Turkish validity and reliability of montreal battery of evaluation of musical abilities in normal hearing children and the relationship between the results of face-to-face and online practice

Music perception is a complex skill in which many variables such as cognition, attention, and memory, as well as the auditory perception of the elements of music, come together and affect, and require healthy brain mechanisms to be processed. Congenital amusia is a lifelong neurodevelopmental disorder that affects 3-4% of the population and is characterized by deficiencies in distinguishing melodies and melodic contours, remembering, and processing musical pitch. In the literature, it has been stated that the Montreal Battery of Evaluation of Musical Abilities (MBEMA) is suitable for the assessment of musical skills in Western and Asian children and for determining the presence of amusia. Our research is the first study to evaluate music perception in Turkish children and especially to determine the presence of amusia. This research aimed to evaluate music perception in Turkish children with normal hearing. It is aimed to carry out the validity and reliability study of MBEMA in Turkish children and to determine the relationship between the results of face-to-face and online practices. For this purpose, the short version of MBEMA consisting of 3 subtests (melody, rhythm, memory) and a total of 60 items was administered to 360 children aged 6-9. When examining the construct validity of MBEMA; a statistically significant, positive, and low correlation was found between melody, rhythm, memory subtest, total test scores and music interest-VAS, music perception-VAS scores (p<0.01). MBEMA has construct validity in measuring music perception. In the reliability analysis of MBEMA to evaluate the internal consistency reliability estimation of the items; the KR-20 score was calculated as 0.871 for the total test, 0.822 for the melody subtest, 0.829 for the rhythm subtest, and 0.850 for the memory subtest. These values showed high reliability. In addition, the test-retest results of MBEMA showed statistically significant compliance. Accordingly, the reliability was moderate for the melody subtest (ICC=0.602; p=0.007), high for the rhythm subtest (ICC=0.813; p<0.001), moderate for the memory subtest (ICC=0.500; p=0.032) and moderate for the total test (ICC=0.770; p<0.001). It was concluded that the reliability of MBEMA was at an acceptable level. The subtest and total test scores of face-to-face and online MBEMA show statistically significant differences (p<0.05). The melody, rhythm, memory subtest scores and total test scores obtained from the online practice are significantly higher than the face-to-face practice. When the compatibility between face-to-face and online test results obtained from the same children was evaluated, it was seen that the results of online and face-to-face practice had a high degree of concordance and high reliability (ICC>0.80; p<0.05). In our study, when the children's total test scores were examined for amusia; a total of nine children (three girls, six boys) were accepted as amusia and the incidence of amusia in Turkish children was determined as 2.5% (9/360). MBEMA can be used as a pre-screening tool to identify children with congenital amusia or relatively weak/strong musical perception skills. MBEMA is a new, practical, and useful test that can be easily applied face-to-face and online for evaluation and follow-up in audiology, music education, special education, and formal education branches.