Derrington 2012 thesis.pdf - Anglia Ruskin Research Online

Using the Beck Inventories for Youth, the groups’ results were compared after one
had finished music therapy and before the other had begun. This secondary data
showed that the group who had not received music therapy appeared to be doing
better, that is, they were more self-assured and reported less disruptive behaviour than
the group who had received the intervention. However, this was not proved with any
statistical significance. The follow-up waves of data collection, which compared
results for each group after a period of no music therapy, found that students reported
their self-concept as less certain than before, but for all students both their anxiety
and disruptive behaviour had decreased.
Students generally reported that they felt angrier in the statements posed in the music
therapy project questionnaire, but some of their responses contradicted views they
gave in their interviews and no statistical significance was found with this
questionnaire.
The questionnaires completed by teachers supported the claim that music therapy
makes a positive impact on students: two out of the three groups of teachers reported
67% improvement. Most importantly, one of these groups who found the greatest
improvement was made up of teachers who had close contact with the student, either
as head of year or form tutor.
Finally, results from school records collection showed that while students in group A
were having music therapy, fewer incidents were recorded but this number increased
after they had finished. For group B, the number of incidents decreased after music
therapy but there were confounding factors in this period. Correlation between
students’ scores of disruptive behaviour and school records was weak.
Despite some lack of statistical significance due to the project’s size, these data are
very interesting and discussed in more detail in chapter nine. The next chapter
examines the students’ interviews which they gave before and after music therapy.
These conversations present a convincing picture of the impact which students felt
music therapy made and reinforce the findings found in the quantitative data.
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