COGNITIVE STRUCTURES OF MUSIC TEACHER CANDIDATES ABOUT “VOICE TRAINING”

Abstract

The study aims to examine the cognitive structures of music teacher candidates about voice training. To this end, a qualitative research method was used. The participants of this study consisted of 123 music teacher candidates studying at Necmettin Erbakan University, Turkey. Free word association test has been used as the data collection method. The stimulus word -voice training- was chosen and presented to music teacher candidates through a free word association test. A total of 43 responses were gathered and arranged in the form of word frequency tables. The obtained response words were then divided into 7 categories with the help of content analysis. The findings of the study revealed that music teacher candidates associate the chosen stimulus word -voice training- with the diaphragm, breathing, posture, resonance, technique, etc., and the categories created using response words such as the respiratory system, voice training methods and techniques, reflective system and so on. According to these results, it can also be said that there are some deficiencies in which students make valid associations with the stimulus concept of voice training. The examples of the sentences that the students have formed regarding the voice training stimulus concept were examined and it was determined that the sentence samples containing the non-scientific or superficial knowledge and misconceptions are in the majority compared to the sentence samples containing the scientific facts; which is a conflicting outcome deemed significant.