The Effect of Primary Instrument Instruction on Music Acquisition

Abstract

The current thesis sought to investigate possible effects Recorder Karate had on students’ music achievement and attitudes towards music. Recorder Karate is a curriculum intended for third grade students and uses a recorder as the focus of its instruction. The purpose of Recorder Karate is to intervene on students’ motivation to engage and remain in music. Existing literature suggests a relationship between attitudes and music achievement may affect motivation. Discovering curricula targeting amotivation and apathy towards music is an important step for music educators. A total of 87 third grade students were recruited from a southwestern public elementary school. Recorder Karate resulted in statistically significant improvement on music achievement and attitudes towards music. The effects that change in attitude towards music had on predicted change in music achievement was accounted for, but did not demonstrate statistical significance. Students’ teachers explained unique variance in two change scores: change in accuracy (proportion of notes correct) and change in total attempted notes. Taken together, findings indicate Recorder Karate works to improve students’ motivation by focusing on their music achievement and attitudes towards music. Further research elucidating the relationship between music achievement and attitudes towards music is needed.