Predicting Aural Performance in a Tertiary Music Training Programme

Abstract

Selection of students for entry to tertiary music training programmes is a difficult task traditionally undertaken by painstaking individual auditions, perhaps under highly variable local conditions as the selection team moves from region to region. A number of musical aptitude batteries have been developed but do not appear to have been widely embraced largely because of poor predictive validity. In the present study, a battery of tests designed to assess aural skills, an important component of musical training, was developed by a team of psychologists and musicians at the University of Southern Queensland (USQ). The battery consisted mostly of tests of pitch discrimination and intonation. All students (N = 91) currently enrolled in the Music Programme at USQ completed the musical tests. A regression model was then constructed using test scores as independent variables and students' end of semester aural training performance scores as the dependent variable. The resulting model accounted for 36% of the variance in scores on final exam results, a result well beyond chance expectations. Further testing with a revised version of the battery is under way.