The purpose of this research is to verify if the experiences of middle school student-orchestra activities, operated by the Ministry of the Education, positively influence in developing peer relationship among students and developing sociality or not....
The purpose of this research is to verify if the experiences of middle school student-orchestra activities, operated by the Ministry of the Education, positively influence in developing peer relationship among students and developing sociality or not. The research also provides economic and policy implications of educational meaning of the student-orchestra enterprise.
To find the significance of student-orchestra activities and the possible influence which these activities might generate, data are collected based on sex, year, period of activities, and motivation of activities of middle school students. Sub factors of sociality and peer relationship were, then, examined to verify the correlation of related factors to find the significance of student-orchestra activities.
Five middle schools, all located in Seoul, were chosen for the research and all five schools have been operating the student-orchestra activities for at least two consecutive years. The total of 195 samples was collected and samples include 95 students who have been participating in the activities for more than one academic semester and 100 regular students. The contents of questionnaire are divided into three distinct categories; the general characteristics of students, the social skills of students, and the level of peer relationship of students. For the social skills of students’ category, SSRS-S Secondary level, developed by Gresham and Elliot (1990), was used and for the level of peer relationship of students’, ‘the tool for middle∙high school peer relationship test’, developed by Kim et al (2001) was used.
Values collected via these tests were verified through frequency analysis, descriptive statistics, reliability analysis, t-test, correlation analysis, and simple regression analysis. The result shows that first, those who participate had a higher level of both sociality and peer relationship and sub factors were also resulted accordingly. Second, in the case of the students who participated over a year, the level of sociality came out to be higher than those who participated for 6 month to a year, but sex, year, motivation of activities were found to be not significant. Statistically speaking, female student showed a higher level of peer relationship than male students, but other general factors did not significantly contribute to the final results of the analysis. Third, the correlation between the two variables, sociality and peer relationship, was found to be sound yet the four sub factors of social support and fellowship, level of closeness, find new friends, and conflict were found not to have any significant correlation. Thus, the result shows that the higher the level of sociality, the higher the level of peer relationship among students.
The results of analysis imply that student-orchestra activities positively influence in developing sociality and peer relationship among middle school students. Student-orchestra activities not only teach students how to play the instruments, but they also allow students to cultivate their ethological behaviors. The result especially implies that teachers of middle school should continuously promote the student-orchestra activities since these activities can elevate the level of sociality and peer relationship of students.
This research ultimately proposes the necessity of musical education to adolescents based on the results of above analysis. For the cultivation of ethological behaviors, not only to middle school students, but also to elementary and high school students, musical education such as student-orchestra activities should be ubiquitously extended throughout the society. The role of the government, then, is to economically and systematically provide policies which can facilitate the activities. Through the accelerating support from the government and the constant promotion of teachers, the adolescents may spontaneously participate and enjoy music and hopefully this will lead them to cultivate their human nature.