Performance Achievement and Analysis of Teaching during Choral Rehearsals

Abstract

Eighty-three rehearsals and four final performances of two high schools' beginning and advanced choruses were videotaped to identify rehearsal behaviors and to evaluate performance achievement in relation to performance preparation. Teacher academic and social instruction, student nonperformance response, rated (5-point scale) performance response with and without teacher verbal assistance, and teacher feedback were observed. Variables were measured in real time and converted to percentages of rehearsal time. Additionally, frequencies of teaching sequences were identified for each rehearsal. Review of improvements in the quality of performance for each school indicated a similarity in proximity to the final performance between beginning and advanced choruses. Considering this observation, variables were calculated for means between points of achievement. Findings indicate that (a) teachers pace improvement unrelated to ensemble maturity, (b) time spent in teacher verbalization may not relate to performance success, (c) teacher assistance during student practice decreases with student improvement, and (d) instructions decrease with student improvement.