Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
of Social Variables
Raymond A.R. MacDonald and Dorothy Miell
Department of Psychology, Glasgow Caledonian University, Scotland and
Department of Psychology, The Open University, England
are
considered,
as are
Recent advances in the psychology of music literature have begun to emphasise that music is an intensely social activity (Hargreaves & North, 1997). There
is an increasing amount of literature that highlights the key impact which peer
groups, the family, the relationships between teacher and pupil and between
pupils themselves, have upon a childs interest in and knowledge about music
and indeed on their developing personal identity as musical (ONeill, 1997;
Taebel, 1994). This has direct relevance for music education research, as it is
important to consider this wider social context in which children listen to, play
and learn about music when investigating how children respond to different
types of music and to different musical tasks ~(Folkestad, 1998). We are all
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by music in our daily lives (Mertz, 1998) and this exposure as well
experiences with family, friends and in the school setting play an important
role in developing childrens specific musical preferences and abilities.
Consequently, music education research can be enriched by including some
analysis of these influences in developing studies of childrens musicality.
surrounded
as
Socio-cultural
In this paper, however, we want to move beyond the recognition and exploration
of the social context of music making and listening to examine the impact of
social factors at a more micro level. That is, to examine the ways in which
social variables not only provide an important backdrop to what is being
produced when children or adults create and perform music but also the way
in which they directly affect and shape the nature of the interaction and the
music itself. This is to say more than that we need to look at the effect of the
presence of others on a childs or an adults individual performance, but is
to
possible routes towards a common goal (Teasley & Rochelle, 1995). By actively
engaging with each others ideas, modifying and extending them, the children
develop their understanding and their critical thinking skills. This view emphasises the mediating role of cultural tools such as language, computers and, in
the
case we are
come
to know the Other and his points of view, his stories (sic). We learn an
amount not only about the world but about ourselves by discourse
enormous
with Others.
(p.93).
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have attempted to study the ways in which music might be used to communicate
between individuals as they compose or perform.
Another feature of adopting a socio-cultural approach to understanding collaborative working is the importance placed on studying the nature and quality
of the interaction itself. That is, on studying the ease with which children can
establish a shared social reality (Rogoff, 1990), the confidence with which they
offer their own views and the sensitivity to and understanding of the views
and needs of their partner(s) which they show. Where partners or groups have
difficulty in establishing this level of intersubjectivity, research on childrens
problem solving in a number of curriculum areas has shown that they are likely
to be less successful in their work together. We suggest here that this will also
apply to childrens work in music making, since the confidence children feel
with each other might be important in enabling them to offer creative and
imaginative suggestions which would result in new combinations of ideas
which the individuals would not have come up with on their own - clearly
important for creativity. Specifically, we believe that some children who are
already used to working and/or playing together are likely to be particularly
adept at creating and working with intersubjectivity, and thus more successful
in collaborating than children who do not know each other. Indeed there is
some evidence to support this already, suggesting that friends find it easier
than non-friends to establish productive joint working activities (Azmitia &
Montgomery, 1993; Tharp & Gallimore, 1988). However, the relatively little
research concerned with the effects of friendship on childrens collaborative
work has primarily involved studies of childrens mathematical and scientific
reasoning (as indeed is the case with most research on collaborative learning).
It is only recent work (Miell & MacDonald, in press) which has begun to
examine how childrens relationships with each other might affect their creative
partnerships.
A further reason why social relationships might be an important factor to
consider when investigating creative collaborations between young people is
that their friendships are in fact often based around their joint appreciation of
one form or another of music. There are many examples of the importance that
young people place on music. For example, Fitzgerald, Joseph, Hayes and
ORegan (1995) provided experimental evidence showing music listening as the
most preferred leisure activity of adolescents. The vast majority of money spent
by young people on music is another indication of the influence that it has on
their own lives (Frith, 1987; Tarrent, North & Hargreaves, 1999). Zillman and
Gan (1997) suggest that music is a key factor in determining and characterising
friendship between young people. Indeed, these authors suggest that music is
a central part of young peoples identity and as such will play a significant role
in influencing their ongoing social interactions. Of particular importance to the
theme of this special issue is that, in comparison to all other forms of music,
popular music is by far the most important genre of music for young people
(Geter
&
Steisand, 1995).
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or develop ideas together in the same way. The smaller amount of talk
which they produced was characterised by information giving and simple,
unelaborated agreements and disagreements with each other. Sometimes the
music seemed to be played to cover their embarrassment and the lack of talk
between them.
At the individual level, there was some variability amongst the pairs of
children. Specifically, not all the friendship dyads produced high levels of
transactive communication, and similarly two non-friendship pairs produced a
substantial amount of transactive talk. Therefore we suggest that working with
a friend does not necessarily always lead to high levels of transactive communication but, with respect to the pattern of results obtained, working with a friend
does make transactive communication more likely.
Thus it appears from this study that social factors such as friendship are key
variables that influence the nature of childrens interactions - in both the verbal
and musical domains. The musical coding scheme which we developed allowed
us to track interactive processes expressed musically as they occurred in the
composition sessions and holds great promise for future studies of other groups
and pairs collaborating to compose and improvise. Future research could also
focus on the impact that age may have on these results. Indeed, in a study
which extended the findings of the study reported above, we observed that
there was a similar pattern of verbal and musical communication found in
younger children working on a similar but more structured task (MacDonald,
Miell & Mitchell, 2000), but this effect was not observed with older children.
It would also be interesting to investigate the effects of giving children either
longer or more sessions to work on their composition.
up
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period of 18 months. Pre- and post-testing was conducted with the individuals taking part in the workshops to investigate developments in both socialcommunicative abilities and musical skills (i.e. rhythmic awareness, instrumental ability and pitch perception). Analyses were conducted which compared
each individuals performances on these tests with those of a control group of
individuals (also with special needs) who had been involved in non-musical
group activities such as cooking workshops over the same period of time.
Participants in the music workshops not only developed their basic musical
skills over the course of the 18 months but they also improved their performance
on a range of communication skills. Qualitative reports from carers also highlighted the beneficial impact of the workshops for the participants in terms of
their daily living. The carers felt that the music workshop offered an environment where participants could express ideas that were valued and that participants were highly motivated to take part in the workshops as they were enjoying
them. Finding activities that individuals enjoy and are motivated to take part
in were seen as key social objectives for this client group (MacDonald, ODonnell
& Dougall, 1996). The participants in the non-musical group activities did not
show any of these general social and communication skills improvements, and
so it is clear that it was something about participating in the musical interaction,
rather than just being in group activities, that was responsible for these wider
improvements. Once again, adopting a socio-cultural approach to these data,
we would suggest that it is the development and maintenance of a shared social
reality and the co-ordination of activity through communication and musical
participation which accounts for these gains as a result of the music workshops.
The concept of transactive communication and the impact which the music
itself had upon the interactive process is crucial within the SOP context. All
Gamelan workshops begin with a warm up session which involves all participants standing in a circle and participating in rhythmic games. This period is
vital to the success of a workshop as during this period the workshop facilitators
are attempting to set up cohesive group dynamics. The essential element of this
warm up period is the development of a flow of communication between all
participants and the gradual encouragement of more transactive elements in
this communication. It is important for the success of the music that the
facilitators communicate their ideas effectively, since in Gamelan music there
is no conductor present and all musical directions are given by the drummer
(usually the workshop facilitator) who provides musical signals to the other
musicians. The facilitator also has to bring all participants into this process as
the music develops and build on their comments and suggestions as well as
encouraging participants to build on each others views and on those of the
facilitator. This process does not only occur in talk. There are also non-verbal
elements and transactive musical communication evident in the way the music
is developed. Thus in order for the music to develop cohesively all participants
must be monitoring each others talk, actions and music and communicating
effectively with each other through all these channels. These are complex social
skills and, as the results of the post-testing and interviews with carers showed,
once acquired and developed in the context of the workshops these skills
generalised to other contexts and the individuals gained considerable benefit.
Video analysis of the assessment sessions demonstrated that the developments
in communication skills could be linked to developments in joint attention
(ODonnell, MacDonald & Davies, 1999). In this context, joint attention is
defined as a shared focus of attention to the same object by two individuals.
Joint attention is similar to the concept of shared social reality (Rogoff, 1990)
they both involve the need for a shared focus of activity or definition of the
-
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task and
an
partners
or
agreed goal
Educational
are
negotiated through
implications
the profoundly
evident in both
workshops, and in
particular are seen in the communication between creative partners. There
are a number of important educational implications which emerge from the
results of these studies. The key role played by transactive communication
in the childrens collaborative example has obvious utility in terms of enhancing the learning environment of children in classroom settings. We have
shown that transactive communication is a key determinant of how well
children can collaborate together in school music activities, thus teachers
should seek to create learning environments that facilitate the use of transactive
communication.
Many teachers would not place friends together in work settings as they
believe that friends would talk too much and that this talk might be characterised
as off task. However, although our collaborative composition study found that
friends do indeed talk more than non-friend pairs their talk was not at all offtask but was wholly focused on the task in hand, was very transactive (and
therefore productive) and did not stop the children also playing more music
than the non-friends. Furthermore these compositions were rated as being of
better quality than the children working in non-friend pairs.
It is perhaps interesting to speculate as to why the friends might work together
well on this task. Friends have experience of taking each others perspective
and engaging in joint planning (Hartup, 1996) and they also have a history of
shared experiences. They typically monitor each others talk and actions closely
and resolve any disagreements which emerge (Garvey & Shantz, 1992; Pellegrini,
Galda & Flor, 1997). Also, since the children are emotionally invested in each
other and in the progress of their relationship they are likely to have more
invested in the success of their interactions and in supporting each others
work and self-esteem. The study reported above (Miell & MacDonald, in press)
did find evidence that children with less experience of musical training were
more enabled to ask questions and make suggestions when working with a
friend, which suggests that issues of confidence and willingness to take risks
might be useful ones to explore further when investigating participation in
musical activities. In order to be able to collaborate effectively Hakkinen (in
press) suggests that individuals need to have a profound and well established
understanding of each others perspectives and shared interpretations of the
situations at hand. It seems that friends would be in a position to offer these
conditions to the collaborative situation and in turn develop their ideas through
the extended use of transactive communication. Working with a friend may
therefore help because of their established communication strategies, mutual
trust and confidence. It seems that working with others who share goals and
are supportive in this way can facilitate classroom activities that are both
rewarding and educational for the participants.
Researchers and educators should pay attention to a number of linked issues
which will impact on peoples approach to working together on music. For
example, the extent to which people identify themselves as musical, and how
they see their musicality relative to the skills and abilities of the other(s) they
As stated
to
highlight
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are
Future research
this line of research we are currently interested in
but
related areas:
exploring
separate
The first involves investigating ways of improving collaboration in musical
tasks. It is possible to train children to collaborate effectively in other curriculum
areas, primarily by training them to communicate in a more transactive way.
We have a current research proposal which proposes investigating the effects
of training children to collaborate in this way in a creative music making task.
The research investigates effects upon the process of their interactions as well
as the end products of their musical collaborations (both the quality of their
composition and their levels of enjoyment and self-confidence).
The second strand of our future work investigates the effects of informal
learning environments on childrens creative work together and their developing
musical identity. We plan to use video cameras to record young people rehearsing and playing popular music together to study the ways in which these issues
are interlinked.
For both of these proposed projects, further development of the musical
coding scheme will be needed. We are also interested in extending the use of
this system to other musical contexts, e.g. Jazz musicians improvising together
and other studies of performance and compositional/workshop settings.
There are certainly a wide range of potential areas of interest and further
research questions for psychologists interested in developing our understanding
of the intrinsically social nature of music and music teaching.
In terms of
developing
two
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&
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Teasley,
sur
souligner limportance
Kreativitat und
publicaciones
musical han
relacionadas
resaltar la
comenzano a
impacto
de las variables
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musicalidad en desarrollo del nifio, pero aun queda mucho por comprender acerca de esta
influencia. Este trabajo resalta dos proyectos que investigaron aspectos de la naturaleza social
intrinseca de la participaci6n musical. Un estudio investig6 la comunicaci6n (tano verbal
como musical) que tuvo lugar durante las composiciones creadas por amigos y no amigo. El
segundo estudio investig6 los logros musicales y de comunicaci6n de individuos con necesidades especiales que asistieron a un taller sobre Gamelan. Se consideran las implicaciones
educacionales de estos estudios asi como orientaciones para futuras investigaciones.
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