Music Teacher's Helper Blog

I have not long completed my Honours Dissertation at the Conservatorium of Qld, Australia. Part of my dissertation was a study aiming to discover how much diversity we might expect to find in learning styles in students at one private piano studio. I thought I would share the results here as a reminder of just how open-minded and flexible we need to stay in our approach. Each of our students is unique and if we find ourselves frustrated or running low on patience, we may just need to remind ourselves to step into our students shoes and see things from their perspectives.

Investigating Student Learning Styles

This study involved two bodies of participants – adult students and parents of young students from one piano studio. These two age groups were determined by the students currently enrolled at the piano studio in question, and both groups comprised of beginner-level students up grade three. It was not possible to justify the inclusion of young people in the research, in accordance with booklet 24, section 3.0 of the Griffith University Research Ethics Manual (2007), due to the students being dispensable. This is because it was possible for parents to answer questions relating to their children. As Golay (as cited in Baker-Jordan, 2004, p. 153) explains, parents have the answers regarding their children’s behaviours, thus the questions should be directed to them. Therefore the answers given by the parents are assumed to be representative of their children.

Learning styles were uncovered in this study through the use of self-inventories and questionnaires. Due to the small scale of this project, the questionnaires were distributed within the framework of one private piano studio only. At the time distribution, the studio had an enrolment of 18 adult students and 10 young students.

The questionnaires were distributed via email to both groups – adult students and parents of young students. For the purpose of maintaining ethical anonymity, completed questionnaires were posted back to the studio. A total of 11 out of 18 responses were received from the adults and a total of 8 out of ten responses were received from parents of the children, resulting in a 68% response rate overall.

Adults

Two separate questionnaires were emailed to adult students. The first of these was the Visual, Auditory and Kinaesthetic (VAK) survey, retrieved from http://nwlink.com/~donclark/hrd/styles/vak.html.[2] This website explains how the survey was structured and gives directions on scoring and interpreting the results, thus removing subjectivity. The questions on the website were grouped according to modality so, as recommended, their order was mixed up prior to distribution to prevent participants anticipating their results, and thus removing this bias.

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator used was also sourced via the internet, at http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes2.asp.[3] While there are a great number of tests available online, the reason for using this questionnaire was that results are calculated by the website, removing the chances of human error in the interpretation process.

Young students

Two questionnaires relating to children’s learning styles were sent to parents. They included true/false questions pertaining to VAK preferences, which were downloaded from http://www.learningstyles.net/,[4] and Golay’s Learning Pattern Assessment, taken from his book Learning patterns & temperament styles.[5] Golay’s questionnaire was used as opposed to the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, as the questions are relevant for children. Golay’s book also gave instructions on calculating results, once again, eliminating guess-work or human error. The VAK responses were true or false, which after understanding the literature, were easily interpreted.

Analysis of Data

Adult VAK Survey Results

VAK surveys aim to discover a person’s dominant modality. The survey used for this study consisted of a total of 36 questions, with 12 questions for each modality preference. For each question the participant was required to read a statement and answer how relevant the statement was to them using the following guide:

Participants’ modality strengths were calculated by tallying the answers to the questions relating to each modality. As there were 12 questions for each modality, the minimum score possible was 12 and the maximum score possible was 60, in accordance with the above guide. All questions were answered by participants.

The results showed that:

• 46% of participants are visually dominant;
• 27% are auditory dominant;
• 9% are kinaesthetically dominant.
• 18% of participants share two modalities as their top preference, with visual as common between them.

This indicates that the visual modality was certainly the most predominant within this study, while kinaesthetic was least dominant. This trend cannot be identified for adult students in general due to its qualitative nature. Table 9 shows the hierarchy of participants’ preferences:

Table 9

Adult VAK preferences

This indicates that four participants had the same order of preference as V A K, and two participants had the same order of preference A V K. The other five participants’ preferences show no trend.

To portray a more succinct picture of the data gathered through the questionnaires, the following table shows participants’ scores.

Table 10

Adult VAK scores

As Figure 2 and Table 9 depict, there are no extreme ranges within the scores, with all participants’ scores falling between 24 and 48. It is also interesting to note the following:

• There are no specific trends between each participant’s scores. This indicates that each participant is unique in their modality preferences within this study.
• The difference between scores of all three modalities per participant indicates the proximity of dominance between the modalities. Each participant’s rang encompasses five points to 22 points. This indicates that some participants have a higher multi-modal preference than others.
• When comparing Table 9 with Table 10, even when participants have the same hierarchy of preferences, their scores differ, indicating that each participant in this study is unique in the modality strengths.

While participants may have a dominant modality, i.e. one score higher than the

others, the other modalities are also present, albeit to varying degrees. Thus, it can be concluded that within this study results support a multi-modal approach.

MBTI Results for Adult Students

While the above demonstrates the modality preferences of participants, the Myers Briggs Type Indicator aims to discover general personality attributes of an individual in order to determine their personality type. The test used for this study was a self-inventory that consisted of 72 yes-no questions, enabling participants to make definite decisions regarding their behaviours. There are four categories that this self-inventory determines: Extrovert/Introvert; Sensing/Intuition; Thinking/Feeling; and Judging/Perceiving. The results indicate the preferences of participants in each of the four categories, as well as the strength of each preference, given as a percentage. As explained in chapter two, these preferences are part of a continuum rather than an either/or scenario.

Answers to the self-inventory were inputted into the MBTI test website for each participant in order to retrieve accurate interpretations. Table 11 shows participants’ preferences, as well as their strengths and their full personality types. The following table shows the comparative strengths of preferences between each participant.

Table 11

Adult MBTI preferences, strengths and personality types

There is a vast diversity of preference strengths amongst the eleven participants. It is interesting to note the following:

• Each category is evident as a strength. This indicates that even within a small private studio, the teacher needs to cater to all types of personality.
• Seven of the 16 possible personality combinations are evident among these 11 participants.
• Preference strengths range from 51% to 98%.
• 27% of participants have the personality type ENFP
• Another 27% have the type INFJ.
• Even when personality types are the same, strength percentages differ,[6] indicating that no one adult student at this studio is exactly the same as another.

Table 12  summarises the data to show the number of students dominant in each category:

Table 12

Percentage of participants dominant in each type

The above table identifies an even stronger trend between Sensing/Intuition and Thinking/Feeling in the same sample group, with 82% of participants dominant in Intuition and Feeling. As this study is not quantitative, this does not mean that this trend speaks for adult piano students in general. A study of a larger magnitude would be of interest to see if a certain personality type is more drawn to the study of piano than others.

As the literature in chapter two indicated, each person has part of every personality type and modality preference in their make-up. This was evident for 100% of participants.

Young Students VAK Results

The VAK questionnaire relating to children consisted of ten true/false questions, which were downloaded from the website http://www.learningstyles.net/. There were three questions pertaining to each sensory modality, as well as a general question asking if the child likes mixed learning methods. The table and figure below indicate the number of times ‘true’ was answered in each category for each child. The score for each is out of three.

Table 13

Young Students’ VAK preferences

From the above, it can be noted that:

• Kinaesthetic preferences were consistently high for each young student, with scores of two or three true answers for each young child.
• Results in the other modalities were mixed.
• Only two out of the eight young students have one modality with their highest score.
• Six out of the eight young students shared their top score in two categories, indicating a shared dominance.

With regards to the extra question, every answer was affirmative that their children liked to learn in multiple ways. This, as well as the above dot points, supports the multi-modal approach identified in chapter two. There were not enough participants within this study to categorically state whether or not children predominantly have a preferred modality, however, they certainly do within this piano studio.

Golay’s Learning Pattern Assessment

Whilst the VAK questionnaire uncovered young children’s modality preferences, Golay’s Learning Pattern Assessment tool aims to discover students’ dominant temperament types. The questionnaire used in this study comprised of 40 questions. For each question, parents were required to read a statement and answer how relevant the statement was to their child in accordance with the following guide:

In order to interpret results, a score table was supplied indicating which of the questions pertained to which temperament type. It was then possible to total the score for each type. The higher the number scored, the stronger the preference of that temperament. The table and figure below show the results of each young student:

Table 14

Young students’ Learning Pattern Assessment scores

Possible results for each temperament type range from zero to 50, in accordance with the answer guide. With this in mind, the above graph indicates that:

• Within this study, the lowest result for a type was 20 and the highest was 45, indicating that all temperament types were apparent in each child.
• There were only 14 to 20 points separating the temperament scores within each child.
  • The above graph of these results clearly shows the close proximity of the four types within each individual child.
  • Of the 32 individual scores, only six were below the mid-point of 25, showing that each child has a medium to strong predisposition for each type.
  • Each of the scores under 25, except one, was in the Ape category.
  • The highest scores were predominantly in the Bear and Owl categories, except for one in the Dolphin category.

Just as with the adult results, this is only a very small sample group and cannot be considered the standard of all children studying piano.

Due to a lack of strong dominance in any one temperament type for each participant, it could be argued that teachers may not necessarily worry about catering to specific types for the students in this study, as it appears that each student could potentially learn well in any scenario. Conversely, it could be argued that all types of temperament need to be catered to for each child, in order to appeal to all their possible preferences. The latter of these views is supported by the literature in chapter two.

This chapter has demonstrated the use of self-inventories and questionnaires in order to uncover students’ VAK preferences and personality/temperament types, using VAK questionnaires, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, and Golay’s Learning Pattern Assessment. Through a qualitative study, it has demonstrated that even within one small private piano studio, the range of student types may be quite diverse. The following chapter will discuss the outcomes and implications of this research project, as well as possible further research that could lead on from this.

Following blogs will look closely at different learning style tests – what they reveal and how that information is useful to music teachers.