Patrick Hait
Statistical Summary 

            Students are taught from an early age that it is their responsibility to come to school each day attentive and ready to learn.  They are to have completed the appropriate reading or writing assignments as well as study for any upcoming exams.  As a youngster, throughout my elementary and secondary school experience, it was not in the practice of teachers to ask for feedback from their students regarding their performance.  As a new teacher in the field of music, I feel that it is important to receive feedback and learn new teaching techniques from many sources.  As is the tradition, I depend on my principal, colleagues and current research in the field of education to offer advice as to how I could become a more effective teacher.  I am also curious as to my students’ opinions of my performance as an educator.

I developed a questionnaire in an effort to ascertain my students’ thoughts and feelings about the band program, as well as my effectiveness as a teacher.  This questionnaire contains nine multiple choice and three constructed response questions.  A copy of the form that was distributed to the students can be found at the conclusion of this paper.

The questionnaire was distributed to the sixty-one fourth grade band students who were present at the rehearsal on March 21, 2006.  After a shortened rehearsal, I explained to my students that I was interested in their thoughts and opinions of the band program.  I also told them that this was to be part of a project for college.  I explained to them the importance of their complete honesty throughout the entire questionnaire.

I was pleasantly surprised by many of the students’ responses to the questions that were asked.  Although it is a general question about their overall view of the band program, 92% of the students replied in the affirmative (strongly agree or agree) that they enjoy playing in band.  This leaves me questioning, however, why not everybody likes being a part of the group.  I am fully aware that I will never be able to please everybody, but I found it necessary to investigate exactly why these students dislike the group.  Upon reviewing the data, I noticed that these particular students do not like their instruments and practice between zero and one day per week.  In my aim to become a more effective teacher, I will try be even more attentive to the students who appear to struggle from week to week.

Questions 2, 3 and 6 ask the students if I provide them enough support in their effort to learn to play their instrument and read the music.  The students responded to these questions using a five point system labeled “Strongly Agree, Agree, Neutral, Disagree, Strongly Disagree.”  While discussing the data for this section I will focus on those students who ‘disagreed’ with the statements because I do not consider ‘neutral’ to be a negative remark.  Those students who marked neutral may not have needed extra support to aid their learning.  When asked if I make the music easy to understand, 7% of the class disagreed.  When asked the questions “Mr. H helps me if I have difficulty” and “Mr. H is available for extra help,” only one student (2%) marked ‘disagree’.  Unfortunately, this student did not leave any remarks as to his or her feelings in the free response questions.

Another question that I felt was important was if the student planned on playing his or her instrument for any length of time.  A respectable amount of students answered in the affirmative for these two related questions.  72% of the students replied that they ‘strongly agree’ or ‘agree’ that they will continue to play their instruments through the end of High School.  46% of the students said that they planned on playing their instruments for the rest of their life.  The number students who marked that they plan on continuing playing their instrument through the completion of High School is a relatively high number compared to the attrition rate in my school district.  I plan on following the progress of my band students throughout their school career in an effort to find reasons and possible solutions to the attrition problem.

The free response portion of the questionnaire yielded some useful data as to what the students like and dislike about the band program as a whole.  Interestingly, the number one complaint about the band program is that students do not like it when their peers talk and do not listen.  I addressed this issue at the following band rehearsal and the response was amazing.  The students behaved extremely attentively for the entire rehearsal.  A complete list of all of the student responses, along with tabulated data can be found at the conclusion of this paper.

As I strive to develop myself as an educator, I must be willing to change and adapt.  The data that I collected from my students has allowed me to notice some areas that I should pay more attention to.  Due to some of the students replying that some of the music is ‘way to easy,’ I plan on making sure that each student is appropriately challenged.  This will be possible through a proposed change in scheduling for the 2006-2007 school year.  I also plan on focusing more attention to the students who struggle from week to week to be sure that I am giving them every opportunity to succeed.

Copy of Student Questionnaire

Examples of Student Surveys

Tabulated Data

Data in Graphical Form