The Effect of High Versus Low Teacher Affect and Active Versus Passive Student Activity During Music Listening on High School General Music Students' Attention

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of high versus low teacher affect and active versus passive student activities during music listening on high school students' attending behavior. Ninth-, tenth-, eleventh-, and twelfth-grade general music students (N=26) from two different high schools participated in four short listening lessons. Through the use of a counter-balanced, rotational design each of four treatment combinations was replicated three times. All lessons were videotaped. Data obtained through observation of the videotaped lessons indicated that the combination of low teacher affect and passive student activity was associated with lower on-task behavior than were the three other treatment combinations. There was no significant difference among the other treatment combinations.