Preservice Music Teachers' Predictions, Perceptions ...

Journal of Music Therapy, XLIV(1), 2007, 74-84 © 2007 by the American Music Therapy Association

Preservice Music Teachers' Predictions, Perceptions, and Assessment of Students with Special Needs: The Need for Training in Student Assessment Kimberly VanWeelden, PhD Jennifer Whipple, PhD, MT-BC Florida State University The purpose of the current study was to examine preservice teachers' predictions and perceptions of students with special needs' levels of mastery of specific music education concepts and actual grades achieved by these students using alternative assessments and testing accommodations within two subpopulations: students with emotional and/or behavior disorders (EDBD) and students with acute cognitive delays (ACD). The preservice teachers predicted students within the EDBD class would achieve a significantly higher level of mastery of the music concepts than students within the ACD classroom. After the field experience, however, the preservice teachers' perceptions of all students' levels of mastery increased from prediction scores overall. Additionally, preservice teachers were able to execute testing accommodations and implement successful alternative assessments which gave empirical data on the students' levels of mastery of the music education concepts within the curriculum. Implications for music therapists, as consultants in special education, are discussed.

Research has found that teachers across subject areas often grade students with special needs on different educational objectives than their non-disabled peers (Donahue & Zigmond, 1990; Frisque, Niebur, & Humphreys, 1994; Gfeller, Darrow, & Hedden, 1990; Zigmond, Levine, & Laurie, 1985), This may occur because teachers are uncertain of how to implement alternative grading practices that accurately assess the content taught, or question the fairness of creating such assessments for a few students when traditional grading policies are already in place (Bradley & Calvin, 1998;

Vol. XUV, No. 1, Spring 2007

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Christiansen & Vogel, 1998; Darrow, 2003; Schumm & Vaughn, 1992). However, there has been a growing emphasis in recent years on the importance of using person-first language due to the detriment that may develop from labels assigned based on individuals' diagnosis, as society may not expect as much from or offer as many learning opportunities for those individuals (Darrow, 1998). This effect could be further exaggerated without formal assessments to identify actual student abilities (VanWeelden & Whipple, 2005). Yet, music therapists (MTs) frequently consult with classroom teachers, including music educators, in addressing the interests of students with special needs (Wilson, 1996). MTs may be the ideal professionals to model such behaviors and assessment techniques for their music education colleagues due to their training and work with clients in education, medical, psychiatric, and rehabilitative settings, to mention only a few. Little research investigating alternative assessments and testing accommodations for special learners within music settings has been conducted, with the overwhelming majority of such studies found in the field of music therapy, and only one study identified that examined training in these techniques for preservice music teachers. VanWeelden and Whipple (2005) examined whether preservice music teachers were able to create and implement alternative assessments as well as devise testing accommodations to meet the needs of individual students with special needs in a secondary general music classroom. Undergraduate music education majors taught 10 secondary general music lessons to one subpopulation of special learners over the course of 5 weeks. A curriculum containing 30 music concepts served as the foundation of the field experience. At the end of the experience, the preservice teachers administered six alternative assessments, which included testing accommodations that would best meet the needs of the students, to evaluate the special learners on the music content covered. Results revealed that the preservice teachers were able to execute testing accommodations and implement successful alternative assessments that provided empirical data on the students' level of mastery of the music education concepts within the curriculum. Additionally, teachers were able to assign an overall letter grade on a 4-point grade scale, which combined the individual grades for each music concept, for each student at the end of the field experience. There was no correlation, however, between how preservice teachers thought students

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with special needs would perform, how they thought the students did perform, and how the students actually performed based on assessment data. Thus, preservice teachers were unable to accurately predict or perceive students' level of mastery of the music concepts. As the researchers state, "while teachers might make predictions of special learners' level of achievement based on stereotypes and have perceptions of special learners' level of achievement based on observations in class, until alternative assessments with testing accommodations that meet the needs of these students are employed, teachers cannot actually know what level of achievement special learners can attain" (p. 214). The VanWeelden and Whipple study gave preservice music educators an experience to work with students with special needs in a general music setting. However, because teachers worked with only one subpopulation of students with special needs, the question of whether preservice teachers would display differences in their abilities to create and implement alternative assessments and testing accommodations if they worked with more than one subpopulation of students with special needs within a field experience was yet to be answered. Therefore, the purpose of the current study was to compare preservice teachers': (a) predictions of students with special needs' mastery of specific music education concepts prior to instruction; (b) perceptions of students with special needs' mastery of specific music education concepts after instruction but before assessment; and (c) grades assigned to students with special needs for level of mastery of specific music education concepts using alternative assessments and testing accommodations. Method Participants {N= 15) were undergraduate music education majors at a large university enrolled in a course entitled "Assessment and Teaching Music: Secondary." The researchers, one who was a music educator and the other a music therapist, taught this course. The music education majors received 6 weeks of field-based secondary general music lab experience following 9 weeks of in-class instruction, which encompassed song leading, Orff instrumental orchestrations, world music and dance, and Western Art music microteaching; music listening; musical games; issues within secondary schools; and assessment and evaluation procedures. Thefield-basedsecondary general music lab experience entailed


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working with students with special needs at a local middle school. These students were primarily educated within a self-contained setting and were divided into two classrooms that were based upon the students' disabilities. The first class consisted of students with emotional and/or behavior disorders (EDBD) and the resulting academic delays that often accompany these disabilities. The second class contained students who exhibited acute cognitive delays (ACD), such as autism, Down syndrome, mental retardation, and extensive learning disabilities. Preservice music educators worked with students in both the EDBD and ACD classrooms. A secondary general music curriculum, which was created by the researchers to be the foundation of the field-based teaching experience, contained the same types of activities found within the inclass portion of the course. Thirty music concepts, including melody, harmony, accompaniment, chords, note names, rhythm, note values, rests, and one- and two-measure rhythm patterns, were taught. The preservice teachers were divided into two teaching groups and the curriculum was divided into two parts (melody and rhythm), with each group of preservice teachers responsible for teaching one half of the curriculum (either melody or rhythm) to both classroom groups. At the end of the semester, each presrevice teacher had taught twice within both the EDBD and ACD classrooms and assisted individual students with various music tasks during 12 class periods. A survey, which listed the 30 music concepts, served as the dependent variable. Prior to in-class discussions relating to students with special needs and the general music lab experience, each teacher was asked to complete the survey that included separate ratings for EDBD and ACD students. Preservice teachers were asked to rate every music concept according to their predictions of EDBD and ACD students' levels of mastery using a 4-point Likert-type scale. At the conclusion of the teaching experience in each classroom, teachers were asked to complete the same survey to rate their perceptions of EDBD or ACD students' levels of mastery of the music concepts taught, creating a pretest-posttest design (see Eigure 1). The preservice teachers were given the responsibility for planning, preparing, and implementing alternative assessments and testing accommodations that would accurately assess the students' acquisition of the music concepts taught. Teachers formally assessed music concept mastery only for the second group of stu-


78 Name

Using the scale provided, please indicate how c lsistcntly you think students in each special needs classroom will demonstrate mastery of the following concepts. l=Never 2=Less than half of the time 3=More tiian half of the time 4=Always Acute cognttivt

M

Emotional and/ behavior a isordt

Melody

2 3

1 2 3

Harmony

2 3

2 3

Acco mpaniment

2 3

2 3

Staff

2 3

2 3

•

Une Notes

2 3

2 3

•

Space Note

2 3

2 3

•

Ledger Lines

2 3

2 3

2 3 I

2 3

Musical Alphabet •

Middle C

2 3 1

2 3

•

D

2 3 t

2 3 1

•

E

2 3 1

2 3 I

•

F

2 3 1

2 3 t

•

C

2 3 1

2 3 t

2 3

2 3

2 3 1

2 3

2 3

2 3

Chord

2 3 4

2 3

Rhythm

2 3 1

2 3

Note Values

L 2 3 4

2 3

•

Quarter

1 2 3 4

2 3

•

Double Eighths

1 2 3 4

2 3

Half

1 2 3 4

2 3

•

Dotted Half

1 2 3 4

2 3

•

Whole

1 2 3 4

2 3

•

Dotted Quarter

1 2 3 4

2 3

•

Single Eighth

1 2 3 4

2 3

I 2 3 4

2 3 4

1 2 3 4

2 3 4

t-Measure Rhythm Patterns

1 2 3 4

2 3 4

2-Mcasure Rhythm Patterns

1 2 3 4

2 3 4

.

High C

Rest •

Quarter Rest

FIGURE l.

Predictions and perceptions survey.

dents with which they worked because the intent of the study was to determine whether assessment ahihties would differ for teachers who worked with two populations (current study) versus one (VanWeelden & Whipple, 2005). Therefore, one group of preservice teachers assessed learning of rhythm concepts by the ACD students while the other group of preservice teachers assessed melody concept acquisition of EDBD students. In each classroom, preservice teachers administered six assessments over a two-day period. The


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alternative assessments were in game, listening, written, and demonstration formats, and all music concepts were assessed within two or more formats. Additionally, preservice teachers within each classroom devised testing accommodations that would best meet the needs of their students, including small-group assessment stations within the EDBD classroom, and individual assessment administration with teacher assistance for reading and reiterating assessment directions, and provision of icons to support any written language within the ACD classroom. Because the music concepts were each assessed within two or more formats, all assessments were divided and graded by individual concept rather than overall test, creating two or more grades from different assessment formats for each of the music concepts. Percentages for individual music concepts were calculated using the number of correct answers divided by the total number of questions for each concept. Teachers who assessed students in the ACD classroom chose to assign an additional grade to reflect student progress in order to reward students for growth in music learning. Teachers who assessed students in the EDBD classroom elected to assign a behavior grade for each student based on acceptable behaviors observed during the activities, given the impact of behavior on learning within this subpopulation of students. Both groups of teachers included an additional participation grade for students in the Classrooms they assessed. To calculate the overall letter grade for each student, the percentages were converted into letter grades with corresponding numerical values based on a four-point grade scale, which were summed and then divided by the total number of individual grades. Results All preservice teachers completed a pretest predicting level of mastery of music concepts for students in both classes. Using a Mann Whitney [/test, analysis of survey responses provided by preservice teachers prior to the field experience revealed significantly higher ratings (/)= ,03) for EDBD students (M= 94,67, SD= 11,18) than for ACD students (M= 86,26, SD= 10,43), indicating preservice teachers predicted that EDBD students would demonstrate greater mastery of the music concepts to be taught than would the ACD students. To analyze the postsurvey responses, the questions were divided by curriculum content, either those pertaining to

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melody (Questions 1-17) or those pertaining to rhythm (Questions 18-30), as well as by preservice teacher curriculum content responsibility. Analysis of posttest survey responses, which were provided by preservice teachers following the field experience, revealed significantly higher perceptions of melody concept mastery ip = .004) for EDBD students (M= 57.62, SD = 6.02) than ACD students (M = 48.12, SD = 5.91). No significant differences were found, however, in perceptions of rhythm concept mastery between the EDBD and ACD student populations {p = .56), though ratings for EDBD students were still higher than ratings for ACD students. Statistical analysis of final student grade means did not reveal any significant differences between the two groups of students {p = .12), though mean EDBD grades (M = 3.17) were higher than mean ACD grades (M= 2.72). However, comparison of final music concept grades, not including improvement, behavior, and participation grades, were significantly higher (p= .04) for the EDBD students (M= 3.23) than for the ACD students (M= 2.61). To determine the relationship between the ability of preservice teachers to predict and perceive mastery of music concepts by students with special needs, a Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficient, using only the preservice teachers' pretest prediction survey responses for the questions regarding the curriculum they were assigned, was completed. Pre- and posttest survey ratings and music concept grades for both student populations were combined. In the melody category for the EDBD class, no correlations existed for the prediction to perception scores (r= .07), prediction to actual grades (r= .27), and perception to actual grades (r= .18). Similarly, in the rhythm category for the ACD class there were no correlations for the prediction to perception scores (r= .28), prediction to actual grades (r= .02), or perception to actual grades (r = .26). Discussion The preservice teachers in this study predicted students within the EDBD class would achieve a higher level of mastery of the music concepts than students within the ACD classroom. However, after the field experience the preservice teachers' perceptions of students' level of mastery increased from prediction scores within both classrooms and were not significantly different from each


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other. These results mirror those found in an earlier study (VanWeelden & Whipple, 2005). The researchers believe the predictions given by the preservice teachers are due to a lack of much prior knowledge or hands-on contact with students with special needs before the field experience, which may lead teachers to infer stereotype associations based on general beliefs (e.g., the use of labels to describe the students' disabilities) about the possible achievement level between the two classrooms of students. However, these beliefs were challenged over the course of the field experience as teachers were given the opportunity to work with and observe what students with these disabilities can achieve, which accounts for the higher perception scores. The preservice teachers were able to assign an overall letter grade, which combined the individual grades for each of the music concepts as well as the improvement, behavior, and participation grades. These final student grades did not reveal any significant differences between the two classrooms of students. However, comparison of final music concept grades, not including the subjective grades of improvement, behavior, and participation, revealed students within the EDBD classroom achieved significantly higher grades than the ACD students on the same concepts. This difference was due to the introduction of the behavior grades for the EDBD students, which lowered their mean grade, and the improvement grades for the ACD students, which raised their mean grade. The researchers question the appropriateness of including a separate behavior grade for the EDBD students, when their behavior often keeps them from doing well and is most likely factored into the concept grade. Similar questions arise when including a separate improvement grade for the ACD students, since it could be argued that students were rewarded for improvements that may not have existed or are hard to quantify with only one assessment period at the end of the experience. Therefore, because these grades are subjective and do not encompass the content covered, future teachers must decide whether these grades are needed and appropriate since they have the potential to disproportionately penalize or reward students. Additionally, given that two preservice teacher groups completed assessments and separate music concept categories (melody and rhythm) were assessed in each classroom, caution should be used when attributing differences in mean music concept grades to differences in the two student populations.

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Regardless, as in the VanWeelden and Whipple (2005) study, in which half of the preservice teachers worked with students with ACD and half of the preservice teachers worked with students with EDBD during a field-based teaching experience, preservice teachers who participated in thefield-basedexperience described in this study were able to create varied alternative assessments with necessary testing accommodations in order to obtain empirical data regarding level of mastery of specific music education concepts by students with special needs in a secondary general music classroom. Experts advocate teacher education programs should train preservice teachers on how to create different presentation and response formats, provide assistance during the assessment, and use several test formats to assess the same content for students with special needs so they may learn how to accurately assess special learners' educational achievement within their subject areas (Hardman, Drew, & Egan, 2002; Snyder, Garriott, & Aylor, 2001). Since the researchers represented one music educator and one music therapist, this allowed the preservice teachers to appreciate how music education and music therapy could compliment each other within an educational setting. Additionally, preservice teachers may have been able to understand how the two disciplines can work toward a common goal. The researchers believe that the teachers gained valuable insight about assessing students with special needs, as evidenced by the results, because they were able to ask advice throughout the experience from both researchers. Based on synthesis of results from this study and the previous study by VanWeelden and Whipple (2005), it appears that regardless of whether preservice teachers work with one (VanWeelden & Whipple, 2005) or two subpopulations (current study) of students with special needs, and regardless of the specific subpopulation of students with which preservice teachers interact, preservice teachers are not able to accurately predict or perceive level of mastery of specific music concepts by students with special needs without the benefit of formal assessment procedures. It is important for MTs, as well as music educators, to take ownership of this concept, since MTs often consult in music education settings and are therefore in a position to encourage and help structure formal alternative assessments.


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Finally, it is interesting to note that both field experiences (VanWeelden & Whipple, 2005; current study) produced the same outcomes. Creating and arranging a successful field-based experience can be a time consuming and logistically challenging endeavor for the university faculty. While the researchers predicted the more diverse experiences preservice teachers had to work with the various subpopulations of students with special needs, the better prepared they would be for later employment situations, the results of this study indicate preservice teachers' attitudes and perceptions increased regardless of how many populations they worked with during the field experience. Ultimately, it seems that any experience working with students with special needs may be sufficient because it is impossible to prepare preservice teachers for every possible situation. Therefore, teacher trainers may not need to incorporate numerous subpopulatons of students with special needs within their field experiences in order for preservice teachers to benefit. Future researchers, however, may want to investigate the need for training preservice MTs in developing alternative assessments for as many different populations as possible, based on their abilities to break down a task, paired with knowledge of various populations of individuals with special needs, in order to most ably assist music educators in this common consultation task and very important element of student intervention. References Bradley, D. F., & Calvin, M. B. (1998). Grading modified assignments: Equity or compromise? Teaching Exceptional Children, 31(2), 24-29. Christiansen, J., & Vogel, J. R. (1998). A decision model for grading students with disabilities. Teaching Exceptional Children, 31(2), 30-35. Darrow, A. A. (1998). Information sharing: Sticks and stones . . . and words can hurt: Eliminating handicapping language. Music Therapy Perspectives, 16{\) 81-83. Darrow, A. A. (2003). Dealing with diversity: The inclusion of students with disabilities in music. Research Studies in Music Education, 21, 48-60. Donahue, K,, & Zigmond, N. (1990). Academic grades of ninth-grade students. Exceptionality, 1, 17-27. Frisque,J., Niebur, L., & Humphreys,J. T. (1994). Music mainstreaming: Pracüces in Arizona. Journal of Research in Music Education, 42, 94-104. Gfeller, K., Darrow, A. A., & Hedden, S. (1990). The perceived effectiveness of mainstreaming in Iowa and Kansas schools./ourna/ of Research in Music Education 38 90-101. Hardman, M. L., Drew, C. J., & Egan, M. W. (2002). Human exceptionality: Sodety, school and family. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

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Schumm, J., & Vaughn, S. (1992). Planning for mainstreamed special education students: Perceptions of general classroom teachers. Exceptionality, 3{2), 81-98. Synder, L., Garriott, P., & Aylor, M. W. (2001). Inclusion confusion: Putting the pieces together. Teacher Education and Spedal Education, 24, 198-207.

VanWeelden, K., & Whipple, J. (2005). Preservice teachers' predictions, perceptions, and actual assessment of students with special needs in secondary general music. Joumal of Music Therapy 42, 200-215. Wilson, B. L. (Ed.). (1996). Models of music therapy interventions in school settings: From

institutions to inclusion. Silver Springs, MD: National Association for Music Therapy. Zigmond, N., Levine, E., & Laurie, T. (1985). Managing the mainstream: An analysis for teacher attitudes and student performance in the mainstream high school programs. Joumal of Learning Disabilities, 19, 535-541.

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