Using a Multimodal Learning System to Support Music Instruction

Abstract

This paper describes a multimodality approach that helps primary-school students improve their learning performance during music instruction. Multimedia instruction is an effective way to help learners create meaningful knowledge and to make referential connections between mental representations. This paper proposes a multimodal, dual-channel, multimedia learning (DML) system that provides efficient control over several multimedia objects such as Word files, PowerPoint files, web pages, images, films, and real-time videos. The multimodal DML system was applied in an experiment in which 32 fourth-grade students were assigned to the experimental group, where they received twelve 40-minute music lessons using multimodal presentation over a period of eight weeks. The control group consisted of 32 fourth-grade students who received the same twelve 40-minute lessons, but with musical notations. The results reveal that students in the experimental group showed a higher level of learning achievement and motivation than those in the conventional group. The conclusion was that multimodal presentations are helpful to scaffold learning.