( 2002 ) Rio 700 Cruiser: GIRLIE

Assessing children’s voices using Hornbach and Taggart’s (2005) rubricAndreas C. Lehmann 1 & Johannes Hasselhorn 2Hochschule für Musik Würzburg, Germany1 ac.lehmann@hfm-wuerzburg.de, 2 johannes.hasselhorn@hfm-wuerzburg.deBackgroundABSTRACTAssessment of voice quality and performance is notoriouslydifficult, and even professional singers may not always agree onthe quality of a voice or performance (Mitchell & Kenny, 2008).Although there is a mild consensus about what constitutes agood professional voice, untrained voices pose a seriouschallenge to raters. Educators have developed different types ofassessment instruments (Salvator, 2010). For instance,Hornbach & Taggart (2005) used a researcher-developed,5-point assessment rubric to assess elementary-age children(H&T rubric). Although satisfying interjudge reliabilities arereported by the authors of the rubric (r = .76 to .97), it is unclearwhat specific aspects of performance influence this overall(summative) impression.AimsThe goal of this study was to find a way of assessingchildren’s vocal performances more objectively. Morespecifically, the aim was to study the reliabilities of experts’ratings of children’s performances (using the summative H&Trubric), and to predict such summative, overall judgments ofsinging achievement from more detailed performance ratings.Method55 children with an average age of 11.1 (SD = .79; Mode =11) were individually asked to sing a supposedly well-knownsong (the German national anthem) and another song they hadpracticed previously in school. Performances were recorded.Subsequently, three independent expert judges rated theperformances. The raters were one singer who also teachesvoice and one public school music teacher. Both had studiedvoice at a conservatory. A third rater, a public school teacherwithout specialization in music, had to be excluded in thecourse of the analysis due to low agreement with the other tworaters.Ratings consisted of (a) 19 five-point rating scales regardingspecific aspects (e.g., articulation, matching of given startingnotes, rhythm) and (b) a comprehensively, summativeevaluation using the H&T rubric.ResultsAveraged expert ratings on the H&T rubric for the two songswere significantly correlated, r = .80, p < .01. The mean ratingsfor the two songs were not significantly different, suggestingthat both songs were sung equally well, and vocal performancewas similar on both occasions. Subsequent analyses were onlyconducted on data from German national anthem renditions.Inter-rater consistency was estimated using intra-classcorrelations (ICC[2,1]) to establish which aspects ofperformance were most reliably rated by expert raters. Ingeneral, intra-class correlations are used to quantify agreementof raters with regard to groups of observations. Here, we used atwo-way, random effect ICC, because two randomly selectedassessors both rated all vocal performances. ICCs variedbetween .06 and .81 (see Table 1).Table 1Intra-class Correlations (ICC[2,1]) for Two Experts’ Ratingsof Children’s Vocal PerformanceRated vocal performance attributesICCPiano starting tone: match – no match .81Type of performance: speechlike – singing .77Melody execution: secure – insecure .67Attitude: secure – insecure .65Loudness: soft – loud .65Voice-ear coordination: fitting – not fitting .65Tessitura: small – age appropriate .64Text integration: fluent – stumbling .63Interpretation: differentiated – undifferentiated .56Hornbach & Taggart Scoring Rubric (overall) .80Note. Only ICCs > .55 shown. All F-tests F(54) > 3.7, p < .01.We created a scale using eight of the individual attributeslisted in Table 1 (excluding “Loudness” for technical reasons; itmay have been affected by the singer’s distance from themicrophone), which resulted in a scale with a reliability of .94(Cronbach’s alpha).This newly created scale of specific performance featureswas then related to the overall measure (H&T rubric), resultingin a correlation of .93, p < .01. Thus, the aggregated individualfeatures of children’s sung performance were highly related tothe summative expert ratings.The final question addressed the relative importance of theindividual scale items in predicting our overall measure (H&Trubric). In a stepwise linear regression analysis we entered allscale items as predictors and H&T rubric as the criterion. Twovariables, namely “Melody execution” and “Piano startingtone” entered the equation, explaining a total of 92 percent(adjusted) of the variance (see Table 2).572

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( 2002 ) Rio 700 Cruiser: GIRLIEModel:Length Overall:Beam:Draft:Location:Principal Characteristics700 Cruiser7,252,550,00AmpuriabravaGeneral CharacteristicsEngine Hours:Fuel capacity (lts):Fresh-Water capacity (lts):Cabins:110,00200,0080,001

( 2002 ) Rio 700 Cruiser: GIRLIE

( 2002 ) Rio 700 Cruiser: GIRLIE

( 2002 ) Rio 700 Cruiser: GIRLIE

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