Development and evaluation of computer-aided music-learning system for the hearing impaired

1. Development and evaluation of computer-aided music-learning system for the hearing impaired Presenter: Teng-Chih Yang Professor: Ming-Puu Chen Date: 10/ 28/ 2009 Yang, H. J., Lay, Y. L., Liou, Y. C., Tsao, W. Y., & Lin, C. K. (2007). Development and evaluation of computer-aided music-learning system for the hearing impaired. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 23(6), 466-476.

2. Introduction • The development of a computer-aided musical learning system may provide an effective and useful tool for hearing-impaired students and may also supplement instructors’ teaching. • Hearing-impaired people have not had an appropriate computer-assisted tool to help them recognize pitch and therefore melody. • Though there has been previous work on CAL systems, as yet CAL has had little research applied to music learning. • Besides a basic sense of volume and rhythm, hearing-impaired people have not had an appropriate computer-assisted tool to help them recognize pitch and therefore melody.

3. Relation Study • The high quality of computer-aided learning (CAL) materials has seen the emergence of support both for teachers and students (Hartley, 1987). • CAL not only helps students’ learning, but also advances the learning motivation of learners (Fraser & Teh, 1994). • Students’ level of interest, music self-concept and effort expenditure help shape the activity of music learning and dexterity of playing music instruments in various ways (Fox & Alexander, 2004). • Individual performance is generally determined by three things: motivation (the desire to do the job), ability (the capability to do the job) and environment (the resources needed to do the job) (Griffin, 2006).

4. Method-1 • The functions of CAMLS include • The tone differentiation measurement module was used to test the student’s perception of the tones. • The tone-tuning module helps students understand the pitch of an instrument. • The song-learning module helps students learn a song. • 1. The tone differentiation measurement testing screen.

5. Method-2 • 2. Musical tone-tuning module. 3. The computer musical learning module.

6. Experiment- Participants • The 26 subjects were hearing-impaired students with approximately equal years of musical learning and training. • Subjects were junior high school students selected from different music classes . The mean age was 13.69 years (SD = 0.79) for all participants. • The participants were equally divided into two groups after pre-test.(Pitch test). • The traditionally instructed group (T group) had 13 students with 8 boys and 5 girls. • The computer-aided group (CA group) had 13 students with 7 boys and 6 girls.

7. Experiment- Testing procedure • The testing procedure was supported by two teachers (music and computer teacher.)who teach in the National Taichung School for the Deaf. • The training period lasted for one semester – about 5 months, 2h a week for both groups. • The final test score for each group’s students was graded by a third-party music teacher not knowing which group these students were in. • Scoring was based on students’ playing techniques with the training song(musical pitch accuracy and the song score), with the sum of both maximum of 100 points. • Self-reported questionnaire was used to evaluate the students’ learning motivation for music class with factors including interest, effort expenditure and musical self-concept of musical learning performance in this study.

8. Results The final test score An independent sample t-test for situational interest, effort expenditure and music self-concept An independent sample t-test for situational interest, effort expenditure and music self-concept

9. Discussion • This result indicates • Effort expenditure has the most significant power in learning music. • Group type did contribute to performance independent of motivation and improve students’ music cognition. • The short-term or situational interest did affect students’ learning performance. • Musicself-conceptalso affected the learning performance of hearing-impaired students.

10. Conclusion • CAMLS for helping hearing-impaired students learn music more efficiently and invoke more interest in music class. • CAMLS enhanced students’ interest, willingness to devote more time to music and improve one’s music self-concept. • The computer-assisted learning system really helped hearing-impaired students’ music-learning performance.