THE EFFECT OF ORFF SCHULWERK APPLICATIONS ON PRE-SCHOOL PRE-SERVICE TEACHERS’ SELF-EFFICACY BELIEFS IN MUSIC COMPETENCE
Journal Name:
- Turkish Studies
Keywords (Original Language):
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Abstract (2. Language):
Twentieth century has been the stage of the rise of important music education methodologies and approaches. One of these approaches, Orff Schulwerk is a music education approach developed by German composer and musical instructor Carl Orff (1893-1982), which is used in music classes in Turkey and in the world today. It emphasizes learning through experience. It contains activities intended to reveal the internal dynamism, creative personality and individual phraseology of a person moving, dancing and making music in music education. The Orff approach is basically based on the principle of combining the music, bodily movement and speaking skills around the rhythm element. Hoffer (2002) enumerates the characteristic properties of the Orff Schulwerk as speaking rhythms or rhymes, singing experiences, movement, improvisation, musical instrument, musical reading and traditional music.
Self-efficacy beliefs are a variable frequently addressed in the fields of psychology and pedagogy in recent years. Thus, the importance placed on the self-efficacy beliefs related to people’s abilities, skills and performances in very different fields has reflected on the field of music education as well. Musical self-efficacy is defined as “the evaluations achieved as a result of a person’s comparison of his musical performance with that of other people” by Austin (1990, p. 20). Further, Stipek (1996) defines the musical self-efficacy as the belief which a musician develops in association with his musical ability or his capability of achieving a purpose in music.
Bandura (1997) has developed the theory that a person’s self-efficacy belief for a work forms by being affected four major factors. These categories are employed in the evaluation of personal competences for learning as in the analysis of the content of instruction. Of these, the first one is mastery experiences. These are a person’s beliefs basing upon preliminary information such person has obtained from his previous experiences related to the same work and are the most important source for a person’s knowledge about his own capability. People’s comments basing upon the successful experiences they had in the past are one of the strongest factors in creating a self-efficacy belief for similar experiences they will have in the future. Likewise, any failures experienced reduce the self-efficacy belief. The second factor, i.e. vicarious experiences, is identified as the beliefs which a person gets by observing those people who experience the same work (Bandura 1986, 1997). Successful or unsuccessful teacher models as well as good or bad performances of the others they observe affect their evaluations about their own capabilities. The third factor is identified as persuasive communication and evaluative feedback and defined as the verbal information obtained from one’s surroundings about a person’s competence in that work, the content of the work performed, encouragement and strategies proposed to achieve the work and feedback. Fourthly, people’s psychological and emotional arousal (stress, excitement, level of anxiety, etc.) affect their evaluations about their own competences. The level of such reactions has an affirmative or negative effect on people’s performance in a work. These reactions may give some energy in some cases but may also affect people’s exact use of their skills in cases of extreme anxiety and excitement. Reduction of anxiety and excitement in the work performed over time strengthens the people’s belief in the fact that their competence has increased on that matter (Bandura, 1986).
Continuing to spread in our country, the Orff approach found its way into the Music Class Curriculum for Primary Education Programme in 2006. However, it bears importance how, how much and in what way this method which is extremely suitable for pre-school period will be given to the pre-school teachers who do not have background as music teachers and how the pre-school teachers perceive and use this method. It is important that a pre-school teacher will embrace the music class and believe in its importance and has affirmative competence beliefs as to the fact that he may successfully implement musical activities. At this point, the self-efficacies of teacher candidates of department of Pre-school Teaching for their musical abilities as an intersection of both their musical and non-musical competence beliefs may be considered an important area of competence which may play a role in the instructor achievements in music classes. Although there are studies related top re-school teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs (Gömleksiz and Serhatlıoğlu, 2013; Tepe and Demir, 2012), studies are needed, which have been carried out about the musical abilities of teacher candidates in our country’s conditions. On the other hand, effects of the Orff approach on the development of the self-efficacies of musical abilities of pre-school teacher candidates with its content and philosophy suitable for the pre-school period await studying in our country’s conditions.
This study is, first of all, experimental in terms of the methodology and the nature of the data collected. This study is designed both quantitatively and qualitatively. The quantitative part of the study is patterned as a pre-test and post-test experiment and as a survey with control group. In the qualitative part of this study, it is intended to reveal by what factors the self-efficacy beliefs of teacher candidates are affected and to support it by enhancing the depth of the quantitative data of the study. Working group consists of 116 teacher candidates. Self-Efficacy Scale for Musical Ability (a=.90) has been applied to the groups at the inception and finish of the experimental procedures. In the qualitative aspect of the study, the reflective diaries kept during the process by the students in the test group have been analysed basing upon the four basic factors affecting self-efficacy, namely mastery experiences, vicarious experiences, persuasive communication and evaluativefeedback, physiological and emotional arousal as a theoretical framework.
It has been observed after experimental procedures that the self-efficacy scores of the teacher candidates in the test and control groups do not have any significant difference (t=,593 p>,05). This result fails to correspond to the findings of the studies carried out by Şeker and Bilen (2010) and Scott (2010). Even though the Orff Schulwerk applications and self-efficacy beliefs have been addressed in the said studies, the differences possessed by such methodological variables as participant qualifications, experimental procedures, measuring tools, time, etc. may be considered among the possible causes of this inconsistence. Despite there is no statistically significant difference, it is remarkable that the test group has achieved a higher average and that the difference between the pre-test and post-test scores is higher as compared to the other group. When one studies the qualitative data obtained from the study, it may be concluded that the mastery experiences which they experience most are effective in the improvement of the self-efficacy beliefs of the teacher candidates in the test group. This is followed by the vicarious experiences and finally evaluative feedback and psychological/emotional reactions respectively. It is extremely important to arrange the content of the lesson to provide both direct and vicarious experiences with sufficient opportunity and to include the evaluation stage into the process at the end of the studies at all times. Mastery and vicarious which the teacher candidates have experienced show parallelism with Orff Schulwerk applications’ objectives of strengthening the sense of community, comprehending the musical organisation, perceiving music as an art, improving the musical independence, rising the personal musical development, refining the performance abilities and enhancing self-confidence (Chosky, 2001).
According to the results obtained in this study, pre-school teacher candidates have been provided with opportunities for preparing infrastructure for theoretical classes and practices, allowing teacher candidates to practice themselves, watch the practices of their friends and eventually assess such practices in the programme applied in the context of their education. The fact that the teacher candidates have mentioned their direct experiences most in the feedback they have provided shows the importance of the performed practices in the improvement of their self-efficacies for music. The fact that the participants are actively engaged in music as per the nature of the Orff Schulwerk applications enables them to shake off any music-related fears, shyness and restlessness which have remained from the pre-application period and to have more confidence in themselves. Other factors have a great contribution to the improvement of these competences. In this context, teacher candidates should be provided with opportunities by which they may gain both their direct and indirect experiences; teacher candidates should be encouraged through constructive feedback, thus making some contribution to the reduction of their reactions such as anxiety, fear and excitement. In order to be able to provide qualified music education in the pre-school teaching programmes, physical conditions should be improved, material deficiencies supplemented and practical opportunities given more place in education. Nevertheless, studies on the matter should be maintained, and the effect of the Orff Schulwerk applications on the music applications of pre-school teacher candidates in pre-school institutions and their effect on the musical, cognitive, affective, psychomotor and social improvement of teacher candidates at pre-school institutions should be investigated.
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Abstract (Original Language):
Bu araştırmanın amacı, 20. yüzyılın önemli müzik eğitimi yaklaşımlarından biri olan Orff Schulwerk uygulamalarının okulöncesi öğretmen adaylarının müzik yeteneklerine yönelik özyeterlik düzeyleri üzerindeki etkilerinin ortaya çıkarılmasıdır. Çalışma grubu 116 öğretmen adayından oluşmaktadır. Araştırmada nitel ve nicel veri toplama teknikleri bir arada kullanılmıştır. Araştırmanın nicel kısmı öntest-sontest deney ve kontrol gruplu araştırma desenindedir. Gruplara denel işlemlerin başlangıç ve bitişinde Müzik Yeteneğine Yönelik Özyeterlik Ölçeği (a=.90) uygulanmıştır. Araştırmanın nitel boyutunda deney grubundaki öğrencilerin süreç boyunca tutukları yansıtıcı günlükler kuramsal çerçeve olarak özyeterliği etkileyen dört temel faktör olan doğrudan deneyimler, dolaylı deneyimler, ikna edici iletişim ve değerlendirici dönüt, fizyolojik ve duygusal reaksiyonlar esas alınarak analiz edilmiştir. Araştırmada denel işlemler sonrasında deney ve kontrol gruplarının müzik yeteneklerine yönelik özyeterlikleri arasında anlamlı farklılık bulunmamaktadır (t=,593 p>.05). Bununla birlikte elde edilen nitel verilerden öğretmen adaylarının uygulamalar sürecinde özyeterliklerinin geliştiğini ve gelişiminde en fazla doğrudan deneyimlerinin etkili olduğundan bahsettikleri anlaşılmıştır. İkinci sırada dolaylı deneyimleri ve son olarak değerlendirici dönüt ve psikolojik / duygusal tepkiler etkili olmuştur. Dersin içeriğinin hem doğrudan hem dolaylı deneyimlere yeterince fırsat verecek şekilde düzenlenmesi ve çalışmalar sonunda değerlendirme aşamasının her zaman sürece dâhil edilmesinin önemi büyüktür.
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