What's new in pedagogy research?(Professional Resources)

How effective are your lessons? Thinking back over a recent lesson, how do you judge your performance as a teacher? Most of us would think about what illustrations, demonstrations and exercises were used to fix problems and weaknesses, what we said to encourage and motivate our student and whether the student left with tangible practice goals for the coming week. But there is another area of communication that we often forget--nonverbal; even though we are using this form of communication though our body movements and vocal inflections from the moment we see the student, it is often not recognized as a vital part of the effective lesson. In a recent study titled Nonverbal Communication in One-to-One Music Performance Instruction, (1) Wen Kurkul explored several facets of the nonverbal communication that take place in the private lesson.

A study by Albert Mehrabian in 1972 indicated that one person's liking for another is conveyed 55 percent by kinesic expression (facial expression and body movement), 38 percent by tone of voice and only 7 percent by words. (2) In this study, Kurkul used 60 college-level applied teachers of various instruments (keyboard, voice, winds, strings and percussion) and randomly selected one of their non-music major students. The lesson was recorded by two cameras: one focused directly on the teacher's face and the other encompassing the student and teacher. The researcher personally observed the lesson, and then random 10-minute segments from each lesson were evaluated by three external judges using an instrument specifically designed for non-music major private lessons. This instrument was then modified for use by the teachers and their students for evaluation of the effectiveness of the lesson. Using the videotapes, frequency counts and duration were tabulated for the teachers' eye contact, facial expressions, body movements, touching and vocal qualities. Following the lesson, the teacher and student also took a test (PONS) that measured their ability to decode various facets of nonverbal communication.

When evaluating the data, five general categories were used: rapport, communication, pedagogical skill, instructional organization and general instructional competence. Comparing the teachers' and students' evaluations of lesson effectiveness, there were no significant relationships found for rapport, communication, instructional organization and total lesson effectiveness. Low, but statistically significant, correlations were found only for pedagogical skill and general instructional competence. This indicated that in general, the teachers and students did not agree on the effectiveness of the lesson. Correlations between teachers and the observing researcher were higher than between the students and the researcher, but correlations between the students and the external judges were higher than between teachers and the external judges. (3)

Analyzing the data from frequency and duration of facial expression and body movement, and vocal inflections, there was an extremely high variability between the teachers. (The teachers did not know the direction of the research and had been told to teach in their normal manner.) Kurkul writes:

"Relatively few nonverbal behaviors were significantly correlated with the individual factors of teachers', students', and external judges' evaluations of lesson effectiveness ... It is especially interesting that, for the factor of general instructional competence, teachers who exhibited a longer duration of smile tended to evaluate themselves higher ... and be rated higher by the external judges. Yet the relationship between the duration of smile and students' evaluations of general instructional competence was non-significant." (4)