Student perception of the effectiveness of SmartMusic as a practice and assessment tool on middle school and high school band students

As new technology is developed more opportunities to enrich the music education classroom exist. The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of the SmartMusic practice and assessment software with middle school and high school band students and to compare and analyze their perceptions of the effectiveness of the program. Participants of this study were band students (N = 147) in grades 6 through 12 in a small West Texas public school. Data in this study were gathered by asking all participants to complete a survey consisting of eleven separate prompts. The survey prompts were answered using a 5-point Likert scale and were designed to solicit the students’ perceptions of the effectiveness of the SmartMusic program. Somewhat in agreement with earlier investigations, the results indicated that the SmartMusic program did increase motivation to practice in younger students. Importantly, findings in this study showed a significant increase in student self-assessment with all groups of student participants regardless of age or experience level.