Humphreys, Jere T.
This collection consists of articles, papers, keynote and other major speeches, reviews, and responses, mostly related to music education, but some to arts education and arts business, in some cases with reference to emerging countries. A number of these items appeared in difficult-to-access publications such as foreign journals and foreign and domestic proceedings. A few are translations of English-language articles that appeared in foreign language journals, and a few others are in English with accompanying foreign language abstracts.
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- Creators: Schmidt, Charles P.
- Creators: Bush, Jeffrey E.
- Creators: Preston, Keith Y.
The purpose of this study was to examine relationships between school music participation and a composite measure of academic achievement in American schools. The authors examined the first (baseline) year of a longitudinal study commissioned by the National Center for Education Statistics, conducted in 1988 (NELS:88/94 Data Analysis system, with Additional Systems for High School and Beyond and the National Longitudinal Study of 1972, NCES, 1996). The data set contains information on more than 23,000 American middle school students, and is thought to be representative of the national as a whole.
Several previous researchers employing causal modeling techniques have found relationships between extracurricular activities and education attainment as measured by standardized academic achievement tests. In music, students with school band and orchestra experience make significantly higher grades in high school mathematics, English, and social science than do non-performing students, and instrumental music instruction seems to improve scores on tests of spatial-temporal ability, which is thought to correlate with ability in mathematics.
The present study confirmed previous findings on relationships among music participation and academic achievement. Significantly more students in school music choral or instrumental groups ranked above the 50th percentile in academic grades than did other students (p < .05). For instrumental students, these results held true for all four socioeconomic quartiles, for both boys and girls, and for all races/ethnicities. For choral students, only students in the third and fourth quartiles and Caucasian students ranked significantly higher than other students.
The purpose of this study was to standardize the Primary Measures of Music Audiation in Greece (N = 1,188). Split-halves reliability was acceptable across grade levels (K through 3) for the Tonal and Rhythm subtests, but test-retest reliability was generally unacceptable, especially for the Rhythm subtest. Concurrent validity was mixed, with teacher ratings of musical achievement generally significantly correlated with Tonal but not Rhythm subtest scores. Composite test means were significantly higher for suburban and urban samples than for rural samples and were significantly higher for higher grade levels. Item difficulty coefficients were significantly correlated across grade levels. The Greek and U.S. composite means were similar except for a significantly higher U.S. mean for grade 1. However, when the rural subgroup was removed from the Greek sample to equate with the U.S. norming sample, there were nonsignificant differences from grades K through 1, but significant differences in favor of the Greek sample for grades 3 and 4.
The purpose of this study was to examine relationships between the membership of the Music Supervisors National Conference/Music Educators National Conference (MENC) from 1912-1838 and selected demographic and economic variables. The results include the following:
1. MENC membership grew considerably more rapidly than the nation's general and teacher
populations.
2. Membership and membership as a percentage of the population differed significantly between
MENC divisions.
3. Membership correlated with mean teacher salaries and with per capita education spending by
state.
4. Membership by state correlated only slightly with geographical distance to convention sites.
5. Women comprised a significant majority of the membership in each division, but a smaller
majority than in the nation's teaching profession as a whole.
6. Implementation of the MENC"s biennial convention plan did not affect membership totals
significantly.
We speculate that MENC membership as a percentage of music education may have differed between MENC divisions, and that such membership differences may have resulted from regional identification or other cultural factors not examined in this study. We recommend further application of quantitative sociological research techniques and cultural research approaches to the study of past and present practices in music and music education.
