Research of the impacts of orff schulwerk supported music education on attention and social skills of preschool students

In this study, it was aimed to examine the effects of Orff Schulwerk supported music education on the attention and social skills of kindergarten students. In this study, an experimental design with a single group (experimental group) including pretest and posttest was used in order to determine whether Orff Schulwerk supported music education and has an impact on the attention and social skills of 5-6 year old students. The study was carried out with a total of 90 students, 45 girls and 45 boys, at the kindergarten level of a private school. In the application phase of the research, music activities were applied to the students who took music lessons once a week with the orff schulwerk approach for 6 weeks. Before starting the activities, pre-tests were applied and at the end of 6 weeks, the students were given a post-test. Research data were collected through Frankfurter Attention Test and Social Skills Assessment Scale devoloped by Raatz and Mohling (1971) and Avcıoğlu (2007). SPSS v.25 program was used in the statistical analysis of the collected data.To the obtained data, descriptive and interpretive statistical analyzes were applied. Descriptive analyses as well as arithmetic mean and standard deviation scores were analyzed through frequency and percentage distributions of the data. Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test was used as an interpretative statistical analysis. At the end of the study, it was determined that Orff Schulwerk supported music education and had a positive effect on the attention skills of kindergarten students, while the attention levels of girls were higher, the increase in attention observed in children after music education was higher in boys. When the effects of Orff Schulwerk supported music education on the social skills of kindergarten students were examined, it was determined that the social skill levels of the kindergarten children participating in the study increased to include all sub-dimensions. As a result, based on the findings of the study, it is evaluated that music education has a positive effect on the attention and social skills of preschool children.