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A Study On Music Technology

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In his doctoral dissertation for Northwestern University Jay Dorfman went into some variables that we must consider when doing this study, the first of which is prior musical experience. Everyone does not come in to a music program with the same prior knowledge and it must be accounted for. In his study he asked students to list their prior experience in music, whether it be playing an instrument or singing. The second is general technology experience. Just like with music experience we cannot discount the fact that some students might have different levels of familiarity with technology which may encourage or discourage their use of the technology which could impact the final evaluations of the study. The third thing that Dorfman said we …show more content…

Fung (2003) found that, in a sample of pre-service music education majors, males (n = 50) demonstrated greater familiarity with fourteen types of computer applications than did their female counterparts (n = 85). McGrath (2004) suggested: A good deal more research is needed on the factors that encourage both girls and boys to accomplish greater fluency with the technologies available to them and to be able to use them to benefit their understanding of the subjects they are studying. (p. 31) In relation to the present study, the group at Stevenson High School that experienced the guided learning condition was entirely female. Since the students were selected by the cooperating teachers, there was no way for the researcher to control for this variable. Future research might examine the relationship between gender and learning styles, and the effects of both on achievement in music technology-based tasks.”(Dorfman 2006)
Despite the lack of statistical significance yielded from the main and interaction effects of this study, trends in performance were recognized that implied a degree of practical significance. In particular, students whose self-report measures categorized them as Abstract Random learners showed interesting deviations. Teaching music with technology is lent legitimacy from the results of this study because students who brought varying learning styles and experiences, and who were exposed to

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