The relationship between home music environment, including both parent and sibling responses, and enrollment in an elementary instrumental program

The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of the home musical environment on participation in the elementary instrumental program. The problem of the study was to compare the musical home environment of fourth and fifth grade students who are enrolled in an elementary instrumental program versus those who are not. Surveys were sent home with all 195 children in the fourth and fifth grade at an elementary school in southern New Jersey. The first section of the survey, which used a Likert-type scale, was completed by a parent. The second section of the survey, which used semantic differential options, was completed by an older sibling than the child at the elementary school. Families were given one week to return the surveys. After the one week period, additional surveys were resent to the families who had not responded. The data for each dimension of the rating scale set (parent, sibling, and home) and the composite rating for the total set were organized into three one-dimensional designs for differences. For both the sibling and parent surveys, statistically significant differences were found in favor of instrumental students. However, the researcher failed to find statistically significant differences for the overall home environment