The Effect of Instruction on Sixth Grade Band Students’ Abilities to Self-Rate Etude Performance

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of rating scale instruction on self-evaluation accuracy among student musicians. Sixth grade band students (N = 36) from a Midwestern state performed and recorded an original etude and then critically evaluated their own rhythmic accuracy using a researcher-constructed rating scale. Control and treatment groups were then created using an expert panel’s evaluation of the recorded etudes. One week later, the treatment group received instruction in how to use the rating scale and then rated their original recorded performances again. The control group received no training but also rated their etudes a second time. Inter-judge reliability, control and treatment group correlations, means, standard deviations, and standard errors of measurement were calculated using Pearson product-moment correlations. Results indicated that rating scale instruction was more effective than no rating scale instruction in helping students improve self-rating accuracy. While the control group tended to rate themselves the same during the second listening, the treatment group tended to rate themselves more critically. Additionally, the treatment group’s tendency to rate closer to the experts’ ratings suggests that rating scale instruction may not only benefit students’ self-evaluation accuracy, but may also be a practice strategy toward improving students’ independent musicianship