Musical Self identification among selected preadolescents using non verbal communication.
This study focuses on a selected group of preadolescent beginning music students. The research seeks to explain whether the students are able to identify and attach significance to the nonverbal behavior of other music students their age. Three student performers were rated poor, average, and excellent by their teacher and videotaped performing a short 4 minute solo clarinet piece. The video excerpts were shown to a group of 27 music students who ranked the silent performers and determined the level of the performer's proficiency, comfortableness, and enthusiasm. Results showed that there was a high degree of correlation between the manner in which the students perceived the filmed performers and their own self perceptions on the musical ability. The implication of this study lies in further applications for educational and therapeutical use. Other qualifications and future research avenues are suggested.
Within the past two decades, there has been a significant increase in empirical attention within the field of nonverbal communication (Baesler & Burgoon, 1987). In part, this may be due to not only the recognition, but the popular realization that nonverbal behaviors account for a substantial portion of communication between human beings, and that they are important indicators of thought, emotion, attitude, and socialization (Burgoon, 1985; Boice & Monti, 1982). Similarly, nonverbal behaviors become even more interesting when studied in relation to children, since children have a more limited use of vocabulary and hence are not as capable of expressing themselves verbally as an adult might be (Harper, Wiens & Matarazzo, 1978).
For the purposes of this study, it is particularly interesting to note that children often betray their feelings of success or failure within a given behavioral situation through facial and bodily expressio...