NAEP Assesses 8th Graders in Music and Art

For the first time since 1997, the federal education department has assessed U.S. students in the arts. There are no individual or even state results, but there are some important findings. Again, the feds tested a nationally-representative sample of 8th graders. And, while the results are depressing in some ways, the fact that the government goes to the trouble of testing for basic student literacy in music and visual art, and has ways to test for that, is encouraging enough, especially in our math- and ELA-centric world.

How do they actually test a national sample of children for musical ability? Students aren’t asked to compose symphonies, or even play an instrument. But they are asked to listed to music and answer questions, and they are asked to write some basic rhythmic annotation.

A sample question in music: the students listen to the beginning of Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” two times and then are asked to identify the solo instrument. Another question plays, and presents in notation, two measures of a basic rhythm in 4/4 time, and then asks students to write two more measures of notes to complete the pattern.

How did U.S. 8th graders do on these questions? Half the students said, correctly, that the opening trill and 3-octave slide of “Rhapsody in Blue” is played on a clarinet. Another 22 percent thought it was a sax, 15 percent guessed oboe and 12 percent said it was a flute. Not bad. But evidently fewer children are taught notation. On the second question, just one-fifth of students got “developed,” the top score, by composing two additional measures in correct 4/4 time. More than half (52 percent) scored the lowest, “inadequate”, meaning that they could not produce any combination of notes to equal four quarter notes correctly.

In one visual arts question, students were given two prints, a self-portrait by Kathe Kollwitz and self-portrait by Egon Schiele. Then they were asked to create their own self-portrait. Asked to identify a “technical similarity” between the two artists’ portraits, nearly half (46 percent) incorrectly answered that both works “rely on light and shadow to emphasize depth,” a quality that few portraits emphasize. Just 37 percent correctly said that the two were similar in combining “loose gestural lines with careful drawing.”

The self portraits were assessed on clarity of observation, use of “identifying detail,” the purposeful use of compositional elements, and how they used their materials, as well as proportion, color and line, and the individualization of the portrait.

"Sufficient" sample response

Fully 57 percent of tested 8th graders’ self portraits were assessed at the second-lowest of four possible scores, meaning “Efforts at specific observations are apparent, but relatively minimal. Compositional successes may seem more accidental than deliberate, and use of materials is unskilled. ” Another quarter of students received the next grade up, “uneven” while just 4 percent received “sufficient,” producing a detailed, individual and skillful self-portrait appropriate for a 13-year-old. Looks like a little more studio art in middle schools would be a good thing.

And in fact, it seems that students have lost ground in music since 1997 and stayed at the same rather low level in visual art. The results are not fully comparable, but to the extent they are, the overall music score on the multiple choice questions was down a statistically significant two points, from 53 percent correct in 1997 to 51 percent correct in 2008. On art multiple choice, students remained at an average 42 percent correct responses over both testing years.

Depressingly, black students scored about 30 points below whites on a 0-300 scale. Hispanics showed a similar gap in music though a slightly narrower gap in art. Predictable gaps persist between urban and suburban students, poor and non-poor, general education and special education students and ELLs vs. non-ELLs. Girls did significantly better than boys, though this gap may well close as these students get older. No such closures are predictable by race or poverty

Music and art can and should be taught to all students, not just the “interested” ones, is the lesson to take away from this assessment. Every educated person should be able to identify instruments, read notes, compare artistic techniques and (speaking as someone who really cannot) draw at least competently.

For these kinds of findings, and because it can point the way to improvement, the NAEP remains one of our best testing resources.

Tagged: arts, music

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