An investigation of the effects of regularly employed melodic dictation tasks on the sight-singing skills of high school choral students

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of regularly employed melodic dictation tasks on the sight-singing skills of high school choral students. The questions the researcher sought to answer were: (1) Is there a significant difference in test scores for sight-singing skills between high school choral students who participate in regularly employed melodic dictation tasks and those who do not? (2) Does membership in a beginning or advanced choir have a relationship to the effects of regularly employed melodic dictation tasks on high school choral students' sight-singing skills?Both sight-singing and melodic dictation require skill in pitch perception. While sight-singing requires skill in transferring visual symbol to vocal sound, melodic dictation requires skill in transferring sound to visual symbol. Both activities involve the skill of recognizing pitch relationships contained within a melody. It is this commonality that spurred this study's investigation. Ultimately, conducting this study sought to contribute data that may be used to improve sight-singing skills among high school choral students.This experimental study was conducted over a period of 11 weeks. Participants (N = 70) consisted of a convenience sample of 9th through 12 th grade students in two high school mixed choirs. Participants were randomly assigned to either a control group or an experimental group. Prior to treatment, participants individually sight-sang a melody for purposes of assessing sight-singing skill. During the treatment period, all participants were involved in a 9-week period of sight-singing instruction as part of regularly scheduled choir rehearsals occurring 4 times per week. Members of the experimental group also received instruction involving melodic dictation twice per week. During the melodic dictation tasks the control group members were separated from the experimental group. For the posttest, all participants individually sight-sang a different melody than was used for the pretest. Both the pre- and posttests were audio-recorded and scored for sight-singing accuracy. A two-way Analysis of Covariance was used to determine if there was a significant difference in posttest scores between control and experimental-group participants within each choir as well as a significant difference in posttest scores between the two choirs based on the independent variables.