CONCLUSIONS
At first sight, the outcomes of this research are unremarkable: students struggled with an aspect of their music examination, I taught them some strategies for improving their performance, and the evidence demonstrated improvement. The factors influencing their improvements appeared to include the strategies I taught, and the ability to practice these strategies, individually, at a computer. (This was gratifying because I had been somewhat anxious that they would be unable to transfer their learning to examination conditions, where no computer was allowed.)
However, a more detailed examination of the data reveals a more complex picture for, although I had taught the strategies as a whole system, expecting the students to use each strategy sequentially, none did. Instead, they saw the strategies as individual suggestions, and they employed those they thought they could use. In my observation, only one student used the major strategy of drawing the melody in the air. (This might have been because the observed students were the last to complete the task, and possibly the ones who found it most difficult.) Furthermore, some students chose different strategies from the ones I had taught them. It seems that they already had some ways of approaching the question and, even if they were not particularly successful, they were reluctant to abandon them.
This suggests that, although I had presented the students with a systematic means to answer the question, they actually used more haphazard approaches. I suspect that this might reflect the way in which students think about tasks generally; whether learning music, playing computer games or constructing things, they prefer not to follow detailed instructions. The haphazard approaches they adopted effected considerable improvement, although it is notable that no student gained full marks in the post-test; perhaps attaining full marks requires a willingness to be more systematic than these students were. If I were continuing this work, I would want to set some students the challenge of getting full marks, and investigate how this was achieved.
I have termed this study an ‘intervention study’ because the research design was a study of a single, simple intervention. As such it did not meet some of the conditions commonly thought to apply to action research. As a visitor to the school, I cannot be said to be an ‘insider’ and did not know the students (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1993). My focus was not self-study, (e.g. Whitehead & McNiff, 2006) nor was there a critical engagement with political and social contexts (e.g. Carr & Kemmis, 1986). Although I collaborated with the HoM and with the students, there was not a real attempt to create a community of researchers (McNiff, 2002).
However, I have learned lessons that might inform music teachers. Computers with audio files can help students to listen to music: they enable individuals to focus on specific passages, listening several times, gaining familiarity with the music and completing tasks (such as notating music) in their own time. Such an approach could be applied to other tasks involving listening and analysis. Systematic instructions, such as the ones I provided, enabled students to increase their scores, although they used these instructions in a haphazard manner. A knowledge of students’ haphazard learning approaches might enable teachers to negotiate their way along the continuum between haphazard and structured learning for, as Friedman (1990) says, ‘the danger of applying a highly structured approach to ear training is that the naming process for intellectualizing will block immediacy of apprehension, and that the structuring process will be a handicap rather than an aid’ (p. 3).
Finally, the research process, requiring the students to tell me about their learning, gave both me and them a deeper understanding of their learning. This suggests that intervention studies might generate more sophisticated understandings of students’ learning strategies in music, than we currently possess.