Effects of movement-based instruction on singing performance of first grade students in Taiwan

With the intent of improving music instruction, the purpose of this research was to investigate the effects of movement-based instruction on singing performance of first grade students in Taiwan. The specific problems for this study were as follows: (1) Do instructional methods (locomotor/whole body movement, nonlocomotor movement) and music aptitude have any effect on singing performance relative to tonal, rhythm, and expression dimensions? (2) Does music aptitude have any effect on tonal and rhythm dimensions of singing performance?; Two intact first grade classes participated in the study. They were randomly assigned to Experimental Group 1 (locomotor/whole body movement) or Experimental Group 2 (nonlocomotor movement). Both groups received 40-minute music instruction from a music specialist twice a week for 10 weeks. Additional weeks were used for administering the tests. Experimental Group 1 (N= 34) received music instruction integrated with locomotor/whole body movement activities based on the work of Rudolf Von Laban, featuring flow, weight, time, and space. Experimental Group 2 (N= 32) received music instruction integrated with nonlocomotor movement activities. The researcher was the instructor for both groups.; A standardized measure of developmental music aptitude, the Intermediate Measures of Music Audiation (IMMA) was administered to the students prior to instruction. During the tenth week, a criterion song was taught to the students according to their assigned instructional method and each student's singing performance was audio recorded.; Three independent judges rated singing performance using a three-dimensional rating scale. The range of intrajudge reliability coefficients was .91 to .97; the range of intrajudge reliability coefficients was .74 to .91.; Results revealed a significant difference (p < .05) in favor of the locomotor/whole body movement group on total singing performance. Further analyses of instructional method on each dimension of singing performance with Bonferroni correction showed no significant difference (p > .017) on all three dimensions of singing performance. Results of Analyses of Variance indicated no significant difference between students with high and low music aptitude on tonal and rhythm dimensions of singing performance.; For Taiwanese first grade students, locomotor/whole body movement instruction resulted in better total singing performance than nonlocomotor movement instruction. Music aptitude did not affect singing performance.