Effects of Advance Organizer Instruction on Preschool Children's Learning of Musical Concepts

This study investigated the effects of advance organizer instruction on preschool children's learning (a) of four musical concepts—dynamics, pitch, tempo, and rhythm; (b) according to three modes of representation—enactive (E), iconic (I), and symbolic (S); and (c) three methods of presentation—when musical concepts were presented using a single sound presentation, via a song accompanied by a piano, and via piano alone. Advance organizer instruction (experimental group) was compared to "traditional instruction" (control group). Following instruction, experimental group (E-group) children showed superior understanding of pitch and rhythm and performed significantly better using all three modes of representation of the musical concepts. There were no significant between group differences in performance related to methods of presentation. At posttesting E-group children performed equally well on tasks using enactive and iconic representation and significantly better on such tasks versus those using symbolic representation. Control group (C-group) children's performance with respect to mode of representation was in the order EIS. Compared to pretest performance, on the posttests E-group children significantly improved their performance with respect to pitch and rhythm and in relationship to enactive and iconic representation. At posttest C-group children showed no improvement over their pretest performance.