Rhythm Pattern Discrimination by Primary School Students

Ascertaining the most effective modes of presenting rhythmic information to students is extremely important in order to facilitate rhythm training. This study examines the effects of different bimodal presentations of rhythmic information on the discrimination of rhythm patterns by primary school students. A 2 × 2 factorial design was conducted with two variables -- audiovisual and audio-textual -- each using two levels (static and dynamic). Four experimental conditions were designed: (1) static audiovisual, (2) dynamic audiovisual, (3) static audio-textual and (4) dynamic audio-textual. Data were collected by administering a rhythmic discrimination test to intact classes in second grade (N = 83; 40 boys and 43 girls; 7-8 years old; medium socio-economic level) at two public primary schools from Comunitat Valenciana, Spain. Fourteen rhythmic patterns were presented to each group in each condition. Each pattern was played three consecutive times. The test consisted of comparing the third presentation of each pattern to the first two presentations -- thereby exposing the sample pattern -- and deciding whether the third was the same or not. The following covariates were measured: age, previous rhythmic skills, musicians in the family environment, out-of-school music studies and grades earned in music school classes during the previous year. The test scores show significant statistical differences between dynamic audiovisual and static audio-textual (g = 1.25), as well as between dynamic audio-textual and static audio-textual (g = 0.90). Furthermore, the audiovisual presentation mode was superior to its audio-textual counterpart (g = 0.46) and the findings showed that the dynamic presentations were more effective than the static ones (g = 0.69). The implications for teaching and learning rhythm are discussed.