Christina Virgilio

1. Investigating the effects of self-selected practice techniques for sight-singing on the musical achievement of freshmen female choir students Christina Virgilio

2. Background • Introductory choir for females • Allows everyone to learn the same fundamentals • Separation by gender to help guys and advance girls • Freshmen have experience learning by rote • “quick fix” • Cannot just learn songs, must learn transferrable skills

3. Introduction

4. Music Literacy • “Although students may not study music for a career in music, they still should be given the tools they need to continue pursuing music as a part of their lives” (Kuehne, 2010, p. 13). • If students can read music notation, they are able to focus on the musical components of the literature, instead of just the notes and rhythms • Music is what is not the notes • Challenging for vocalists (pitch matching) • Get better at sight-singing by doing it

5. Current Practice • Sight-singing • part of daily rehearsal routine • after vocal warm-ups • use a method book, modify as needed • large-group instruction and individual assessment

6. Assessment • Group’s success is not always an accurate indicator of individual achievement • Assessment: individual, frequent, organized • Students and teacher can recognize progress or challenges throughout learning process • Teacher can offer feedback and strategies to help

7. Differentiated instruction • Assessments and teaching strategies should provide appropriate challenges • “fit the students rather than requiring that students adapt to fit the curriculum” • Theory of Multiple Intelligences- give options so students can acquire and process information based on the way they understand • Students acknowledge preferred learning mode

8. Purpose of Study • The purpose of this study is to compare freshmen female high school choir students’ sight-singing achievement when using and not using self-selected practice techniques. • More study is needed to determine the effects of student choice in learning sight-singing.

9. Research Questions • Is there a significant difference in sight-singing achievement between singers who use self-selected practice techniques and singers who do not use self-selected practice techniques? • What is the measurable difference in sight-singing achievement from the pre-test and post-test scores when practice techniques are used and not used? • What are the students’ perceptions of their selected practice techniques? • Is there a relationship between specific practice techniques and students’ achievement level? • Is there a relationship between students’ previous musical experience and the technique that they selected?

10. Definitions & Limitations • Musical achievement - the measure of rhythm and pitch accuracy scores as recorded by Smartmusic • Groups will consist of female freshmen singers from one high school. • Results may not accurately represent male singers, other grade levels, or other demographics.

11. Literature Review

12. Plan and Materials • Floyd and Bradley (2006): Surveyed 24 Kentucky HS choir directors whose choirs received a “distinguished” rating in sight-singing at state festival • 80% of the directors taught sight-singing for the entire school year and 83% taught it at the beginning of the rehearsal as part of their daily routine • Students need to sight-sing on a regular basis in order to improve (Demorest, 1998) • 50% of the high school teachers used a combination of self-composed exercises along with a method book

13. System • May’s (1993) study found that moveable-do was used by 82% of the responding teachers • Demorest and May (1995) sought to determine if the sight-singing system influenced students’ scores • Students using the moveable-do system scored significantly higher • students that used moveable-do received more consistent training (K-12) than the students using fixed-do

14. Group-Instruction • Henry and Demorest (1994) sought to determine whether group success indicated individual achievement • High-achieving choirs received an individual average of 66% in pitch and rhythm accuracy • Group achievement was not a highly accurate gauge of individual achievement in sight-singing

15. Individual Assessment • Demorest (1998): analyzed the student achievement of students with a regular program of individual testing and students with only group instruction • Treatment group was individually tested once a week along with regular group instruction • Significantly greater gain for the treatment group on the major melody, but not the minor melody • The minor melody may have shown weaker results because the teachers mainly focused on the major melodies.

16. Hand Signs • McClung (2008) wanted to determine if HS choir students achieved higher sight-singing scores with the use of hand signs • No significant differences in the scores when students used or did not use hand signs • Students’ preferences: general rise-and-fall gesture (57%), specific hand sign gesture (23%), or no hand signs (18%) • Further research could determine relationships between students' learning mode preferences and sight-singing skills.

17. Preparation Time • Henry and Killian (2005): sought to determine if there was a significant difference in sight-singing scores when participants had thirty seconds to practice prior to their performance • Most successful strategies used during preparation included tonicizing the key, using hand signs, keeping the beat, and isolating problem areas

18. External Influences • Prior experience and training are advantages in developing literacy skills, but it is often true that "training attracts the talented" (Demorest 1998, pg. 9) • Killian and Henry (2005): high-achieving students typically had more music and sight-singing experience

19. Methodology

20. Participants • Batavia High School: • 84.2% White, 9.2% Hispanic, 2.4% Black, 2.0% Asian • 10% low-income at BHS (49% in district) • 10.6% IEP • Control Group: 45 freshmen female students in Women’s Chorale (Fall 2013) • Treatment Group: 40-50 freshmen female students in Women’s Chorale (Fall 2014) • Most participants were in middle school choir

21. Research Instrument • Smartmusic- interactive learning program • Marks correct/incorrect pitches and rhythms • Laptop and microphone • Sing at First Sight • 4 weeks of introduction before pre-test

22. Pre-Test and Post-Test • 8 measures, 66 bpm • key of F major with 4/4 time signature • step-wise and starts/ends on do • 60 seconds to review the exercise and then the computer will tonicize the key (do-mi-sol-mi-do-sol,-do), give the starting pitch, and click off four beats before the downbeat • Evaluation of pitch and rhythm accuracy (out of 100%) • Score will be submitted with an audio file and a screenshot

23. Course Assessments • 13 weeks of regular assessments and in-class instruction • Post-test is the same as pre-test • 3 practice methods for treatment group: • tapping the beat • using hand signs • vocally tonicizing the key

24. Survey for Treatment Group • years of previous choir experience (in-school) • years of previous choir experience (outside of school) • years of piano experience • years of instrumental experience • Select preferred practice method and write a short-answer response • why they chose that particular method • if they think it helped with their sight-singing

25. Statistic Tests • Analyzing pre-test and post-test scores and responses to the survey questions • Descriptive statistics (M, SD) • one-way ANOVA independent sample analysis • 2 pre-test scores • 2 post-test scores • one-way ANOVA correlated sample analysis: relationship between the pre-test and the post-test scores within each group • ANCOVA test if pre-test scores are unequal to adjust the post-test means based on the pre-test means

26. Questions?