The application of modern computer technology to instruction in music appreciation has received very little attention by researchers, particularly in the "interactivation" of instructional approaches used in standard music appreciation textbooks. The transference of instructional strategies embedded in textbooks to analogous or imitative computer-aided instruction appears to some researchers to be a waste of the power of computer technology. However, the effect of a computer-based multimedia system on an instructional process that requires coordination between two different, but equally important, media sources–sound and print–has not been adequately explored.

The current study examined the effectiveness of a researcher-designed, computer-based multimedia software system for music appreciation instruction. This software enables an instructor to make an interactive presentation of two forms of content commonly found in music appreciation textbooks, namely: 1) background information about a piece of music (the composer, performer, historical setting, etc.) and 2) a listening guide for the musical selection, consisting of textual descriptions of the musical elements of the piece as they occur from beginning to end.

In this study, 52 subjects were selected from volunteers out of a music appreciation course at an urban community college. Selection was based on the level of participation in study events, including nine sets of factual and listening quizzes, three surveys, and a follow-up student listening guide project. Only the listening guide project was a required, graded assignment for the course. All of the other study events were optional. As a result, participation in the study, even among volunteers, varied considerably. Minimum levels of participation were established in terms of total number of events completed, and 52 of the volunteers participated at these minimum levels.

The study used a two-group, treatment-and-control design to compare the effectiveness of a computer-based system for presenting musical examples from audio CD’s with that of traditional textbook materials. The two screens of the computer-based system which emulated a textbook presentation were:

Figure 1.

The researcher-designed software was developed using Hypercard 2.4.1, by Apple Computer, and Voyager’s CD Audio Toolkit (version 2.0).

For each of the interactive listening guides used in the current study, the information on the "FactSheet" and "ListeningGuide" screens was taken directly from the textbook for the course, Music and musicians: An introduction (Megill, 1994). Sidebar definitions, for example, were converted to pop-up hypertext links on the "FactSheet" screen; clicking on an underlined word caused a small text box with an elaboration of the word’s meaning or associated information to be displayed. The list timing marks and associated commentary found in the textbook for a musical example were the basis for a matching list and commentary for the "ListeningGuide" screen (as in Figure 1 above), with only minor textual revisions to fit the size of the computer screen.

The conversion of the function of textbook materials to a more interactive, multimedia format is an example of what is referred to by Allen (1986) as "interactivation". Materials that inherently provide mostly linear access can be "interactivated" to allow more non-linear exploration and greater control of flow by the user.

The control group in the current study used media resources commonly employed in presentation of music in music listening courses such as music appreciation, music history, and music theory courses. A compact disc player was used to play the same recordings used in the experimental treatment. As musical selections were being played, the instructor wrote timing marks on the board, while students used listening guides printed in the textbook to read the commentary associated with the musical events. The instructor was careful to present the information through lecture and use of the textbook which corresponded to the information contained in the computer-based presentations, which she had also created.

Prior to the treatment phase of the study, a computer experience-and-attitude survey was given to all subjects. This survey was an adaptation, with only minor revision, of a previously-existing, ten-item Attitude Towards Computers survey by Reece and Gable (1982). Also prior to treatment, two sets of factual and listening quizzes were given. Factual quizzes were based on factual information identified through an immediately-preceding lecture, using the appropriate media for each group. Listening quizzes were based on identification, after hearing a portion of a musical selection, of descriptive terms that were included in the listening guide for the piece. Scoring of these pre-treatment quizzes showed no differences between the groups. However, the experimental, computer-based treatment group showed more of a pre-treatment affinity for computers and computer instruction.

During the treatment, six sets of factual and listening quizzes were administered, each after a lecture presentation with musical examples being played. In addition, a final factual and listening quiz were given one week after treatment, as well as an attitude survey about the instructional experience. According to the survey, subjects in the experimental group showed a significantly higher appreciation for the instruction than those in the control group (F(1,50)=4.29, p=.04). However, although there was a trend toward higher factual quiz scores for the computer-treatment group, there was not enough data to sustain a claim of significance of the trend.

In designing the study, it was thought that a useful measure of learning would be the transfer of understanding and experience of the exposure to listening guides in class. An authentic assessment task, according to Hart (1994), is a task related to a student’s current knowledge and experience base and yet still the students are tested "for what we want them to know". The student listening guide project involved students’ self-selecting music of their own choice and creating a paper listening guide for it. Techniques and procedures for doing the assignment using a CD player and watch were demonstrated in class. A scoring rubric was rigorously designed, including 1) four music appreciation instructors agreeing on ranking of five randomly-selected student listening guide products and 2) two instructors developing a quantitative scoring system, using a random sample of five additional student products. Agreement between the two raters exceeded 90%. However, no significant difference in the quality of student listening guides was found between the two groups.

Specific conditions that may have limited the study’s effectiveness were:

The study, then, reached an ambiguous conclusion typical of much research comparing the effect of media on learning: Although the measurements of achievement related to instruction and transfer of learning to related tasks were not apparently affected by the differences in study treatments, the appreciation of the instruction itself was higher for those who experienced the treatment involving computer-based technology. The tendency might be to agree with those who suggest that media do not make a difference (Clark, 1983). However, as Kozma (1991) points out, this view denies the importance of the association of auditory media with the particular symbolic system that music alone embodies. Further, more extensive research is necessary to explore the connection of that symbol system with understandings and verbal content that music appreciation instructors wish their students to consider. Research begun in this study is continuing at the present time, with another set of music appreciation classes.