The purpose of this presentation was to examine the creation of a software program used to measure the affective responses of students. The Digital Affective Response Technology (DART) program was written by this author using Macromedia’s Director authoring program. DART incorporates the use of standard audio CD’s on both Macintosh and Windows platforms, providing a simple and effective alternative to the CRDI (Continuous Response Digital Interface) technology. This paper includes two main areas: (1) the creation of the program and (2) the results of a short study that examined the affective response of students to several jazz compositions.

Some advantages and rationale for creating a software program such as DART include the following:

The DART program was created using Macromedia’s Director authoring tool. There are many fine texts that describe the process of creating Director files, so this paper will not include the description of the process, but rather, the rationale for the basic construction. Director was chosen as the development tool for several reasons:

The DART program was constructed with two main design considerations: interface design and program function. With regard to interface design, simplicity of use was the main consideration. The following design features were incorporated to stress design simplicity: (1) use of simple navigation buttons, (2) exclusion of menu bars, (3) recurring font use, size and color, (4) hiding of desktop, (5) minimum number of screens, and (6) consistent interface design.

With regard to program function, the following features were incorporated into the program: (1) cross-platform compatibility, (2) background tab delimited-file writing (for easy import into spreadsheet programs), (3) student name, date, music selection title, and second-by-second evaluation data, (4) immediate rating feedback, and, (5) post-listening average rating feedback.

The DART program opens with a sign-in page, where the student types his or her name (this is later written by the program to the student file). The student inserts a CD and can then select a track to listen to or adjust the volume. There are a few pages of directions for the student (explaining that a "1" indicates the least enjoyed and "10" being for most enjoyed). The student can then practice clicking the two rating buttons (which changes the rating numeral above and changes the length of the red indicator bar in real time) (Figures 1 & 2). The student can also use the arrows on the computer keyboard for input.

Figure 1 Figure 2

The student begins to rate the composition by selecting the play button. The program defaults to a neutral rating of five (Ratings from six to ten are positive indicators and ratings from four to one are negative indicators). While the student is listening to the CD selection, the program is keeping track of the student’s rating for each second. When the student has finished rating the composition, two things happen: (1) the student is shown the numerical average rating they have given that composition, and (2) a tab-delimited file is written to the folder called "student" in the DART program folder. The file written (in the background and not seen by the student) consists of simple data: (1) student’s name, (2) date, (3) track number, (4) composition title, (5) evaluation data. Later, the data can be collected from each computer and imported into any database program or statistics program and evaluated. For this research project, the author imported the data into Microsoft’s Excel and into Abacus’ StatView. The data can be analyzed from these or any other statistical program.

The following section is included for the interest of those who are familiar with LINGO programming in Director. The Director files used to create the DART program contained four major sections: (1) user interface, (2) CD controller, (3) data collection LINGO commands, and (4) file writing LINGO commands.

The user interface incorporated traditional programming techniques familiar to most Director users. The CD controller portion of the program incorporated commands from Macromedia’s Enhanced-CD XObject. An XObject expands the capability of the LINGO program code and is available for free download by registered Director users at:

This XObject allows for CD audio control on both Macintosh and Windows-based computers.

The data collection LINGO commands used to keep track of the student data were arranged into three main categories: (1) second-by-second rating data collection, (2) graphic interface, and, (3) file writing commands. The commands can be examined by downloading the DART Director files at:

To examine the files, after downloading, open the Movie cast member. For study of the second-by-second rating data collection LINGO commands, see the TimeThing, AddIt, SubtractIt, ListAdd, Idle, CheckTheThing, MakeSureCD, handlers. . For study of the file writing LINGO commands, see the CalculateBar and ReSetBars handlers. For study of the file-writing LINGO commands, see the WriteFile handler.

One of the advantages of the DART program is that it allows the researcher to use any existing or created CD for research. Current audio CD creation programs allow the researcher to create audio CDs with specific music selections and/or segments required for the study. For the study discussed below, this researcher created a CD using Asante’s Toast. There were seven 60-second segments that students responded to: (1) Duke Ellington’s "Cotton Tail," (2) Charlie Parker’s "Bird Feathers," (3) Dave Brubeck’s "Blue Rondo a la Turk," (4) Dizzy Gillespie’s "Bebop," (5) Dave Brubeck’s "Take Five," (6) Thelonius Monk’s "Straight, No Chaser," and (7) Don Ellis’ "Bulgarian Buldge."

Eighty-three undergraduate students taking a Music Fundamentals course at the University of Minnesota used the DART program to evaluate the music selections described above for listening preferences. The DART device was used to capture data for evaluation of rank ordering preference, as well as melodic complexity preference, repetition construct preference, and related response times for such preferences.

In the second week of classes, students were instructed how to use the DART program in the recitation lab. Each student was issued an identical music CD and instructed to listen to the given selections in the order indicated in the listening survey (see …

Students were instructed to judge the music at every moment, using criteria as defined by each student concerning what was "good" and/or "bad". Using the given sheet, the students also indicated whether they had heard that selection before.

The compositions for this study were selected to minimize differences in style, instrumentation, dynamics and tempo. The main variables intended for study were (1) repetition and contrast, (2) melodic contour (conjunct and disjunct), and (3) levels of syncopation. The DART program data was organized intro three categories (A) overall rating, (B) number of seconds to rate, and (C) entry rating level. The seven selections were rank ordered prior to the study by three experts in the area of jazz performance and history. The expert rank order was then compared to the average rank responses of the eighty-three students.

For a more in-depth description of the study (including raw data as well as various charts created from Microsoft Excel and from Abacus’ StatView) see the following web address:

Table 1

In summary, students’ ratings of these selected compositions indicate a clear preference for conjunct melodic contours, compositions with a greater amount of repetition, and compositions with lesser amounts of syncopation. Students rate compositions that they "like" and "dislike" approximately the same amount of time. Compositions about which they are unsure take a significantly longer of amount of time to rate.

For further information about DART, see the following web addresses: