ABSTRACT

A major research achievement in education has been the ability to identify teaching and learning styles. To improve the instructional process, research efforts in teaching and learning styles began with investigations in the basic school subjects, e.g., mathematics, English, and science. To date, however, little comparable research has been attempted in music. Since teaching style may be the most influential factor in obtaining maximum educational outcomes in a music classroom situation, it is important to examine the instructional process specifically focusing on teaching styles. The purpose of this paper is to examine the concept of style in education, to review the related research on teaching style, to introduce McCarthy`s 4 MAT System as an example of teaching style model, and to apply 4 MAT to the elementary school music. Style is characterized by its comprehensive and multidimensional nature as compared to teaching strategies, methodology, and techniques. Style also involves both innate and acquired aspects and tends to be fairly fixed. The research on teaching style addresses three broad issues: the relationship between teaching styles and learning styles of teachers, matching and mismatching of teaching styles with learning styles of students, and teaching style models. McCarthy`s 4 MAT System is devised by integrating Kolb`s model of 4 types with the right and left hemispheric theory. The derived 4 styles are imaginative, analytic, commonsense, and dynamic types. This classification of 4 types has been applied to the different teaching of note values and meter in the elementary general music lesson. Several implications from a true understanding of music teaching styles concludes the paper.