necessity of repetition in their
practice.

Finally, the value the students placed on each assignment helped to determine the
amount of effort they would put into learning a song or exercise as well as the level of
performance they chose to pursue. All of the students seemed to put forth more effort
toward practicing songs that were to be tested. Mandy and Sarah also mentioned that they
consciously set higher criteria for solos than they do for exercises that would not be

played in concert.

Strategies
Students learn more effectively when they are involved in experiences that engage
multiple senses by using a variety of strategies during learning (Caine et al., 2005;
Nielsen, 1999; Rosenthal, 1988). Hallam (2001b) states that development of these
practice strategies and metacognitive skills is directly related to level of musical
expertise. Expert musicians creatively plan strategies using imagery and self-assessment
as key components of their practice while novice musicians tend to demonstrate a limited

number of strategies in their own practice (Hallam, 2001b; Nielsen, 1997, 2004). Barry &

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Hallam (2002) believe this is the case partly because novices often have difficulty paying
attention to the most important information during new experiences.

These findings resonate well with the findings of the present study. The students
in this study were able to discuss a variety of practice strategies, but in the context of
their practice they drew upon a limited number of strategies that were generally aimed at
the musical element dominating their attention. This meant that, for the most part,
practice strategies were aimed at helping the students play the correct notes. Also, the two
eighth grade students utilized a wider variety of strategies than the less experienced
seventh grade students, suggesting that their experience, maturity and higher level of
proficiency may have allowed them to develop a larger strategy repertoire.

Guerrero (2004) suggested that a disconnect may exist between the strategies that
novice instrumental students know they should use and the ones the actually do use.
Students in this study demonstrated a similar phenomenon. Through interview and focus
group data, I was able to record a variety of practice strategies that the students were able
to describe and say they used. Though one or more of the participants did employ most of
these strategies at some point (with varying degrees of effect), few were regularly used or
described during the practice verbal report sessions. It may be that novice musicians must
become confident with new strategy first before it can be a consistently used tool in their
toolbox of strategies. Matthew described this phenomenon by saying,

It ’s like with experience, (experts) gain more tools to actually use to dig

deeper. . . People like us, we just have basically a shovel. And we can

basically go down so far before hitting rock. And then we have to find a

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new tool to get through it. The experts, they have drills and dynamite to

blast through rocks and all kinds of other stufif (Focus Group #2).

The students often had vague strategies in mind when faced with a problem that

needed to be addressed. For example, when asked how he would address a problem he

encountered in his practice, Scott said he would, “work on it more” (Scott, Retrospective

Report #2). At other times, students had no strategies at all.

Nick

Oare

Nick

Oare

Nick

Teacher Instruction

Right then was when I was really out of breath. I was
gasping for air.

Do you have a strategy to help you with that?

Not really.

Don ’t know one, or weren ’t thinking of one?

I don ’t even know one.

Hallam (2001b) emphasizes the imperative that teachers develop methods to aid

students in the development of self-regulative skills in conjunction with the development

of performance skills. Ms. Zingerrnan has purposefully taught her students practice

strategies, though she admits, “I don’t have as organized approach as I probably should”

(Ms. Zingennan Interview). New strategies are taught through modeling of strategies as

“teachable moments” arise:.

Mostly, we '11 talk about practicing when we 're doing something in class

that is something they should be doing when they ’re practicing. Like if we

175

take a section, and we slow it down. Then we gradually speed it up. Then
I '11 say, “Hey guys, what did we just do? ” And now they know the answer,
and they say, “We practiced ” And then I ’11 say, “T hat is really the best
way to do something like this. When you 're at home, slow it down, don 't

just plow through it. (Ms. Zingerrnan Interview)

Though the participants have regularly been given guidance in practice strategies,
they were often unable to describe the strategies they have learned. More comments
regarding practice strategies they learned came from students who had private teachers.
Sarah was especially good at discussing strategies her private teacher has taught her to
help with tone and technique, but when asked if anybody had taught her specific practice
strategies, she said, “no” (Focus Group #2). Kostka (2002) has also found a discrepancy
in student and teacher perception about instruction regarding practice strategies.

Even when students did acknowledge being taught practice strategies, they often
did not utilize them. In some instances this was because they did not believe the strategies
would work. For example, when asked if her teachers had taught her to learn small
amounts each day as she prepares a larger work, Sarah said, “Well, they probably have,
but I don’t usually do it. Because I don’t think it really works.” (Sarah, Retrospective
Report #2). When Amy was asked if anyone had taught her how to learn pieces by
learning them in chunks, she replied, “Yeah. Ms. Zingennan, but I don’t think of it that
way. You learn faster if you do just the whole thing, and just . . . Fix the one part that
you’re worst at. Because then if you do it part by part, you’re just going to forget.” (Amy,

Retrospective Report #3).

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§g_a_Legv Repertoire

All of the students in this study had a small repertoire of strategies that they
consistently used in their practice. Often times though, these strategies were ineffective
because the students misunderstood learning principles upon which the strategies were
based.

I labeled one strategy that was used many times by all participants as “On the Go
Correction.” This label was used for instances in which students identified mistakes, but
obviously made adjustments, or attempted to make adjustments, while still playing.
Students often did this, with varying degrees of success, in relation to tone quality
problems. For example, when having a particularly difficult time getting a low note to
speak, Nick said, “I was just trying to see if maybe it was just that one note. Or if I could
keep playing and get it better.” (Nick, Retrospective Report #1). Scott also used this
strategy after playing a rhythm incorrectly. Since the rhythm pattern was repeated shortly
after his mistake, Scott corrected the next iteration of the rhythm, considering this a
correction of the original mistake (Scott, Concurrent Report #2).

A second strategy students used was to move to the steady beat by tapping their
feet. Gordon (2003) states that macrobeats, microbeats, and rhythm patterns establish
rhythm. All three must be audiated concurrently in order to create a fluid, consistent pulse
within the music. The students used movement to support this feeling of pulse.

Mandy used this technique inconsistently, saying, “That’s because I do that
sometimes when I think I’m going to mess up.” (Mandy, Retrospective Report #1).
Through further observation, I realized that her sense of meter and tempo was related to

the difficulty of the rhythm. She could feel a steady pulse when playing easy rhythms, but

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her foot would tap inconsistently or not at all when she played rhythms that were new to
her, such as dotted quarter note patterns and syncopations. Scott and Amy both had
difficulty tapping their toes to a steady beat, but were also more successful when playing
simple rhythm patterns or when playing a melodic line. Amy said that she only taps her
foot “in class because Ms. Zingennan tells us to.” (Focus Group #2).

The students mentioned the use of a metronome to help them audiate the pulse,
but each stated that they tend to not use it. According to Scott, “I just get annoyed by it
because just keeps going tick tick tick tick tick. . .” (Focus Group #2). All of the
participants also mentioned that they often heard the band playing the music in their head
while they played. This audiation of an underlying accompaniment helped them keep
track as if they were playing with a karaoke machine or computerized accompaniment
programs such as Coda’s Smart Music© and PG Music’s Band in a Box©.

Students used rhythm syllables with varying degrees of success and frequency.
Sarah mentioned that she moves back and forth between using rhythm syllables and
simply saying bum. “Well I do both because I do the counting with the numbers, like one
and two - when I’m not really positive how it’s supposed to be in the measure. So if I
know what the rhythm’s supposed to be I go bum bum burn and I don’t count.” (Sarah,
Retrospective Report #2). Michael said he counts, “Sometimes in my head, but normally
not.” (Michael, Retrospective Report #2). For the seventh grade students, rhythm was a
problem, and counting did not seem to help.

I asked each of the students to count the rhythms in some of the pieces they
practiced and quickly found three problems. First, they did not have a firm understanding

of the way in which they should count rhythms that were new to them. Perhaps this

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problem will be alleviated with experience. Second, five of the six students often did not
maintain a steady pulse while they said the syllables, seemingly lacking an understanding
of the relationship of pulse to rhythm. Finally, the students did not understand the concept
of meter, therefore causing problems as they tried to count rhythms that were tied over a
bar line.

The two most common practice strategies mentioned and used were repetition and
slowing down the music. Motor control theory stresses the importance of repetition as
one begins to develop automaticity. Sanders (2004) also emphasized the importance of
practicing the same motor movements in various ways (change tempi, dynamic, finger
pattern, etc.) in order to create a rich base from which to transfer the skills to other
situations. It is this principle from which the strategies of repetition and changing the
tempo are derived.

Each of the students in this study deliberately used a slower tempo as a strategy in
their practice, but they only did this in the difficult spots. Students would start playing
through a song at a performance tempo and then suddenly slow down when their
technique was not sufficient to successfully play the music. Once they passed through the
difficult section, the tempo increased. While the students were able to accurately repeat
the finger patterns involved in the music they practiced, they lost a steady tempo,
sacrificing correct rhythm for correct notes.

I recorded almost 400 instances in which students used repetition as a practice
strategy, but only found a handful of times that students correctly repeated a section more
than one time. The standard use of repetition by all six participants was to move forward

once a pattern was played correctly one time. In the context of their interviews, they all

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stated that they repeated phrases and patterns multiple times, but again their actions did
not reflect their words. Gruson ( 1988) and Hallam (2001) also found that students
frequently use repetition of short segments, measures, and single notes as a practice
strategy.

Sanders (2004) stated that three correct repetitions of a motor behavior before
progressing seems to be the ideal number of repetitions to improve retention and transfer.
Students in this study did not seem to understand the value of multiple correct repetitions
in learning. Perhaps they do not understand the difference between cognitive and motor
learning and therefore believe that having an understanding of what they need to do from
a motor skill standpoint is sufficient to produce the desired result.

Gruson (1981) found that more competent practicers used repetition to develop
automated skills, leading to less conscious control of motion. Ericsson and Lehmann
(1997) stressed that repetition leads to improved performance only if the level of effort
put forth by the musician is maintained by attending to more elements of the music being
performed. Otherwise, performers may experience mental slips. Nick acknowledged this
experience as he stated, “These pieces are too easy. . . They’re too easy and I’m getting
sloppy with them. That’s probably why I’m making mistakes.” (Nick, Retrospective
Report #3). Sarah recognized this in her playing when she relayed a story of an
experience when she began drinking of her friend as she played in a piano recital, saying
“I started laughing while I was playing it. It was the weirdest thing ever because I have

(the music) so memorized that I didn’t think about it at all.”

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Non-playing

Caine et al., (2005) claim that students increase learning when new patterns are
linked to what they already understand. By analyzing the music one plays, she is able to
make connections with previous learning (Barry & Hallam, 2002). Geurrero (2004) found
that students would often draw on previous musical knowledge while practicing. On the
other hand, other researchers have found that novice students are often unable to transfer
theoretical knowledge of music to the learning of the pieces they are playing (Barry &
Hallam, 2002). I found a number of instances in this study in which students did draw on
prior knowledge and other instances when they did not. When asked if she understood
why Ms. Zingennan has the students practice scales, Amy said, “I have no idea why we
do it. It’s so boring.” (Amy, Retrospective Report #3). Matthew and Mandy, however,

claimed that they did recognize scale patterns in their music.

Aural Image
Hallam (2001b) found that students needed to develop an “appropriate aural

schemata” in order to effectively choose appropriate practice strategies and to identify
and correct their mistakes. This finding was strongly echoed in the current study. Each
student mentioned the need to know what the music sounded like before they played it.
They were able to accomplish this in a number of ways. I recorded numerous instances in
which students declared that they had prior experience with the songs they worked on,
generally by having heard recordings of the music. Other instances mentioned hearing the
music modeled by Ms. Zingerrnan or by peers. Amy and Matthew also mentioned the

strategy of not practicing their music at home until they had heard it enough times at

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school. When asked how he would learn a difficult piece of music, Matthew explained
his strategy by saying, “I might go ask for help, depending on who’s around I might ask,
‘what’s this rhythm supposed to sound like’ and things like that until I finally get a
foundation to the music and know what it’s supposed to sound like. Because, once you
have a little bit of reference there, it makes it a little bit easier to understand.” (Focus
Group #2).

This need to hear the music before it can be learned could explain Ms.
Zingerrnan’s comments regarding Scott, as she said, “Once he’s got something, he’s got
it.” (Ms. Zingerrnan Interview). She made similar comments about Mandy and Matthew.
It seems that the students learn their music through a combination of rote learning and
reading. Once they are able to hear the music, they use the notation to remind them of the
sounds in their head.

This necessity to have the sound in their heads before the notation made sense is
especially important for rhythmic learning, because the students have no other tools to
help them learn while they were able to rely somewhat on their instruments to inform
their pitch. Sarah made the statement that she did not need to hear the music first when
she sight read simple pieces for band, but she needed to hear the hard music given to her
by her private teacher. As I probed further, it became apparent that Sarah did not need an
aural presentation of the easy band music, because it was simple enough that she could
already hear it in her head. However, the etudes and solos she played in her private
lessons were challenging. She had not yet developed the sight-reading or aural skills to

perform that music fluently at sight. Again, this was especially true when dealing with

rhythm.

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Motivation

As I observed and analyzed data, I found that motivation played a large part in
student choices regarding what they played and how they played it. I recorded 262
instances that seemed to be influenced by student motivation. The primary sub-codes
within this category were attribution, avoidance, challenge, choice, ego, frustration, fun,
improvement, laziness, locus, performance, success, and teacher. Primarily, I interpreted
these actions through the motivational lenses of attribution theory (Maehr et al., 2002)
and goal orientation theory (Radosevich et al., 2004; Smith, 2005).

In attribution theory, people tend to interpret their environment in ways that will
serve to support a positive self-image. They will generally attribute their successes or
failures to the three factors of locus, stability, and control that will enable them to feel as
good as possible about themselves. The causes to which persons choose to attribute
success and failure have a tremendous impact on the amount of effort they will be willing
to put forth in the future. One way in which students attributed external cause to their
poor playing was to assume that the causes of their problems were due to their
instruments. Mandy blamed her reed, Sarah and Amy checked their head joints, and Nick
reminded me that he practiced at home on a tenor saxophone and was therefore not used
to the bigger baritone saxophone mouthpiece. Scott consistently demonstrated his
positive internal locus by recognizing that his successes and failures were due to his
effort. Mandy blamed the fact that she wanted to quit practicing on the external factor of
the music she had been assigned, over which she had no control. Amy attributed her lack
of success in band to her lack of ability and made the ultimate decision regarding her

future effort by choosing to quit band.

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(_}_o_al Orientzuion

A central principle of goal orientation theory is that goal orientation influences
the affective, cognitive, and behavioral reactions of individuals in achievement situations.
When learning goals are set in order to increase competence, people tend to respond to
failure by increasing their effort (Radosevich et al., 2004). When students have a
performance goal orientation, they either seek favorable judgments or avoid unfavorable
judgments in the eyes of themselves and others. These are called ego approach and ego
avoid goal orientations. People who generally demonstrate ego avoid goal orientations
are likely to avoid challenges unless they are certain they can succeed, and they tend to
respond to failure with feelings of learned helplessness (Radosevich et al., 2004). People
who generally demonstrate ego approach goal orientations are likely to relish challenges
that allow them to show others what they can do.

Goal orientation seems to have played a significant role in the decisions many of
the participants made during their practice. Mandy and Amy both tended toward an
avoidance orientation in order to avoid failure. Because of this, both students consistently
chose to practice pieces they already could play. On many occasions, they ceased
practicing exercises that they were having difficulty with and moved on to other activities
that would guarantee success. At one point in her practice, Amy had turned to her daily
assignment. She made her first mistake in the first phrase and tried to play it again. The
third time she made the same mistake she stopped and began to turn the page saying, with
a tone of frustration, “Never mind. Never mind. I don’t know how to do that. It’s too

hard. I’ll just do my scales.” (Amy, Concurrent Report #3).

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Matthew, on the other hand, consistently demonstrated a performance approach
orientation. He was interested in being able to show others what he could do, as he
expressed when he said, “When I practice stuff, I want to learn it to be able to perform it.
Because if I’m just practicing something that I’m not going to be able to perform or show
off, why am I practicing it?” (Focus Group #2).

Sarah seems to reflect Radosevich’s position that adOpting different goal
orientations at different phases of practice may be beneficial (2004). Sarah’s comments
often hinted that she was motivated by improvement, but she also chose to put more
emphasis on pieces that were eventually to be performed. This was made clear when she
stated, “I’m not saying it’s a good thing, but if you’re not performing it, then you don’t
have to practice it as much. I don’t.” (Focus Group 2).

It seemed that each student strived to find and play music that was within their
personal ability level. They searched for challenges that were within their range of
comfort. Amy said that she wants music that she knows she can play. Matthew and Nick
wanted to play challenging music, while Sarah said she wants to play music that is
challenging, but not impossible. The differences in the participants’ levels of self-efficacy
may help to explain the difference in their comfort level, as students with high self-
efficacy tend to be more likely to choose more challenging tasks (McPherson and
Zimmerman, 2002).

I asked each of the students what they would do if Ms. Zingennan gave them a
difficult solo to play for the next solo and ensemble festival and received different
reactions. Amy said, “I’d say this is too hard. I don’t play it. It’s too hard and my brain

would hurt. So, like if I can’t do it, there’s no point in practicing, so I just get something

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else that I can do.” Nick confidently said, “I’d play it. I’d get back in two weeks and play
it for you. Done. I’m good.” (Focus Group #1). When I asked the eighth grade students,

the following conversation took place:

Sarah Like way too hard, or you could work it out if you tried hard?
Oare It 's over your head, but not beyond you.
Sarah I would just work it out and do it.

Matthew 1 would probably work it out too.
Oare When you got out your instrument to practice, would that be one of
the first things that you would practice, or would it stay in the back

of the folder?

Sarah Wait. Is solo & ensemble soon? It seriously does depend!

While each of the students tended to lean more strongly toward one of the three
goal orientations, they each showed some signs of each orientation at some point in the
study. Sarah, who seemed to be more learning oriented, mentioned avoiding a section of
a piece she practiced because of its difficulty and also showed a hint of ego-approach as
she said, “I don’t want to go and play a piece that’s too easy, because then it feels like
you’re not good enough.” (Focus Group #1).

According to Radosevich (2004), students who are predominately learning goal
oriented are more able to adjust their goals downward when confronted with challenges
they are unable to meet than are students who are performance oriented. Sarah
demonstrated an emerging form of this goal adjustment when confronted with a difficult

section in her etude, but I was unable to identify this type of behavior in any of the other

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students. This is most likely due to the students’ low development of goal setting skills in
the first place.

The result was that the students had to deal with failure without the benefit of
readjusting their sights on more realistic targets. Many times, this resulted in various
signs of frustration. While all students showed some degree of fi'ustration through their
body language or tone of voice, Amy and Mandy showed more frustration than the rest
with multiple sighs, furrowed brows, curt words, and insults aimed at the music. When
Sarah became frustrated, however, she simply stopped for a few seconds, laughed at
herself and went on.

There could be a number of reasons for the difference in behavior between Sarah
and Amy and Mandy. Because Sarah is older, she may have the benefit of an extra year
of development in her executive functions, helping her to control her emotions more
(Caine, 2005). Also, because of her learning orientation, she may be able to see progress
toward the goal while the other two girls only see failure in reaching their goals.

Students were also extrinsically motivated when they practiced. The most obvious
extrinsic motivation came fi'om Ms. Zingerrnan. Weekly practice sheets were required in
her band class with minimum amounts of practice expected to earn a grade. Students
were also expected to prepare their daily assignments and to prepare for tests. They also
were motivated to prepare for various performance opportunities from band concerts to
solo and ensemble festival to studio master classes with their private teachers.

Finally, all of the students spent some time playing music of their own choice.
Amy stated, “After I’ve done all that, usually I practice stuff out of the book. Just

anything I like.” (Amy, Concurrent Report #1). Michael began improvising just after

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playing a particularly taxing piece of music during one of his practice sessions. He
explained by saying, “Sometimes it’s nice to give your lips and fingers a break just by
doing something fun.” (Michael, Concurrent Report #1). Other times, students played
music not being played in band, such as Matthew’s book of movie theme songs. During
each of the eighteen practice sessions I viewed, students took some time to play some
music of choice seemingly as a form of relaxation. This could be due to the position
given by deliberate practice theorists who state that, because deliberate practice is a
mentally taxing activity, it can only be undertaken for short periods of time (Ericsson &
Lehmann, 1997). This point may suggest that students and teachers should be aware of
this need and consciously plan both deliberate and enjoyable practice into their routines.
This may help focus students toward improving specific aspects of playing, while

allowing them to play at times in a more relaxed state.

Chapter Summary

I studied six unique individuals in this study, each with their own unique
personality, goals, and experiences. Therefore, I obtained a wide variety of actions and
responses related to the practice of young novice instrumental musicians. Though there
was a wide variety in terms of responses and orientations among participants, it seems
that a number of commonalities can be found that fit within the categories of goal setting,
assessment, strategies, and motivation.

Students set few specific goals with clear criteria or plans of attainment. This
tendency influenced their concept of practice as being a process in which one simply

“runs through” songs with no clear purpose. Students were able to state their focus more

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clearly when they had an aural image of the music they were playing. The musical
elements that received the highest amount of attention from the students tended to he
notes and rhythms. The priorities students gave to musical elements influenced both the
goals they set and their ability to assess. The students’ band teacher and private teachers
also influenced the type and quality of goals set by the students.

Students often self—evaluated rather than self-assessed, and spent little time
reflecting on progress and what they needed to do next. Their concept of success seemed
to be predicated on whether or not they could play the notes of a piece in a measure by
measure scheme, instead of being able to fluidly play complete pieces. They were able to
detect mistakes of all kinds, but were much more astute at catching note mistakes. The
students missed detecting rhythm mistakes more than any other. This could be due to a
lack of understanding in regard to the linked relationships between macrobeat, microbeat,
rhythm and meter. Students were also more capable of detecting mistakes when they had
a strong aural image of the music they were playing. When this failed, they relied on the
error detection skills of their teachers.

Because their band grade was affected by the amount of time they practice as
opposed to their achievement in their practice, some of the students focused more on time
and simply played through their music rather than strive for improvement. This led to the
students attempting to correct mistakes in the context of playing through the music rather
than isolating them. They seemed to have knowledge of a larger strategy repertoire than
they were prone to use, which may be due to the developmental process and to a lack of
knowledge of key principles of learning. The most common strategies used were

repetition and playing through music slowly, though neither strategy was consistently or

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effectively employed. Finally, students admitted that they were more likely to use
effective strategies when practicing music they were preparing for performance.

The goal orientation of each student also had an effect on the specificity of goals
and on the music students chose to practice. Students who exhibited more of an
improvement orientation were able to practice longer, persevere through challenges more,
and choose improvement—oriented music more than ego avoid students. Students who had
lower self-efficacies and ego avoid orientations tended to avoid difficult music and give
up more easily. Students dealt with frustration in multiple ways that had an effect upon
their ability and motivation to correct problems. Students were able to show more effort
and perseverance when playing assigned music. They also demonstrated a desire to play
music at their comfort level and to play firn music as a way to relax after concentrated

practice.

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CHAPTER 6
SEWING IT UP: THREADS AND IMPLICATIONS

The previous two chapters provided within case and cross case analyses of the
practice habits of six individual novice band students. The analysis looked at practice
through the themes of goal setting, self-assessment, strategy use, and motivation. In this
chapter I will suggest implications for instrumental music education based upon these
four themes. I will then discuss three further threads that weaved themselves into each of
the four themes, and then suggest further educational implications. These threads include
the use of an aura] image in practice, teacher influence, and the spiraling development of
practice skills. Finally, I will propose a model of the development of effective practice
skills for novice instrumentalists and argue for the development of a sequential
curriculum for developing practice skills to be weaved into all levels of American

instrumental school music programs.

Motivation

Summary

Student motivation is a key ingredient in practice. The students in this study who
exhibited more motivation to learn seemed show less frustration, set slightly more clear
goals, and persevere longer on each activity than those who did not focus on learning.
Students who exhibited more of an avoidance goal orientation seemed to get frustrated
easily, persevere less, and choose less challenging music. Student seemed to be more
motivated to practice effectively when they were playing music that would eventually be

performed or when playing music that they liked They also emphasized a need to have

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music that challenged them at their own, individual level, without being too easy or too
difficult.

Student motivation seemed to effect and be effected by other key factors in
practice. Student goals and motivation were closely linked as they related to individual
goal orientation. Next, because practice grades were based on quantity of practice instead
of quality, the students naturally seemed to focus on putting in the time without focusing
on improvement. The practice strategies they chose were based partly upon the degree of
effort they were willing to invest. Also, the quality of each student’s self-assessment
provided information that created either hope or discouragement.

Other factors also had an effect on student motivation in practice. Ms. Zingerrnan
and private instructors influenced motivation extrinsically through the assignments they
gave. The aural examples provided by exemplary individuals and groups, such as
marching bands, jazz bands, rock artists, the high school band, and their private teachers,
also gave students the encouragement to emulate their models. Finally, the physiological
development of each student’s own mental executive functions have an impact on
motivation as students become more capable of using reason, engaging in risk
assessment, moderating emotions, and working with longer time horizons (Caine, et al.,

2005)

Imglications

These findings may imply a number of suggestions that teachers could consider as
they attempt to improve student motivation in relation to effective practice. First, teachers

could focus the emphasis of their practice assignments on individual improvement rather

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than the quantity of practice or performance in relation to others. Students in this study
and other studies (Radosevich, et al., 2004; Smith, 2005 ) seem to practice more
effectively when they are focused on individual learning. When students put more of their
emphasis on the simple passage of time with their instruments in hand, or the
demonstration of their proficiency to others, they had a tendency to play through their
music rather than break it down and improve it.

Second, students may develop greater motivation when they have a modicum of
control over their own assessment and goals. Stiggins (2001) states that by providing
students with clear goals and performance criteria, and then involving them in their own
assessment, they begin to attribute their success and failure to their own effort. By
teaching students to set clear goals and how to assess themselves using descriptive rather
than evaluative comments, they may develop a better understanding of what must happen
in order to meet their goals. This, in turn, will improve motivation by developing an
internal locus of control and allowing students to attribute their success or failure to their
own actions and effort

Finally, student motivation in practice may be improved when teachers
differentiate instruction through the music they ask students to practice. The students in
this study seemed to be more motivated when they worked on challenging music that was
within their level of performance. By providing music for students that is not too difficult
or too easy, teachers may help students to reach an optimal level of flow which will then
act as a magnet for learning new skills with increasing difficulty or challenge
(Csikszentmihalyi, 1991). This can be facilitated by involving students in chamber

ensembles with other students who have similar skill levels. Student groups could be

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formed and given opportunities to play their chamber music in local solo and ensemble
festivals, during school concerts, and in small venues within the community. This type of
opportunity can provide an appropriate challenge for students who may find the school

band music either too easy or too difficult for their current ability.

Goals
Summaiy

The students in this study tended to set vague goals, essentially limiting their
goals to simple statements of what they would play next. Students were generally unable
to identify specific sections within the pieces they were playing that they planned to
improve, and often could only focus on notes and rhythms as they played through their
music. Because their goals were vague, the students were unable to set remedial goals to
help them progress toward larger ones.

These limitations in their goal setting abilities had an effect on many other areas
of student practice. Students had been assigned time-oriented practice sheets and,
therefore, focused on putting in their time instead of setting clear learning goals. On the
other hand, the daily assignments given by Ms. Zingerrnan provided goals and extrinsic
motivation to work toward the goals. Also, the lack of specific goals had an effect on the
practice strategies students chose. The choice of appropriate strategy is often based on the
performance skill that is being addressed But, since students did not identify what aspect
of performance they were trying to improve, the students generally used few strategies.

Finally, since the students often set unspecific goals, the criteria upon which they

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assessed themselves was vague. Therefore, students were often unable to make
assessments that would inform their learning.

Other factors also had an influence on student goal setting. Primarily, the presence
of an aural image served as an important element in informing students of their
performance goals. Also, students who had more musical experience seemed to have
developed a more complex aural schema that helped them to anticipate musical problems
and focus on correcting them. Next, Ms. Zingerman was able to influence student goals
through her daily assignments and by informing her students of key performance
elements that should be focused on in practice. Ms. Zingerrnan was also able to suggest
long term improvement goals for students through the feedback sheets they received after
every playing test. Finally, the more experienced students seemed to be slightly more
able to create goals than the less experienced students. This could be due to their larger
body of knowledge which allowed them to have a clearer image of their desired outcome.
Also, the older students may also have physiologically benefited simply by having more
highly developed executive functions that helped them plan and organize their thinking

and think critically about desired outcomes.

Implications

Self-regulated leanring relies in part on well developed goal setting abilities
(McPherson & Zimmerman, 2002). A number of suggestions can be made that may help
teachers develop this skill in their students. First, traditional music practice cards can be
altered to place more emphasis on quality than on quantity. Teachers can create practice

assignments that ask students to work toward defined weekly performance goals or ask

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students to create goals of their own. Other practice assignments can provide students
with long term goals, such as the preparation of a concert piece, and ask the students to
break the goals into a number of remedial goals. Students can then keep track of their
progress toward meeting the goals. By simply by changing the focus of an established
teaching tool such as practice sheets, teachers can help students learn to set clear,
proximal, and appropriately challenging goals for themselves.

Second, since students seem to need an aural image to use when practicing,
perhaps band teachers should consider using more directed listening activities within
their band classes. These activities can ask students to place special emphasis on different
aspects of playing, depending on the teacher’s learning objectives. For example, Ms.
Zingennan used a daily listening activity at the beginning of each class. During this
activity, students were asked to determine what type of performance group the music was
written for, the purpose of the music, and the time period in which it was written.
Teachers could also use this listening time to focus student attention on describing tone
quality in specific instruments or identifying specific rhythms, meters, or tonalities in the
music they listen to. Students could also be asked to physically show the beginning and
ending of phrases, perhaps with rudimentary conducting gestures, or to identify form or
simply show the pulse and meter of the music they listen to.

These listening activities can also be applied to the context of rehearsals. Often, in
the name of preparing for a concert, teachers do the listening for the students. Since
music is an aural art form, listening should be a key component in a child’s musical
development. Students should be led to identify sections that are not together or out of

tune. They can be taught to listen for the form of the music they play and identify who is

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playing the melody or an accompaniment line. They can listen to professional recordings
of the concert music they are playing and discuss specific aspects of the performances
that they can bring out in their own playing. Teachers can, and should, engage their
students in a multitude of ways that encourage them to listen to themselves and to others.

Third, the students in this study all spent the most focused part of their practice
time working on the daily assignments given by Ms. Zingerrnan. By consistently
providing daily direction like this, teachers can model goal setting skills for their
students. This activity can even be taken a few steps further by giving students specific
criteria for their assignments and by teaching students to develop a set practice routine.
Ms. Zingerrnan stated that she often gave her students specific criteria to strive for in the
assignments she gave, but these criteria were seldom mentioned in the context of the data
collection. Therefore, it may be appropriate for students to write down their assignments,
along with the key areas of focus, just as they keep track of their assignments in other
classes. This activity could be incorporated into the practice sheet activities suggested
above.

Finally, the students in this study spent the majority of their effort working on the
notes and rhythms of the songs they practiced. They each mentioned the process of
learning music in stages, starting with the notes and rhythms and proceeding to the more
musical aspects of performance. In practice, they seemed to feel that once they could play
the notes and rhythms, their song was learned, neglecting the musical aspects of their
pieces. Students must be taught and encouraged to strive for a deeper understanding and
more musical performance as they learn their pieces. While this may be a deVelopmental

issue, teachers can do things to help students strive toward musicality. For example,

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teachers could graphically show students where they are in the process of learning their
music. Once they have learned the notes and rhythm of a piece, they have reached the end
of the first stage, but by graphically showing progress, students will see that there is more
to be done in preparing their piece. I have used a target with four concentric circles to
symbolize the process of music preparation for my students. As they reached each stage
of preparedness, we colored in the appropriate circle to visually show them where they

were in the process and what they had left to do.

Strategies

Summary

Expert musicians use a wide range of practice strategies and create new strategies
for specific purposes (Hallam, 2001a; Nielsen, 1999; Ericsson, et al., 1993). Rohwer and
Polk (2006) also found that adolescent instrumental students who use a larger repertoire
of practice strategies than other students were able to improve more while practicing a
new musical exercise. Matthew perceptively expressed this concept as he explained that
experts have multiple tools they can use for each situation while novice musicians only
have a few tools in their toolbox to choose from. Each participant in this study truly did
own a small ‘toolbox,’ and only a basic understanding of how to properly use each tool.
They each had a slightly different number of tools that they had not yet learned to use
properly. Each of the seventh grade students had particularly few strategies for tone
development. This could be caused by a lack of a strong aural image of an ideal sound for

their instrument.

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The strategies the students used are linked closely with the other emergent
themes. Students knew a few strategies but used them infrequently. This lack of
motivation to use the strategies could have been due to a lack of desire to put forth the
necessary effort or to a lack of confidence in the strategy. Also, the lack of clarity in
student goals made it difficult for them to choose appropriate strategies. Finally, the
strategies that the students chose had a direct effect on their improvement and on the
feedback that student self-assessment could provide.

Many of the strategies the students used were modeled by their teacher. Ms.
Zingennan stated that she often modeled practice strategies in the context of working on
music in class. This aural example of practice strategies seems to have been more
effective than simply telling the students how to use the strategies. As the students gained

in experience, they were able to develop more strategies to use.

Implications

From these findings, a number of suggestions can be made for instrumental music
teachers. First, it seems that the participants in this study needed to have a greater
understanding of how they learn music to compliment the practice strategies they have
been taught. It is important that students are taught a variety of strategies that address a
range of performance issues and given guided practice to learn how to use the strategies
effectively. Ms. Zingerrnan acknowledged that she had modeled strategies in class, but
never overtly discussed the strategies and their proper use with her students. She also
recognized that overt teaching of the strategies may be an appropriate teaching strategy to

use in conjunction with finding ‘teachable moments.’

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Students should also learn the basic learning theories that support the strategies in
addition to the strategies themselves. Teachers may find it helpful to overtly teach the
basic premises of how learning takes place and why certain strategies work, and then
immediately integrate new strategies into rehearsal. New strategies could be introduced
and demonstrated over time as appropriate. Teachers can encourage students to become
more deliberate in their choice of strategies by asking them to record the strategies they
use on their practice sheets. As a result, they will begin to develop a larger toolbox along
with a better understanding of how to use these “tools” effectively.

Next, the participants in this study used what knowledge they had developed as
musicians to help them in their practice. Hallam (1997) found that expert musicians used
musical analysis as a practice strategy more than novice musicians because they had a
more developed base of knowledge to draw from. This finding suggests that band
teachers should deliberately teach form, history, and music theory along with
performance skills in order to provide students with the requisite knowledge to begin to
analyze their music and find patterns that may help them in their practice. They should
then model how this information can be used to aid in the learning of new music.

Finally, the findings from this study have enormous implications regarding how
band students are often taught to read music. It seemed that the students put a great deal
of emphasis in attempting to learn their music by car before the notation they were
reading made sense. This finding runs parallel with the philosophies of the major general
music education methods such as Kodaly, Dalcroze, Suzuki and Music Learning Theory,
that state that music should be learned from sound to sight. Gordon (2001) explains this

by stating that students learn four hierarchical vocabularies of music. In this hierarchy, a

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student’s listening vocabulary is larger than his speaking/performing vocabulary. This
vocabulary, in turn is larger than, and informs his or her reading and writing
vocabularies.

Perhaps an effective strategy for band teachers to use would be to first provide
recordings and live models of the music that their bands will perform. Teachers should
remember that students will be able to hear and perform a wider array of material than
they can truly read. Students can then be taught to associate the sounds they play with the
notation they read. Students can constantly expand their performing abilities by ear while
their reading abilities are gradually nurtured through daily reading activities of music that
is below their performance capabilities. Gradually, over time, as Gordon has pointed out,
students’ reading and writing vocabularies can grow to become as large as their listening
and performing vocabularies. A

This type of teaching strategy can be enhanced through the use of technology.
Teachers can record band rehearsals and allow the students to listen in class, or post the
sound files on websites. They can also provide teacher-generated recordings of band
music and/or lesson materials over the web. Computer programs such as Smart Music©
are capable of providing students an aural image of their band music while they practice
at home. The program can also act as a form of a hybridized rote/reading tool as students
play songs from their band books. While they play the music generally by ear, the
program follows the music on the screen with a large cursor. Therefore, the students are
able to see the notes go by as they hear and play the music, giving them experience

associating the sound with the symbol.

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Assessment
Summary

Accurate self-assessment is another key ingredient to effective self-regulation. I
found that the participants in this study were much more likely to detect note mistakes
than rhythm mistakes, and, accordingly, much more likely to not detect rhythm mistakes
than note mistakes. Once students did detect their mistakes, they were often unable to
diagnose their underlying causes. This lack of ability to diagnose could be based in large
part on the students’ lack of experience and knowledge. Further, their lack of ability to
detect mistakes could be based on their lack of a strong aural image of what their
performances should sound like.

Students who can accurately self-assess are able to identify aspects of their
playing that are strong or weak and other aspects that are improving. By identifying their
success, they become more motivated to improve. Their self-assessments also inform the
goals they set, as students learn what aspects of their playing need the most attention.
Finally, through self assessing, students can begin to understand the effectiveness of
strategies they choose.

Student self-assessment is affected by other factors as well. First, their ability to
audiate the music they are assessing affects assessment, as students are able to compare
their performance with an ideal mental model. The students’ teacher in this study also
had an effect as she informed students of what to listen for in their playing at home. Ms.
Zingerrnan was also helpful as students used her to detect mistakes that they could not

hear. Finally, the ability to detect and diagnose mistakes again is partially contingent

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upon their musical development, as they apply their accumulated knowledge and

experience to assess new situations.

Implications

 

There are five things that teachers can do to help them improve student ability in
self-assessment. First, by providing detailed feedback sheets, such as the one used by Ms.
Zingerrnan, teachers can provide specific feedback that students can then use in their
practice. Second, by giving clear performance criteria before each test, teachers can help
students begin to assess themselves and make adjustments to their performance as they
prepare. Third, teachers can encourage independence by having students assess
themselves and their peers in class. Fourth, teachers can suggest that students utilize
parents, peers, or musically experienced siblings in their home practice as listeners to
help them identify areas of their performance that need work. This strategy can also be
facilitated with technology, such as using the assessment tool found in Smart Music© or
by recording oneself. Finally, teachers can utilize practice sheets as a way to encourage

self-assessment, by asking students to assess their progress toward the goals they set.

Further Threads
As I analyzed the data, three more themes began to emerge that seemed to be
linked inextricably to each of the other themes. These new themes weave among and
throughout all of the data in such a way as to suggest the presence of a second dimension
of themes that ties the first dimension of themes together. These three new threads of

themes are described as the teacher influence in learning, the influence of an aural image

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on learning, and the spiraling development process adolescent learners move through as
they gain in expertise. I will describe how each theme weaves itself into the context of

instrumental music practice and suggest implications for teachers.

Teacher Influence

Summary

According to McPherson (2005), “Despite the importance for children to develop
an armory of task-appropriate strategies to aid their performance, evidence suggests that
school teachers do not sufficiently emphasize this in their teaching, particularly during
the early years of schooling.” Similarly, Hallam (2001a) found that it is possible for
teachers to teach their students to practice effectively, once the students have developed a
minimum level of proficiency on their instrument. The results of this current study also
suggest that the teacher and other more experienced people in a young musician’s life had
a positive influence on helping students develop effective practice habits.

The students in this study experienced numerous forms of scaffolding from Ms.
Zingerrnan that helped them work in the upper range of their zone of proximal
development. First, Ms. Zingennan pointed out that she consciously uses ‘teachable
moments’ to train her students how to practice within the context of band rehearsals. She
helps them set goals by giving them daily assignments and directing their attention to
areas that need to be focused on within the assignments. Ms. Zingerman also uses daily
listening activities as a way to help her students develop an aural schema of Western art

music.

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Ms. Zingerrnan teaches her students how to use scaffolding tricks that they can
apply to their own home practice. She consistently instructs her students to feel pulse and
meter by moving to the music. She reminds them to use metronomes as a way to help
them feel beat. She teaches them to count rhythm patterns in class and encourages them
to do so at home. She models practice strategies such as repetition, adding small chunks
together, and slowing down the tempo of difficult spots. She admitted, though, that she
does not train her students how to analyze their music to help them find similar or
repeated patterns that they can associate to prior learning.

Ms. Zingerrnan uses numerous methods to motivate her students to practice. The
most obvious form of extrinsic motivation she uses to motivate her students to practice is
in the form of weekly practice sheets in which part of each student’s grade is based upon
the number of minutes they practice in a week’s time. Students are also motivated to
practice because of the daily assignments she gives and the periodic playing tests she
assigns. Finally, Ms. Zingennan helps motivate her students by involving them in
chamber ensembles. In this way, she can choose appropriately challenging music for each
child to allow them to work at their individual skill level.

Ms. Zingennan also encouraged student practice through her use of evaluative
cycles that include both formative and summative forms of assessment tools. She uses the
feedback sheets to identify students needing extra help. She then schedules special
private tutoring sessions for these students either with her or with her student teachers.
Ms. Zingerrnan also assigns tests, that serve to clarify the criteria that students need to

focus on as they prepme for the evaluations. Then, as students take the tests, she provides

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clear feedback through the use of feedback sheets. Students can then use the information

they receive from the feedback sheets to help them prepare for their next tests.

Implications

Numerous researchers emphasize the necessity for teachers to help students learn
to practice (Barry, 1990; Hallam, 2001; Pitts, et al. 2000b; McPherson & Zimmerman,
2002; McPherson, 2005). This study has identified ways in which Ms. Zingennan
encouraged improved student practice through motivation, goal setting, strategy
development, assessment and by providing aural images. Based on the findings of this
study and other research, more strategies can be developed that teachers can use to help
students develop effective practice skills.

The first implication for teachers is that they should deliberately describe and
model practice strategies within the context of band classes. Students should then be
encouraged to use them in their own practice. One obstacle in this use of new strategies is
that students often forget the strategies. This can be alleviated in a number of ways. First,
teachers can allow students time to practice using specific practice strategies during band
class. For example, after teaching students how to use the strategy of slowing down the
tempo of difficult technical passages, a teacher can give the class time to practice using
this strategy on a specific section of music. Though the band room may become
somewhat noisy for a few minutes, the students can productively begin to cement a new
skill in their memories as the teacher provides extra guidance for those who need it.
Teachers can also help students remember new strategies by writing them into the

students’ practice sheets and asking them to record every time they use the strategies over

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the grading period. Students can also develop a list of practice strategies that they can
continually refer back to during their home practice.

Second, teachers must help students understand why practice strategies are
effective by teaching the basic tenets of learning that support the strategies. The students
in this study were aware of some strategies, but they chose not to use them because they
felt, based on their own ideas of how people learn, that the strategies were ineffective.
Perhaps if they learned the reasons behind the strategies from a brain-based perspective
they would have been more motivated to try new strategies. For example, a teacher can
begin to discuss the concept of transfer with his students by describing how the brain
naturally looks for things that are the same. By finding similar items, the brain can
transfer prior knowledge to new situations, making them easier to learn Then the teacher
can demonstrate the use of this concept in learning a new piece of music and provide
multiple opportunities to practice in class.

Next, teachers can encourage student motivation and enhance the development of
an aural image through the use of technology in student practice. As stated previously,
computer programs such as Smart Music© can be highly motivational for students. By
filling in the missing lines in a song, this program can allow students to hear and play the
music as it is intended, with all the parts present. This is much more enjoyable than
playing single melodic or harmonic lines. Furthermore, Smart Music© can play
accompaniments to lines in beginning band books while showing the notation for the line
and following the music with a cursor. This method of developing eye tracking scaffolds
emergent reading by helping students hear how written notation sounds. Also, the current

version of Smart Music© (10.0) allows students to download recordings and then play

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along with them. Students can now play along with their band music at home and hear
how their parts fit into the context of the piece as a whole. Students may also play along
with other songs they do not have music for, and learn to play these songs by ear, thereby
developing their aural acuity. Because Smart Music© has the capability of changing
tempo tempo of previously recorded music, it can help students develop their technique
to play songs that are initially too fast.

Finally, teachers should think of traditional practice sheets in a new way. In many
band classes, practice sheets serve as a means of encouraging students to spend time in
their practice and as an objective source for deriving band grades. Teachers must begin to
think of these records as a means for teaching students to become independent learners
rather than simply as a motivational tool. Just as teachers in other disciplines do not use
the same assignments year after year, band teachers should not use the same practice
sheets year after year, or even month after month. Instead, new practice sheets can be
introduced periodically that emphasize slightly different aspects of practice. For example,
when a teacher is instructing students in the use of goals, practice sheets can be assigned
that ask students to write their practice goals for the week or to describe the short term
and long term goals they set for each practice. Later, teachers can ask students to assess
their progress as they work toward weekly goals. Still other practice sheets can simply be
reflective papers in which students describe what they accomplished in their practice. The
key point is that teachers should use practice sheets as a developmental tool to guide their

students toward independent practice.

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Aural Image
Summag

Principle number 6 of the twelve brain-based learning principles promoted by
Caine, et al. (2005) emphasizes that students need to have experiences that provide
exposure to the overall nature of the subject. In other words, students must first
experience the end product before they can effectively learn to create said product. This
is much like the whole-part-whole learning approach espoused by Gordon (2003) and
others. In music, the experience of the whole can be a recorded or live performance of a
piece of music that will soon be learned or a model of a characteristic tone. The details
or “parts” are taught as students pursue their urge to create or understand something of
larger significance to them.

Music is an aural art form and therefore, students must be exposed to aural
examples of the types of music they will perform. Every one of the students in this study
made multiple comments regarding their need to have an aural image of some type while
they played their instruments. This aural image provided the students the type of
preliminary learning advocated by teachers of the Suzuki method who stress that listening
to the music one is to learn allows the student develop a musical mother tongue much like
they develop language (Suzuki & Suzuki, 1983). As I analyzed the data from this study,
students used aural imagery to enhance self-motivation, provide targets that they could
strive to achieve, and use as an exemplar fi'om which to assess themselves.

Teachers often consciously deny their students access to aural images, believing

that this scaffolding technique impedes independence on the students’ part. This may be

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true when no remedial reading activities are provided. On the other hand, without the
provision of an external aural image, students will not develop an internal aural image
necessary for independent performance. By providing an aural goal and concurrently
providing the necessary skills to independently attain those goals in the future, teachers
may encourage student literacy development

Gordon (2003) has coined the term ‘audiation’ to describe the ability to
comprehend the music one hears inside their head, and he stresses that audiation is the
key goal of music education. In effect, audiation refers to an internal aural image. Gordon
describes audiation for instrumentalists by saying, “When students are hearing what they
just played and are simultaneously hearing what will come next as they are playing, they
are audiating, because they are making instant generalizations about music syntax and
style” (p. 274). Students must first be able to audiate in order to express what they hear
through an instrument. Otherwise, they are simply imitating the music they hear without
understanding.

Audiation affects a student’s ability to understand pulse and meter as well as
melody and harmony. According to Gordon, “Students will not learn to play in tune any
better than they can audiate tonally, nor will they learn to play in a consistent tempo with
appropriate meter any better than they can audiate rhythmically” (2003, p. 275). A lack of
audiation skill for the students in this study may have been a key factor for students’
inability to maintain a steady beat and produce a characteristic tone.

All four of the seventh grade students had difficulty playing with a steady,
characteristic tone quality. A lack of audiation of tone prior to attempting to play may

have been a large factor in their difficulty. Gordon (2003) believes that if students are

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able to audiate tone quality before they produce a sound, they will automatically learn
how to produce the tone quality on their instrument that they hear in their head. Whether
this is the case or not, it seems that it is important for novice instrumentalists to listen to a
number of exemplary models on their instnunent in order to develop an appropriate aural
image of an ideal characteristic tone. Because students do not normally listen to band
instruments as they listen to music at home, the participants had little experience listening
to expert musicians playing their instruments. Ms. Zingennan has addressed this issue in
class through the use of daily listening activities, but she has not specifically directed
student attention to tone quality during these experiences.

The students used their instruments to serve as a type of audiational crutch,
allowing them to produce generally accurate pitches without first hearing them. Instead
of audiating pitch and tonality, they were able to use their decoding skills as a second,
albeit weaker, means of informing their fingers of what keys to push. Students who relied
more heavily on this crutch than others seemed to play in more of a note to note manner
than in patterns and were often less able to identify phrase structure or detect when they
played in the wrong key. When they heard the music in their head first, they were able to
play more accurately and fluently.

While the students had their instruments to help facilitate tonal audiation, they
had no such help with rhythmic audiation. This lack of a scaffolding tool could explain
McPherson (1994) and Elliott’s (1982) findings that students are more likely to detect
tonal errors than rhythmic errors. Maintenance of a steady pulse was a difficulty for five
of the six participants, but they seemed to have more success maintaining the beat when

they listened to the rest of band in their head while they played.

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Gordon emphasizes that rhythm audiation is learned through movement, and that
students must be able to move to both the pulse and the subdivision of the pulse in order
to audiate rhythm. It should be noted that the participants in this study seemed to have
more difficulty maintaining a steady pulse when they were not moving to the beat in
some way. Further difficulty arose when they encountered rhythms such as syncopations
that required a strong feel of subdivision. Students seemed to stop moving when these
rhythms became difficult for them.

Aural imagery also had a strong influence on the reading capabilities of the
students. In essence, though they had music in front of them, much of the music they
played was learned by rote. This explains why Ms. Zingerrnan said of the participants
that, “once (they’ve) got it, (they’ve) got it” (MS. Zingerrnan interview). In other words,
the students first needed to learn the music by rote before they could play it, using the
notation to help in the process.

The participants generally needed to physically hear what their music sounded
like before they could perform it. It seems that the notation served as a reminder for them
more than a source of information. Sarah noted that she did not need this aid when she
sight read simple band music but did need it for the more difficult music she played in
her private lessons. She seemed to have developed the ability to audiate simple notation
and therefore did not need the physical presence of the music to inform her performance.
Therefore, it could be that her reading vocabulary is developing more slowly than her
performance vocabulary. As the students gain more experience with patterns they are
capable of playing, they gradually learn to audiate the patterns at sight without first

needing an aural model.

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This finding seems to support Gordon’s (2003) description of how one learns to
read music. Students first learn ‘by ear’ through what Gordon calls the aural/oral level of
discrimination, as they develop a performance vocabulary of rhythm and tonal patterns.
Then they gradually begin to associate these patterns to notation during the symbolic
association and composite synthesis levels of discrimination leanring. After developing a
sizable vocabulary of known patterns that they can read, they begin to infer unknown
patterns in the generalization level of inference learning. Gordon states that students who
cannot read with fluency often are simply decoding the actual notes rather than audiating
the music that the notes represent. This is similar to language readers who sound out
words but are unable to pronounce them correctly or understand their meaning.

This is not congruent with the way that most beginning instrumentalists are
taught. Instead, most beginning instrumental books approach music learning from sight to
sound rather than sound to sight. Students first learn how to play the notation on the page,

hearing the target sound after having seen it on the written page.

Implications

The theme of aural imagery weaves its way through all of the other themes in the
study. Therefore, I have previously made a number of suggestions related to aural
imagery within the context of other themes. There are four more implications related to
aural imagery that can be presented in regard to the development of beat competency,

reading skills, and fluency of performance.

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First, Gordon (2000, 2003) stresses that students must move to music in order to
develop their rhythm audiation skill. He states that, “To audiate rhythm, students must be
able to move rhythmically, because when they engage in rhythm audiation they move
unconsciously” (2003, p. 38). Instrumental music teachers should engage their students in
activities that help them feel the pulse and subdivisions of the pulse. Rhythm patterns
then fit on top of this temporal foundation. This type of movement can be carried out as
they engage in listening activities or during rehearsal of their band music. While students
listen to recordings, the teacher can engage the students in movement sequences that
show tempo, meter, or melodic rhythm. As students become more proficient, they can
begin to show tempo and meter at the same time. In rehearsal, sections that are not
playing can show tempo and meter while the other sections are playing. This activity
serves as a metronomic aid to the performers, an audiation development activity for the
beat keepers, and as a way to maintain students’ attention when they are not playing.

This type of movement should also be used as bands learn to read rhythm patterns
in their own music. Students need to constantly feel pulse and subdivision as they
perform rhythm. Therefore, teachers should engage their classes in such activities as
marching or patting their laps while performing rhythms using rhythm solfege. These
activities will help students to maintain a steady pulse as they perform with their
instruments.

Second, the band method book that Ms. Zingerrnan uses is filled with numerous
folk tunes and famous themes from Western art music that one would assume students
should already know. In the past, students were exposed to these traditional songs in their

homes and in the community. When they encountered the songs within the context of

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their beginning band classes, they already had an aural image of the music they were
about to play. This seems to no longer be the case. Scott made this point clear during one
of our interviews, as he stated that he knew few of the pieces in his book. Without this
pie-existing aural image, students do not have the readiness to begin to learn their music.

Teachers can address this lack of a pre-existent aural image in two different ways.
First, they can expose students to the music found in their band books through singing the
traditional folk songs and themes and by listening to recordings of the Western art music
in their original forms. The second option is to include music in beginning band books
that students know, such as popular songs and themes from movies and TV shows.

Next, teachers need to have their students sight read simple songs and patterns
daily. Gordon has emphasized that true music reading demands that a person can audiate
the music before they play it. He also stated that students’ reading vocabulary develops
after their performance vocabulary. Though they may be capable of performing complex
material, their sight reading and audiation capability may lag far behind. Therefore,
teachers should help students learn to associate the patterns they can already audiate and
play to the notation that represents these patterns. More difficult music, intended to
increase students’ performance vocabulary, should then be learned at first by rote, using
the notation as a visual reminder. Sight reading skills will increase as students build a
larger vocabulary of tonal and rhythmic patterns.

Finally, students need to listen to a large variety of music in order to develop a
sense of musical syntax. Gordon emphasizes that musical literacy is based on a strong
listening foundation. Students must first establish a strong aural schema before they can

make sense of performance, reading, or writing. In the past, this listening vocabulary was

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established in the home and in the community through singing and listening to the music
found within society. Today, students are exposed to less instrumental music than in the
past and it has become more important that students regularly listen to music in the
school.

In order to help students develop a rich aural schema, teachers need to engage
students in guided listening lessons that focus students’ attention on various aspects of
music by:

' asking students to describe the sound they hear to focus on tone quality.

I asking students to move fluidly to the music, changing direction as new
phrases begin to focus on phrasing.

- asking students use different movements to show when new sections
begin to identify form.

. leading students in discussions that describe the music they hear by
identifying instrumentation, melodic and harmonic characteristics, and
formal organization, to focus on style.

By critically listening to music, the students will begin to develop the aural schema

necessary to understand the music they will play.

Development

Sammy
Caine, et al. (2005) state that learning builds on previous learning as well as

changes in the brain, that are altered by experience. McPherson (2005 ) emphasized that

children who used effective music practice strategies as beginners were more likely to

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succeed than peers. As I analyzed the accumulated data from this project and other
research literature, it became apparent that the development of the participants’ practice
skills seemed to spiral forward in conjunction with their musical knowledge, technical
skill, and cognitive development.

First, each student accessed prior knowledge to inform their practice. For
example, Mandy knew how to finger Eb on her clarinet, but she did not know how to
finger D#, so she looked up the fingering in the back of her book. After a short time of
thinking, she said, “oh! I just figured out something. The notes that are sharp on the way
up the chromatic scale and the notes that are flat on the way down are the same .
fingering” (Mandy, Concurrent Report #1). This new information helped her to navigate
the chromatic scale much more easily thereafter. As their knowledge base developed, the
students were more able to address mistakes and other difficulties that arose during
practice.

Next, the influence of technical development on practice skills became apparent
as I observed Sarah play her chromatic scale. While she could play the lower octave
almost fluidly, she began to play more haltingly the higher she went. In our Retrospective
Report she described how she could simply look at the lower notes and play them, while
she needed to tell herself the names of the notes in the moderately high range and even
had to remind herself of the fingerings of the notes in the extreme range. This is an
example of the development of automaticity described by Sanders (2004). Sarah had to
verbalize the fingerings of the newest notes, describing in her mind each movement she
had to make to create the desired pitch. When she played the lower notes that had become

automatic, all of the separate component movements had been condensed into a single

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thought. As Sarah’s technique improved, she was able to spend more of her mental
capacity on other aspects of her practice, thereby improving her practice efficiency.

Other examples of the relationship between technical development and practice
skills were apparent. First, Mandy, Scott, Nick, and Matthew each tapped their feet to the
pulse at different times in their practice when the music consisted of simple rhythms that
they had learned to audiate, but they stopped tapping when they encountered relatively
new rhythms that they could not yet audiate. Next, students learned new alternate
fingerings that gave them more options to choose from when deciding how to play certain
passages. Also, as the students became more aware of the factors that effect tone and
articulation, they were more able to diagnose possible causes of problems. Finally, as
students developed their audiation skills, they became more able to detect errors. This
point was made by Matthew, when he stated that in order to catch some mistakes, he had
to mess up badly before he could recognize them.

Finally, physiological maturity seemed to play a part in the students’ ability to
practice. This was apparent as I asked students to tell me what they were thinking in their
practice. Their answer was often “I don’t know.” This lack of metacognitive ability and
other examples of short attention span are likely simply symptoms of the students’ age
and will develop over time. This was also apparent in comparing the seventh grade
students to the eighth grade students, as I noticed that the two eighth grade students
seemed to demonstrate more control over their practice choices. Matthew and especially
Sarah were able to deliberately choose music that they wanted to improve and were less
prone to impulsive changes of plans than the seventh grade students. They also seemed to

have more definite ideas regarding how they should practice than did the seventh grade

218

participants. These differences may be due to a number of reasons, but one possible
reason could be due to the physiological development of their executive functions, which
allows people to moderate impulsivity and emotion, plan and organize thinking, work
with longer time horizons, and access working memory. According to Caine, et al. (2005)
these functions reside in the frontal portion of the brain and continue to develop

throughout the teenage years.

Implications

 

Caine, et al. (2005), state that teachers can improve their students’ learning by
considering individual differences in maturation and development. Differentiation is
necessary because everyone learns at his or her own individual rate and sequence.
Therefore, teachers need to be aware of where their students are in their development
musically, technically, and physiologically in order to know where to take them next.
Providing chamber ensemble opportunities for all hand students is one way in which
teachers can provide for this differentiated instruction.

The participants in this study practiced more when Ms. Zingerrnan provided
scaffolding devices such as identifying trouble spots in music the students were to
practice and modeling practice strategies. There are a number of other ways teachers can
help students develop proper practice skills. First, teachers could help students develop a
knowledge base upon which they can build. Students should learn to identify key
signatures and to recognize scalar and arpeggiated passages in order to associate

knowledge from past experiences to new situations. They should know about form and

219

style characteristics in order to know how to apply them appropriately to new music. The
more they know about music, the more meaning they can bring to their practice.

Teachers also need to help students know more about how they learn. By
understanding key concepts related to brain based learning such as patterning,
association, repetition, and chunking, students will have a better grasp of how to use
practice strategies effectively. This understanding will help motivate students to control
their impulsivity and planning as their executive functions develop.

Teachers can also help students to develop a ‘toolbox’ of practice strategies. Just
as different tools have different purposes, different practice strategies are more
appropriate for some situations than they are for others. Teachers can facilitate the
development of a toolbox by demonstrating the strategies, explaining how they work and
giving the students opportunities to practice using the strategies with their guidance. To
help students remember the strategies, teachers can create lists of practice strategies,
along with their appropriate use, and post them on the walls or place them in the students’

music folders. They can further facilitate the use of these strategies by requiring students

to describe which strategies they use in their home practice.

A Model of the Development of Practice Skills
I used a model of the practice process that I developed in a prior study (Oare,
2006) as an external organizer during my coding process. This model described a cyclical
process of practice that moves from motivation to goal setting to strategy use and then
assessment. I noticed in developing this model that aural imagery and teacher supervision

played some part in the process. It seems that the basic premise of the model worked well

220

for the present study, but the value of aural imagery and teacher influence has taken on
much greater importance than my earlier understanding, and a sequential dimension of
development over time has been added as well. The value of having an aural image in all
aspects of practice, along with the importance of supervision and structure, seems to be
an overarching factor in practice that permeates the other themes. Also, it is apparent that
the development of effective practice skills happens over time. This spiraling process is
dependent upon the synergistic development of at least three factors: mental and
emotional maturation, the development of technical skills, and the continued acquisition
of musical knowledge and insight I then developed a revised model reflecting these
changes (see figure 2).

Figure 2: Model of Practice Skill Development

     
 

Supervision
\

Motivation
Intrinsic
Extrinsic

 
 
     
 
  
  

 

    

  
 
 

_ Strategies
Detectron Repertoire
Diagnosrs fluidity

  

 

l'l

usicianship ..
o

Conclusions

In this chapter, I have presented numerous implications that flow from this study.
Primarily, the results suggest that students need to be taught how to practice in
conjunction with being taught how to play their instruments. Specifically, I have
suggested that teachers overtly teach their students how to set goals, choose appropriate
practice strategies, and assess themselves as they play. Students must be encouraged to
focus on quality rather than quantity in their practice in order to promote a learning goal
orientation over performance orientations. I have also suggested a number of ways in
which teachers can help students develop a strong aural image of the music they are to
play.

Finally, the results of this study suggest that the novice musicians may proceed
through a developmental process of learning to practice that is based on the simultaneous
development of musicianship, practice skills, and individual maturity. Just as teachers
lead their students through a sequence of technical skills to develop their musicianship, it
seems appropriate that teachers develop a sequence of practice skills to help students
develop self-regulation. This has not yet been done in music education, although it is
being recommended by a growing number of researchers (Barry & Hallam, 2002; Chafin
& Imreh, 2001; Ericsson, et al., 1993; Hallam, 2001; Jorgensen, 2003; Leon-Guerrero,

2004; McPherson, 2005; Sloboda, et al. 1996).

222

CHAPTER 7
SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER

RESEARCH

Summary

With the intent of improving music teaching and learning, the purpose of this
study was to discover how students use goal setting and self-assessment within their
personal practice sessions and how these aspects of self-regulation affect strategy choice
and motivation. The insight gained from this study regarding student use of goal setting
and self-assessment will serve to inform teachers about ways in which they can help
students make more effective use of their practice time and reach their musical potential.

Specifically, the research questions for this study were as follows:

1. What goal setting and self-assessment comments do novice,
adolescent instrumental musicians make during instrumental
practice?

2. What goal setting and self-assessment strategies do novice,
adolescent instrumental musicians use during instrumental
practice?

3. Are there differences in practice strategies found among students
when they are deliberately involved in goal setting or self-
assessment compared to times when they are not setting goals or

self—assessment?

223

4. What strategies do students use to address various technical

aspects of performance (rhythm, notes, articulation,.etc.)?

I chose to explore this topic by using a multiple case study approach. This
allowed me to probe deeply into the thought processes of a small number of students and
to compare their responses. I obtained participants by recruiting the help of a highly
respected local band teacher. She then aided in recruiting six of her students for the study.
Four students were in seventh grade and two were in eighth grade. Three of the students
were taking private lessons on their instruments at the time of the study. I collected
observational data through videotape as each student practiced for me and thought aloud
on three separate occasions at roughly two week intervals. I collected further data through
focus group interviews and interviews with the band teacher.

In order to begin to understand what the students were thinking as they were
engaged with their practice, I chose to use concurrent and retrospective verbal reports, or
verbal reports, as my main data source. This approach has been used by a number of
researchers as a verifiable method of accessing participant thoughts and memory in the
process of practice (Chaffin & Imreh, 1997, 2001; Geiersbach, 2000; Leon-Guerrero,
2004; Nielsen, 1997, 1999). I triangulated my data by collecting five forms of data: a)
concurrent verbal reports while students practiced, b) retrospective verbal reports,
enhanced with video observation, immediately after students practiced, c) observation of
practice video, (1) student focus group sessions, and e) an interview with the students’

band teacher. Further verification was provided by member check with the teacher and

224

peer review with a fellow doctoral student versed in qualitative inquiry and an
experienced instrumental music teacher.

From the analysis of data, seven themes emerged that seem to interweave to
inform student practice. Four themes work synergistically together to inform individual
practice in a cyclical manner while three more themes influence all areas of practice from
outside of the cycle. From this analysis, I proposed a model depicting the spiraling
development of practice skills based on the interconnectedness of motivation, goal
setting, strategy choice, self-assessment and an aural image, supported by structure and

supervision provided by mentors

Conclusions
It must once again be stressed that the data I analyzed came from a small group of
children in a single educational setting and, therefore, cannot be generalized to wider
populations. The information gained by the reader can only be applied to other teaching
situations in so much as the findings seem to apply to his or her own unique setting.
However, a number of suggestions have been made based upon the results of this study
that teachers may find helpful. The four seminal suggestions are:
1. Encourage students to strive for quality instead of quantity in their practice.
This can be accomplished by teaching students how to set clear, proximal and
appropriately challenging goals and how to critically assess themselves to
develop new goals. Traditional practice sheets used in different ways could
serve as effective tools in facilitating student development. Students can

record daily or weekly goals and assess their progress toward reaching their

225

goals as well as recording practice time,. At first, this must be done with
teacher guidance, but as students gain in experience, they can begin to take on
more of the responsibility themselves.

. Help students develop a large repertoire of practice strategies. This must be
done by providing students with a basic understanding of how they learn and
then by modeling practice strategies based upon these understandings. For
example, one of the reasons students played all the way through their music
instead of learning it in small chunks was that they were not aware of the
concept of chunking. By teaching this concept and demonstrating different
ways to apply it to practice, teachers will provide students with the necessary
skills to apply the concept to new situations. Teachers may also use practice
sheets to facilitate the development of a practice strategy repertoire by helping
students develop a menu of strategies to choose fi'om and then asking them to
record the strategies they use to address specific goals.

. Encourage students to learn new, more advanced music in part by rote in order
to allow their technical skills to advance while their reading skills develop.
The participants in this study needed to know how the music sounded before
they could play it. They used the notation as a means of reminding them of the
music they played because their reading skill lagged behind their performance
skills. By allowing students to develop a large technical vocabulary, they will
begin to associate the rhythmic and tonal patterns they know to the symbols

representing them, developing a larger reading vocabulary in the process.

226

4. Engage students in directed listening. By continually engaging students in
listening to and identifying various aspects of music, they will begin to
develop an aural image of their musical goals and of a model to which they
can compare themselves as they self-assess. Teachers should engage their
students in listening activities that encourage multiple forms of critical
listening using recordings and live performance. Furthermore, students should
be led to show their understanding of specific aspects of music through

movement and critical discussion.

Suggestions for Further Research

This research examined the practice habits of novice, adolescent instnunentalists.
Further study of the factors that impact self-regulated learning in instrumental music
would be helpful in providing teachers with the necessary tools for developing
independent learners. It would be worthwhile to replicate this study with novice and
intermediate level instrumental students at other grade levels and to conduct longitudinal
studies that can shed light on the development of practice habits of individual musicians
over time. These projects may help researchers begin to understand the developmental
process involved in the attainment of self-regulated practice skills.

This study found that the students who most often demonstrated learning goal
orientations tended to practice more effectively. Radosevich, et al. (2004) and Smith
(2005) also studied the effect of goal orientations on student achievement, finding a

positive effect for leaming goal orientations. Further research is needed to identify ways

227

that teachers can foster learning goal orientations in order to improve the quality of
student practice rather than assess practice quantity.

Researchers in the past have stressed the need for educators to develop methods to
teach students effective practice skills (Bany, 1990; Barry & McArthur, 1994; Barry &
Hallam, 2002; Ericsson, et al. 1993; Hallam, 2001; McPherson, 2005; Sloboda, et al.
1996). The findings from this study suggest that students do not have requisite skills in
goal setting to inform independent practice. Further research should be undertaken that
analyzes the effect of various types of directed goal setting and strategy instruction on the
effectiveness of instrumental practice.

McPherson and Zimmerman (2002) stress the importance of self-assessment
within their model of self-regulation, while Ericsson, et al. (1993), stress the position of
self-assessment within their model of deliberate practice. Hewitt (2001) also suggests that
self-assessment may have an effect on student performance, implying that self-
assessment informs student practice in some way. The findings from the current study
agree with other studies, suggesting that students have difficulty accurately assessing
themselves, though this difficulty may be due to a lack of training in self-assessment
(Bergee, 1993, 1997; Bergee, M. J ., & Cecconi-Roberts, L., 2002; Hewitt, 2001, 2001,
2005). Because self-assessment has been identified as a key component of practice,
further studies should be undertaken that replicate Hewitt’s original study after students
receive training and practice in self-assessment.

Finally, I identified a number of ways in which students used an aural image to
inform their music reading and practice skills. Further investigation is needed in the area

of emergent reading in beginning instrumental music. Research projects of this sort could

228

investigate the impact of computer programs such as Smart Music© or Band in a Box©
on practice and on reading. Other studies may examine the effect of tonal and rhythm

aptitude on self-assessment.

Epilogue

During a focus group interview, Amy reminded me of the age-old adage,
“Practice Makes Perfect, " implying that students become better musicians only by
putting in a lot of time practicing their instruments. As she said this, I was reminded of a
beginning student of mine who “practiced” for one and a half hours every day but was
still among the weakest musicians in the band. Practice alone must not make perfect.
Instead, students must learn how to practice smarter and more effectively, not necessarily
longer.

Music teachers have developed instrumental music curricula that sequentially
teach students rhythm skills, technical skills and musical understandings. Few have
considered developing curricula that sequentially teach practice strategies. Instead, it is
assumed that students naturally know how to practice effectively and efficiently. This
incorrect assumption may ultimately lead to slower rates of improvement and increased
student attrition rates from band.

By learning how people learn music and then applying this knowledge to their
own practice, novice instrumentalists can improve their rate of progress. This success, in
turn, may tend to increase student motivation, leading to stronger bands and higher
retention rates. Eventually, with effective teaching, students will develop into self-

regulated learners. Many students put their instruments away after they graduate from

229

high school, never to play them again, due in part to a lack of musical independence. By
teaching students how to learn on their own, more students may feel inclined to continue
playing.

One of the key goals in contemporary education is to create a generation of life-
long learners. By training students to practice effectively, music teachers can reach their

goal of creating a generation of life-long musicians.

230

APPENDIX A

“Goals and Self-Assessment in the Middle School Learner:
A Study of Music Practice Habits”
Parent Consent Form
November 21, 2006
Dear Parents,

My name is Steve Oare, and I am a doctoral student in music education at Michigan State
University. A major component of doctoral studies is conducting research related to improving
teaching. With your consent, I would like to enlist your child’s help in a research study
concerning the decision making process middle school students go through when they practice.
With greater knowledge of the underlying beliefs and thought processes of young students’
practice habits, I believe we can design improved methods of teaching students how to use their
practice time wisely.

I would like to videotape your child three times while he/she practices and then interview
him/her immediately afterward while reviewing the video. I will also interview him/her in a small
group setting with the other participants twice about the decisions made during the practice. This
would mean he/ she will be excused from class a total of 5 times. The practice and two interviews
will take place in a practice room during your child’s regular band period and will require no
extra time outside of class. Finally, data regarding your child’s musicianship and practice will
also come from interviews 1 will have with Ms. Zingerrnan. The collection of data will be
complete in five class times over a two month period and we will have a short debrief session on
my findings with the whole group of participants. As a benefit, in the process of completing this
project, your child may learn a number of new skills that will improve the quality of his/her
personal practice time. At the same time, there are no known risks associated with participation in
this study aside from the initial jitters some may have when being videotaped.

Your child’s participation is strictly voluntary but participants are asked to consistently
practice at least four days per week. He/she may refuse to take part at all without penalty. He/she
may also drop out of the study at any time without penalty. As per GLPS safety policy and since I
do not work for the district, a school employee will be asked to observe during our interview
times. The results of this study may be presented in various forms (i.e. research article, poster),
and through various venues (i.e., publications, conference presentations). Responses will not be
identified in any way in the reporting of my study results. All audio and/or video taped data will
be stored under secure conditions and will be destroyed at the end of my study. No names will be
stored with these data.

If you have any questions about this study, please contact Dr. Mitch Robinson, at
(517)355-7555 or mrob@msu.edu. If you have any questions or concerns regarding your rights
as a study participant, or are dissatisfied at any time with any aspect of this study, you may
contact Peter Vasilenko, Ph.D., Director of Human Research Protections, (517)355-2180, fax
(517)432-4503, e-mail irb@msu.edu, mail 202 Olds Hall, Michigan State University, East
Lansing, MI 48824-1047.

Thank you for considering allowing your child to participate in this research. Please sign
the attached consent form if you are willing to participate and return it to Ms. Zingerrnan.

Sincerely,
Steve Oare

231

“Goals and Self-Assessment in the Middle School Learner:
A Study of Music Practice Habits”
Parent Consent F arm

I voluntarily agree to give my consent for (please print)

to participate in this study. I understand he/she
will be excused from class on five separate occasions to be videotaped and interviewed
while practicing and to participate in two focus group sessions.

 

Signature
Date

 

 

Relation to participant:

 

232

APPENDIX B
“Goals and Self-Assessment in the Middle School Learner:
A Study of Music Practice Habits”
Stu dent Assent F arm
October 21, 2006
Dear Students,

My name is Steve Oare, and I am a doctoral student in music education at Michigan State
University. A major component of doctoral studies is conducting research related to improving
teaching. With your consent, I would like to enlist your help in a research study concerning the
decision making process middle school students go through when they practice.

I would like to videotape you three separate times while you practice and then interview
you about the decisions you made during your practice time while we both watch the video of
your practice. You will also be interviewed in two small group sessions. You will be excused
from class a total of 5 times. Finally, I will ask Ms. Zingerrnan to give me a “teacher’s
perspective” about your musicianship and achievement in order to complete my data

The only people who will ever see the video or hear the interviews will be myself and my
teachers who are involved with the study. The practice and interview will both be done in a
practice room during your regular band period and will require no extra time outside of class.
Because I am a visitor to your school, district policy requires that an adult employee should be
present during our interviews. The collection of data will be completed over a two month period
and we will have a short debrief session shortly after I collect the data

Your participation is strictly voluntary. You may refuse to take part without penalty and
you may refuse to drop out without penalty. 1 will identify you with a different name (of your
choice) so that your responses will not be identified to you in any way.

The results of this study may be presented in various forms (i.e. research article, poster),
and through various venues (i.e., publications, conference presentations). Your responses will be
kept confidential, and you will not be identified in any way. All audio and/or video taped data
will be stored under secure conditions and will be destroyed at the end of my study. No names
will be stored with these data

Thank you for considering participation in this research. Please sign the form below if
you are willing to participate and return it to Ms. Zingerrnan.

Sincerely,

Steve Oare

*titttt*#*#*#$t**#*tt******#***#**#****tt*#******#***********$***##***#*

I (please print) voluntarily agree to participate in this study.

 

Signature Date

 

 

233

APPENDIX C
“Goals and Self-Assessment in the Middle School Learner:
A Study of Music Practice Habits”
Teacher Consent Form
November 26, 2006
Dear Ms. Zingerrnan,

As you know, I am a doctoral student in music education at Michigan State
University. A major component of doctoral studies is conducting research related to
improving teaching. With your consent, I would like to enlist your help in a research
study concerning the decision making process middle school students go through when
they practice. With greater knowledge of the underlying beliefs and thought processes of
young students’ practice habits, I believe we can design improved methods of teaching
students how to use their practice time wisely.

I would like to videotape six to eight of your students three times while they practice,
followed immediately afterward by a reflective interview while viewing the video, and
then interview them in a small group setting twice. The practice and two interviews will
both be done in a practice room during your regular band period and will require no extra
time outside of class for them. Each student will need to be excused from class a total of
5 times. Finally, I would also like to interview you in order to obtain more data regarding
your students’ musicianship and practice. I would like to collect the over a two month
period and then have a short debrief session with you and with the students on my
findings with the whole group of participants. As a benefit, in the process of completing
this project, your students may learn a number of new skills that will improve the quality
of their personal practice time. I also believe that this data may help you to plan new
ways of teaching your students how to practice. At the same time, there are no known
risks associated with participation in this study aside from the initial jitters some may
have when being videotaped.

Your participation is strictly voluntary but ask that the students who volunteer to
consistently practice at least four days per week. You may refirse to take part without
penalty and your privacy will be protected to the maximum extent allowable by law. You
may drop out of the study at any time without penalty. Responses will not be identified in
any way. The results of this study may be presented in various forms (i.e. research
article, poster), and through various venues (i.e., publications, conference presentations).
Responses will be kept confidential, and neither you or your students will be identified in
any way. All audio and/or video taped data will be stored under secure conditions and
will be destroyed at the end of my study. No names will be stored with these data

If you have any questions about this study, please contact Dr. Mitch Robinson. If you
have any questions or concerns regarding your rights as a study participant, or are
dissatisfied at any time with any aspect of this study, you may contact Peter Vasilenko,
Ph.D., Director of Human Research Protections, (517)355-2180, e-mail irb@msu.edu,
mail 202 Olds Hall, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824-1047.

Thank you for considering your participation in this research. Please sign the
attached consent form if you are willing to participate and return it to me.

Sincerely,
Steve Oare

234

“Goals and Self-Assessment in the Middle School Learner:
A Study of Music Practice Habits”
Teacher Consent F arm

1 voluntarily agree to participate in this study. I understand I will be interviewed in regard
to my students’ musicianship and practice and that I will excuse my students from class
on five separate occasions to be videotaped (3 times) and interviewed (twice) in two
focus group sessions.

Signature
Date

 

 

235

APPENDIX 1)
Student focus group questions

For the lm focuwoup session only:

 

Please tell me how long each of you have played your instruments.
Do you play any other instruments?

Do you take private lessons? If so, how long have you taken them?
Are there any other musicians in your families?

For both focus group sessions:

How many days per week do you practice, on average? How many minutes do
you practice each session?

What is the hardest part of practicing?

Do you have a practice routine?

Describe for me what a regular practice session would look like if I were to watch
you practice at home.

If I gave you this piece of music (students will be given a sheet of music) and
asked you to learn it, how would you go about learning it?

Does anyone help you practice at home? If so, who? How do they help you?
How do you set goals in practice? What types of goals do you set? When do you
set them?

What do you do when you notice a mistake?

What types of mistakes do you tend to notice?

Have you ever recorded yourself playing your instrument? If so, what did you
notice about your playing?

What are your strengths as a musician?

What are your weaknesses as a musician?

Some researchers say people deal with goals and motivation in 3 types of ways.
Some look at a goal as a learning opportunity, some see it as a way to show
themselves or others that they are capable, and some look at it as something to
avoid if it seems too challenging.

For the 2nd fmuggroup session only:

Have your practice habits changed at all since the first time I interviewed you? If
so, how?

What would you like to learn that you believe would help you to become a more
independent learner/musician?

236

APPENDIX E
Teacher interview questions

 

 

 

Please give me your impression of ’s (student’s) musicianship.
Please give me your impression of ’s (student’s) home practice
Please give me your impression of ’s (student’s) musical potential.
Tell me about ’5 (student’s) musical strengths and weaknesses.

 

What types of instruction (i.e., lessons and experiences) have you provided that helps
students learn how to practice effectively?

What training have they had in goal setting and self-assessment in music?

Has the school or the district as a whole made any plans to emphasize goal setting or self-

assessment for students?

237

APPENDIX F
School Permission Letter

October 24, 2006

Steve Oare

I315 Chartwell

Xxxx Xxxxxxx, XX #####

Dear Mr. Oare,

I have carefully read the study and procedures for conducting the study entitled, “Goals and Self-
Assessment in the Middle School Learner: A Study of Music Practice Habits.” I understand that

student participation is voluntary and may be withdrawn at any time during the study.

We have one music teacher at the middle school level interested in participating. I give permission for Ms.

Zingerman and her classrooms to participate in this study.

Respectfiilly,

Xxxx xxxx , Principal
Xxxxx Middle School
Gxxxx Lxxx, XX

CC: Tamara Zingerrnan

238

APPENDIX G

Code Structure
Example: A: detection - note
(This code sequence means that the data suggests the participant
assessed (A) by detecting a note mistake.)

 

Primary
Code

Secondary
Codes

Ternary
Codes“

 

 

Motiva-
tion

(Mot)

attribution

 

avoidance

 

blame

 

chaflenge

 

Choice

 

ego approach

 

frustration

rhythm

 

fun

 

goal avoid

 

improvement

 

interest

 

lazy

 

locus

 

performance

 

SUCCCSS

 

T assigned

 

 

test

 

 

 

 

Primary
Code

Secondary
Codes

Ternary
Codes“

 

 

Assess-
ment

(A)

analysis

 

analysis

form

 

articulation

 

 

consistent mistakes

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

on the go

detection articulation
note

diagnosis accidentals
articulation

efficacy notes / tone

evaluation specific not
specific

ignores mistake note

 

 

239

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Primary Secondary Ternary
Code Codes Codes“
Develop- attention span
ment aural acuity not hearing
(Dev) wrong notes
experience band
beat competency
chunking verbal to
kinesthetic
self-discipline known strategy
and action
emergent pulse
emergent meas to meas
readin - note to note
emergent repertoire
strategy
Emergent
technique
knowledge alternate
fingerings
desire over need
teacher
scaffolding
Primary Secondary Ternary
Code Codes Codu“
Aural recorded:
Image accompaniment
(A1) with the band
audiation
hearing & balance
playing
beat competency
difficulty
emergent reading
model peer model
teacher model
reading skill
rote leaping

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

reflection

yes / no

 

nondetection

articulation

 

tendencies

 

 

vague

 

 

 

 

Primary
Code

Secondary
Codes

Ternary
Codes“

 

 

Goals
(G)

a priori

 

articulation

 

assessment

 

breathing

 

chaHenge

flow

 

choice

 

composition

 

concert music

 

dynamics

 

ego approach

 

Focus

articulation
dynamics

 

fun

 

improve vs fun

 

inmrove vs time

 

improvisation

 

memorization

 

no goal

 

no plan

 

notes

new note

 

peer model

 

play through vs
improve

 

Priorities

articulation
tone

 

random choice

 

return to tough stu

ff J

 

routine scale

 

specificity

 

teacher

 

Teacher
assigned

chair test

 

tone

 

agave

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

240

real vs book

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Primary Secondary Ternary
Code Codes Codes‘
Strateg— analysis - negative patterns
ies positive transfer
(S) assessment
book
chunking
consistent
practice
consolidation practice
knowledge
continues playping
correct on the go mental note
S: dovetail
environment — different instr.
TV
pulse foot tap
isolation
knowledge fipgepn’ngs
repertoire limited strategies
long tone
memorization
metronome
mirror
reflection No
no strategies
non-playing analysis
counting;
pencil
avoidance
reflection
repetition at the measure
at the note
repetitions incorrect
repetition
multiple correct at the measure
repetitions from the phrase
return to tough
music
Routine
self instruction
sing
single correct at the measure
repetition from the top
teacher model —
teacher model isolation

 

 

 

 

 

teacher suggested doesn’t do it

 

tempo at tough spot

 

transfer

 

understanding is
good enough

 

 

 

 

 

vague

 

 

" The codes listed in the ternary column are examples of types comments that were made. Ternary codes
in this study were meant to be open for a great deal of variation. The intention was for these codes to
contextualize the primary and secondary codes. Some primary secondary codes were not assigned lower

level codes

241

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