The Development of A Cognıtıve Achıevement Test for Musıc Course for Mıddle School Students

Abstract

In music education, it is very important for the individual to be able to transfer the knowledge he/she has learned into practice and to transform musical knowledge into behavior, but the development of application skills also requires the recognition and comprehension of musical knowledge. The aim of this study is to develop a valid and reliable cognitive achievement test consisting of multiple-choice, true-false and matching question types, aiming to measure the knowledge level of students in line with the cognitive gains in the music lessons of secondary school students. The design, development and evaluation processes of the Sixth and Seventh Grade Music Achievement Tests were based on internationally recognized standards in the field of educational and psychological measurement. These standards guided each stage of the implementation process through statistical validation techniques such as item writing and analysis, validity and reliability assessments, and exploratory factor analysis. Correlation-based item analyses were conducted to examine the relationships between individual item scores and total test scores. The reliability of the tests was calculated using the Kuder-Richardson (KR-20) formula, which is appropriate for dichotomously scored items. All statistical analyses were conducted using SPSS 26.0 software. The KR-20 reliability coefficient of the 6th grade music class cognitive achievement test was calculated as 0.918 and Cronbach's Alpha coefficient was calculated as 0.921. The KR-20 reliability coefficient of the 7th grade music class cognitive achievement test was 0.926 and Cronbach's Alpha coefficient was 0.928.