The effects of three ratios of positive to negative instances in a musical concept learning task were studied using 36 second-grade classrooms. The ratios studied were 5:1, 2:1, and 1:2 positive to negative instances. The concepts studied were ascending melody, even duration, and bassoon. No significant effects on gain scores were found for ratio or concepts, and the amount of gain due to learning was less than 1 item on a 24-item test. It was concluded that current methods of teaching elementary musical concepts, like those examined in the present study, are ineffective and should be rethought.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Andress, B., & Boardman, E. (1981). The music book (Book 2). New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
2.
Bourne, L. E. (1966). Human conceptual behavior.Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
3.
Bourne, L. E., Dominowski, R. L., & Loftus, E. F. (1979). Cognitive processes.Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
4.
Bourne, L. E., Ekstrand, B. R., & Dominowski, R. L. (1971). The psychology of thinking.Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
5.
Bourne, L. E., & Guy, D. E. (1968). Learning conceptual rules, II: The role of positive and negative instances.Journal of Experimental Psychology, 77, 488–494.
6.
Campbell, D. T., & Stanley, J. (1963). Experimental and quasi-experimental designs for research on teaching. In N. L. Gage (Ed.), Handbook of research on teaching (pp. 171–246). Chicago: Rand McNally.
7.
Carver, R. P. (1978). The case against statistical significance testing.Harvard Educational Review, 48, 378–399.
8.
Clark, D. C. (1971). Teaching concepts in the classroom.Journal of Educational Psychology, 62, 253–278.
9.
Courtis, S. A. (1949). The rate of growth makes a difference.Phi Delta Kappan, 50, 316–323.
10.
Crook, E., Reimer, B., & Walker, D. (1981). Silver Burdett music (Book 2). Morristown, NJ: Silver Burdett.
11.
Fryatt, M. J., & Tulving, E. (1963). Interproblem transfer in identification of concepts involving positive and negative instances.Canadian Journal of Psychology, 17, 106–116.
12.
Haack, P. A. (1972). Use of positive and negative examples in teaching the concept of musical style.Journal of Research in Music Education, 20, 456–46.
13.
Hovland, C. I., & Weiss, W. (1953). Transmission of information concerning concepts through positive and negative instances.Journal of Experimental Psychology, 45, 175–182.
14.
Hudgins, B. B. (1977). Learning and thinking.Itaska, IL: F. E. Peacock.
15.
Klausmeier, H. J., Sterrett, B. E., Frayer, D. A., Lewis, S. B., Lee, V. W., & Bavry, J. L. (1969). Concept learning: A bibliography 1950-1967 (Tech. Rep. No. 82).
16.
Madison, WI: Wisconsin Research and Development Center for Cognitive Learning.
17.
Markle, S. M. (1975). They teach concepts, don't they?Educational Researcher, 4, 3–9.
18.
Marsh, M. V., Rinehart, C., & Savage, E. (1983) The spectrum of music (Level 2). New York: Macmillan.
19.
Rosch, E. H. (1973). Natural categories.Cognitive Psychology, 4, 328–350.
20.
Shumway, R.J. (1971). Negative instances in mathematical concept learning: A preliminary study.Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 2, 218–227.
21.
Shumway, R. J. (1974a). Negative instances in mathematical concept acquisition: Transfer effects between the concepts of commutativity and associativity.Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 5, 197–211.
22.
Shumway, R. J. (1974b). Negative instances and the acquisition of the mathematical concepts of commutativity and associativity.Educational Studies in Mathematics, 5, 301–315.
23.
Shumway, R. J. (1977). Positive versus positive and negative instances in the acquisition of the concepts of distributivity and homomorphism.Journal of Structural Learning, 4, 331–348.
24.
Shumway, R. J., & White, A. L. (1977) Prevalent levels of irrelevant attributes: A potentially important variable in mathematical concept learning. Unpublished manuscript, Ohio State University, Columbus.
25.
Smoke, K. L. (1933). Negative instances in concept learning.Journal of Experimental Psychology, 16, 583–588.
26.
Tagatz, G. E., Meinke, O. C., & Leinke, E. A. (1968). Developmental aspects relative to information processing and concept attainment.Journal of Genetic Psychology, 113, 253–262.
27.
Tennyson, R. D. (1973). Effect of negative instances in concept acquisition using a verbal learning task.Journal of Educational Psychology, 64, 247–260.
28.
Winer, B.J. (1971). Statistical principles in experimental design.New York: McGraw-Hill.
