Effects of movement, tempo, and gender on steady beat performance of kindergarten children

Abstract

The purposes of this research were to discover the effects of manual (hand) and pedal (foot) movements, tempo, and gender on steady beat accuracy. Participants ( N = 119) consisted of male ( n = 63) and female ( n = 56) kindergarten students randomly divided into two groups, counterbalanced with regard to school, homeroom, and gender. Participants performed steady beat by either tapping or stepping on MIDI controllers. Given a visual model, students were asked to synchronize to the steady beat of musical examples at slow (80 bpm), medium (100 bpm), and fast (120 bpm) tempi. Participants had lowest overall accuracy scores at the fast tempo and highest accuracy scores at the medium tempo. Lowest scores for both males and females were found with pedal movement at a fast tempo. Females performed best with manual movement at a slow tempo, while males performed best with manual movement at a medium tempo. Overall, participants in the manual group scored higher than participants in the pedal group at all tempi. Results of the two-way mixed analysis of variance revealed no main effect for tempi or gender and no statistically significant interactions. There was a main effect for manual/pedal grouping, with manual participants scoring higher than pedal participants.