Relationships among nonverbal sensitivity, nonverbal behaviors, and lesson effectiveness in music performance instruction

This study explored nonverbal communication in one-to-one music performance instructional settings by investigating relationships among nonverbal sensitivity, nonverbal behaviors, and lesson effectiveness. The design drew upon categories of nonverbal behaviors identified in other fields and examined the applicability of these various categories to applied music instruction.; Subjects (N = 120) comprised 60 college-level one-to-one music performance teachers and 60 of their non-music major students. The researcher observed and videotaped 60 music lessons. The panel of three external judges all held DMA degrees and had college-level teaching experience in music performance. To determine lesson effectiveness, each lesson was evaluated by teacher, student, observer, and external judges using the Music Lesson Evaluation Form (MLEF). Teacher and student subjects were also administered the Profile of Nonverbal Sensitivity (PONS) to measure their ability to decode nonverbal cues. Frequency, duration, and mean durations for selected teachers' nonverbal behaviors during lessons were determined. For rating teachers' vocal qualities, Descriptors of Voice Quality (DVQ) was used. To establish the reliability of the data, a second trained evaluator was involved in behavior-counting and voice-quality ratings. lnterjudge reliability coefficients ranged from .92 to .99.; The results indicated that there was a gap in perception of lesson effectiveness between teachers and students, while suggesting that external judges may be a fairly reliable source for evaluation of one-to-one music performance instruction. Teachers' scores on the PONS correlated with effectiveness ratings by their students. Students' PONS scores were significantly correlated with students' evaluations of lesson effectiveness for the factor “rapport” and the total. Except for duration of teachers' hand gestures, none of the teachers' nonverbal behaviors was significantly correlated with teachers' PONS scores.; A post hoc investigation of gender was conducted. Considering all 60 pairs of teachers and students, nonsignificant relationships were found between teachers' nonverbal behaviors and total evaluation scores of lesson effectiveness rated by teachers, students, and judges. Taking gender into consideration, different results were found. Gender was not found to be a significant source of variance for teachers' PONS scores. Female students, however, scored significantly higher on the PONS than did males.