Researching trainee teachers' learning: a musical experiment

Piagetian stage theory suggests that thinking becomes more abstract as people move through developmental stages. It can therefore be assumed that trainee teachers do not need to be actively involved in classroom activities, such as learning songs, but can instead learn about learning songs in a more theoretical way. In this research 146 trainee teachers were taught a song in three ways; one group through active involvement in the song, one group by watching and listening to the song and one group by listening only. The results show a significant difference between the group that was actively involved and the other two groups. When the trainee teachers were given these results, they suggested explanations by reference to their knowledge of learning styles, but without engaging in the difficulties engendered by this explanation