Differentiated Approaches to Aural Acuity Development: A Case of a Secondary School in Kiambu County, Kenya

An examination of the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) music results reveals that the performance index in aural (Paper 511/2) has been consistently low over the years. Yet the importance of this section of the examination, the “hearing with the eyes and seeing with the ear” cannot be downplayed. This study set out to test the hypothesis that there is no significant difference in performance in aural tests between students trained using the voice and those trained using the recorder. Subjects were students at a National Girl’s School within the outskirts of Nairobi where the researcher was the music teacher. The research adopted a quasi-experimental design, using two groups of 9 and 12 students, dubbed the experimental group 1 and experimental group 2 respectively. Experimental group 1 got its intervention through use of the recorder, which the students learned to play from day one and continued for two years, while experimental group 2 used the voice in all practical lessons for the same period of time. Scores on the pre-test and post-test were compared at the end of the study period. Though the researcher could not rule out the John Henry effect, the results revealed no significant difference between the groups in the performance of the aural test. However, the experimental group 1 was better at sight reading at the end of the study. It was recommended that music teachers use a mixture of both voice and instruments in the development of aural acuity at the formative stages.