Pilot Assessment

Description

This brief assignment will provide you with a causal claim and seven varied pieces of evidence intended to support the claim, ranging from personal opinion to anecdotes to scientific research. Your task is to judge how well each piece of evidence addresses the claim presented.

Instructions

You want to know if music instruction early in life increases academic performance in school. Treat each of the items listed below as a different type of evidence intended to address this question. Do the following:

 

1. Rank order the pieces of evidence from most convincing to least convincing. “Convincing” means how well the evidence answers the question, “Does music instruction early in life increase a student’s academic performance in school?”
2. Explain why you ranked the different types of evidence in the order you selected.
3. Identify those pieces of evidence listed below, if any, from which you believe a conclusion can be drawn about whether early music instruction increases academic performance in school. Briefly explain.

Question 1

Rank order the pieces of evidence from most convincing to least convincing. “Convincing” means how well the evidence answers the question, “Does music instruction early in life increase a student’s academic performance in school?”

______ Your cousin has a hunch.

______ You have overheard many teenagers talking about how learning to play a musical instrument really improved their focus in school, so you believe you have a good understanding of how early music instruction improves school performance.

_____ After a recent airing of a story on the NBC news show, Dateline, about high school valedictorians, Channel 5 asked viewers to call in the reasons they personally performed well in school, whether or not they were valedictorians. One of the reasons given most frequently for why viewers performed well in school was the musical training they received earlier in life.

______Twenty (20) well-controlled experiments published in prestigious journals found that taking music classes in elementary school leads students to achieve higher grades later in school.

_____ The results of two well-controlled experiments published in a prestigious journal suggested that learning to play a musical instrument as a child had a positive effect on the child’s schoolwork later in life.

_____ Thirty (30) correlational studies published in prestigious journals discovered that children who took music lessons in elementary school had higher grades in high school than those students who had no music lessons.

______ A Professor of Music Education, appearing on Good Morning America, stated that she believes teenagers perform better in school if they have taken music lessons because, as she learned in her interviews with students of all ages, students who took music lessons reported being more self-disciplined.

Question 2

2. Explain in a paragraph why you ranked the different types of evidence in the order you selected.

Question 3

1. From the below-mentioned evidence, choose the letter(s) of those you believe that a conclusion may be drawn about whether early music instruction increases academic performance in school. Once you have chosen the ones with evidence, explain why.

Evidence:

a. You have overheard many teenagers talking about how learning to play a musical instrument really improved their focus in school, so you believe you have a good understanding8 of how early music instruction improves school performance.

b. Thirty (30) correlational studies published in prestigious journals discovered that children who took music lessons in elementary school had higher grades in high school than those students who had no music lessons.

c. A Professor of Music Education, appearing on Good Morning America, stated that she believes teenagers perform better in school if they have taken music lessons because, as she learned in her interviews with students of all ages, students who took music lessons reported being more self-disciplined.

d. Your cousin has a hunch.

e. Twenty (20) well-controlled experiments published in prestigious journals found that taking music classes in elementary school leads students to achieve higher grades later in school.

f. After a recent airing of a story on the NBC news show, Dateline, about high school valedictorians, Channel 5 asked viewers to call in the reasons they personally performed well in school, whether or not they were valedictorians. One of the reasons given most frequently for why viewers performed well in school was the musical training they received earlier in life.

g. The results of two well-controlled experiments published in a prestigious journal suggested that learning to play a musical instrument as a child had a positive effect on the child’s schoolwork later in life.