The interrelationship between achievement and attitudinal dispositions of Fine Arts High School students in Turkish music theory and practice instruction

With the curriculum reform implemented in Fine Arts High Schools (FAHS) as of the 2016–2017 academic year, Turkish Classical Music (TCM) and Turkish Folk Music (TFM) courses have gained more prominence and occupied a larger place within the program. This study examines the academic achievement levels and attitudes toward these courses among 12th-grade students who have taken Turkish Classical and Turkish Folk Music courses progressively over four years. Furthermore, one of the main objectives of the study is to investigate the predictive effect of students' attitudes toward these courses on their academic achievement. The research employed a combination of cross-sectional survey, predictive correlational, and causal-comparative research designs. A survey model was used to determine the level and distribution of student achievement in TCM and TFM. The predictive correlational design was used to explore how students' attitudes toward Turkish Music courses predict their success in TCM and TFM, while the causal-comparative design was applied to examine whether there were significant differences in achievement and attitudes without any intervention. In this context, multiple-choice tests were prepared to assess achievement in the courses, based on the Turkish Classical Music Theory and Practice (TCMTP) and Turkish Folk Music Theory and Practice (TFMTP) textbooks. The TCMTP test comprised 19 items and two factors, while the TFMTP test included 17 items and two factors. For the main application, a total of 409 12th-grade students enrolled in the music departments of FAHS located in 18 provinces—randomly selected from six regions based on the Socio-Economic Development Index (SEGE)—participated in the study. The Turkish Classical Music Achievement Test (TCMAT) and Turkish Folk Music Achievement Test (TFMAT) were administered, along with the Attitude Scale Toward Turkish Music Courses (ASTTMC), a 5-point Likert scale developed by Daştan (2019) to measure FAHS students' attitudes toward Turkish Music courses. The results revealed that students demonstrated moderate achievement levels in both TCMAT and TFMAT, with slightly higher scores in TFMAT. According to ASTTMC results, students' attitudes were also found to be at a moderate level. Attitude was found to be a statistically significant, albeit weak, predictor of performance in both tests. Based on the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, it was determined that the distribution of scores for both tests deviated significantly from normality. In regional analyses, the 4th region had the highest TCMAT scores, while the 6th region had the lowest. For TFMAT, the 2nd Region scored significantly higher than the others. Regarding test factors, students from the 4th region outperformed those from the 6th region in TCMAT, while those from the 2nd region outperformed the 3rd region in TFMAT. In terms of attitude scores, students from the 1st Region showed significantly higher levels of positive attitudes compared to those from the 3rd and 6th regions. In conclusion, students' achievement in TFMAT was higher than in TCMAT, attitudes were found to have a limited effect on academic performance, and regional differences were statistically significant.