A Study of Music Listening Processes Through the Verbal Reports of School-Aged Children
The main research problem was to examine music listening processes through the verbal reports of school-aged children, as they hear extended example of “real” music. Toward addressing this problem, five research questioned were defined: (1) What categories emerge from an analysis of the concurrent, free-form verbal responses of children? (2) In the analysis of verbal reports, is there evidence of changes in listening processes as children become older? Specifically, are differences apparent in the responses of 2nd-, 5th-, 8th-, and 11th-grade children? (3) How do patterns of music listening development, as revealed in question two, compare to other developmental theories in arts and music education? (4) What do the verbal reports of children suggest about the effects of gender and musical background upon the development of music listening? (5) After giving a concurrent verbal report, what are children able to describe when asked to reflect upon their approach to music listening?
Empirical and theoretical literature on music listening, developmental theories, and verbal reports was reviewed. Using verbal protocol analysis, verbal data was collected during 30-minute individual sessions with 17 randomly-selected children. The 17 boys and girls, with and without musical background, were instructed to speak freely while six extended musical examples of varying styles were played. Afterwards, the children were asked to reflect upon their listening processes in a semi-structured interview.
From the verbal reports, 17 categories of responses emerged which were grouped into six clusters. The data revealed that the older children differed from the younger children in both the quantity and quality of their verbal report. The general pattern of development paralleled other developmental theories, although there was a wide range of developmental differences within grades.
The boys gave contrasting verbal reports from the girls, but their listening processes did not appear to differ. Children who studied privately or participated in school ensembles responded to the examples more accurately and musically. When asked to reflect upon their listening processes, the children were able to address a number of issues about their approach to music listening.
Nine conclusions and a series of recommendations for further research and practice were given.