An examination of Iowa high school instrumental band directors' assessment practices and attitudes toward assessment.

摘要

This study examined the types and frequency of assessment methods used by Iowa high school band directors and their attitudes toward such assessment, as well as examined the effects of selected teacher background variables on teachers' attitudes toward assessment. These attitudes and assessment methods were determined utilizing the Survey of Band Directors Attitude Toward Assessment (SBDAA) developed by the researcher. Of the 200 band directors randomly surveyed from the 400 high schools listed in the 1988--99 Iowa High School Music Association's membership list, 154 surveys (77%) were returned.; Band directors in Iowa indicated that the assessment practices which they used most often were related to the psychomotor task of playing an instrument. The other five assessment practices identified by Iowa band directors as being used most often included: contest ballots, concert attendance, teacher observation, student discussion and sight-reading. The emphasis of the instructional process in Iowa band rooms seems to be clearly on performance learning and not on cognitive or affective learning. The subjects also indicated a mildly positive attitude toward assessment (M = 24.79) on the forty-five item attitude section of the SBDAA. ANOVAS and hierarchal regression techniques were used to explore the effects and relationships of the personal (teaching experience, education, age and gender) and institutional variables (school size, class length, academic credit status, grading practices, and instructional support) on attitude toward assessment. It was found that all comparisons and effects were not significant, except for a significant difference between directors' mean scores in the Class A and Class 1A schools. Further, little correlation between the overall attitude scores and the various assessment practices utilized was found. Only one comparison, sight-reading frequency and attitude scores (r = -.190), was significant. Through additional analysis, a significant curvilinear relationship was shown to exist between high school teaching experience and attitude towards assessment when using the administrative subscale of the attitude measure. Directors with the least and most teaching experience had higher attitude scores than directors with 10--25 years of teaching experience.