The inclusion of the educator in preschool music lessons, as an influence on musical development

Abstract

The current paper presents a study on the relationship between music learning development, and the inclusion of a general preschool educator in music lessons, by children aged between 3 and 5 years old. Three study groups (n=51) consisting of existing preschool classes were differentiated by their exposure to a series of ten music lessons with or without the assistance of their habitual educator. One group had both lessons and educator assisting, a second group had lessons but their educator wasn’t present. A third was used as a control group in order to define musical development that was only related with cognitive growth. Participant’s performance concerning reproduction of learned rhythm patterns, melodic patterns and a familiar song were audio recorded in two recordings: once before the ten given lessons and the other after them. These were evaluated by professional music judges that had to choose the best recording of each individual child, without knowing if they were evaluating either from the first or second moment of recording. The study concept was developed using existing research based on Vygotsky (1978) and Brofenberner’s (1979, 1989) theories of learning, and on the basis that effectiveness, emotions and feelings, have a prior role in knowledge construction (Damásio, 2001, Bowman, 2004, Johnson, 2006, 2007). The paper concludes that as the study group with lessons and educator assisting scored higher in the final musical test, this is presented as evidence to the notion that musical knowledge is a cognitive construction deeply embedded in the social and emotional webs created by the child.