Can the Madeline Hunter Model apply to the high school instrumental conductor

Statement of the problem. The purpose of this study was to determine whether the effective high school instrumental conductor demonstrated a significantly greater use of Hunter's Essential Elements of Instruction in rehearsal than did the noneffective conductor. Additionally, the study was to determine whether the effective high school instrumental conductor demonstrated a significantly greater use of the Anticipatory Set, Objective Set, Instructional Input Set, Modeling Set, Check for Understanding Set, Guided Practice Set and Independent Practice Set in rehearsal than did the noneffective conductor.;Procedure. A panel of experts observed the videotaped rehearsals of forty-seven high school instrumental conductors. Two observational tools were used; (a) the verbal section of the Ervin Systematic Observational Method, and (b) the Hunter Essential Elements. The Ervin tool was used to determine whether a conductor was effective or noneffective. The Hunter tool was operationalized by the researcher to make it easier to observe each of the Essential Elements.;Based on the results of the Ervin tool, the conductors were statistically divided into thirds. The highest third were the effective conductors and the lowest third were the noneffective conductors. A Mann-Whitney U test was done to determine statistical significance between the two groups for each of the Essential Elements.;Results. Analysis indicated a statistically significant difference between the effective and noneffective conductors in the elements of Checking for Understanding and Guided Practice. These results indicated that the effective conductors used these two elements to a significantly greater degree in rehearsal than did the noneffective conductors.;Conclusions. The major conclusion drawn from this study was that the effective high school conductor did not demonstrate a significantly greater use of Hunter's Essential Elements of Instruction in rehearsal. A secondary finding was that the elements of Checking for Understanding (the ways the conductor determined whether the ensemble members understood information being presented) and Guided Practice (correcting students mistakes and assisting students in learning) were used to a significantly greater degree by the effective conductor in rehearsal.