The effects of evaluating process and product on the student achievement levels in piano education

The aims of this thesis are to identify the effects of process and product evaluation on the student achievement levels, to develop an objective, sensitive, valid and reliable measurement tool that used in piano education as well as to make the student achievement levels higher.In order to achieve the aims stated above, related literature was reviewed and accordingly, the conceptual framework of the study was developed. On the other hand, this study is also an emprical study in that it attempts to determine the achievement rate of the tool used at certain intervals in the process. Therefore, the study employs an experimental design in which pre-test and post-test as well as control group are used. Quantative and qualitative data were both collected and analysed to obtain the findings of the study.The participants of the study are a total of twenty first-grade students attending to Gazi University, Gazi Education Faculty, Department of Fine Arts, Branch of Music Education during the academic year of 2009-2010.In order to identify whether or not pre-test and post-test scores in regard to piano course of the control and experiment subject are different, correlational sample t-tests were employed. In order to determine whether or not the scores of both groups are significantly different, independent sample t-tests were used. The other data analysis tool used in the study is the ANOVA test that was used to determine any significant difference among the scores of experiment subjects in regard to process and product evaluation in piano course, if any.The findings of the study indicate that regarding achievement scores of both groups at pre-test and post-test intervals, achievement scores of the experiment subjects are higher than those of control subjects. Achievement scores of the experiment subjects in the process evaluation are statistically significantly higher than those of control subjects who were evaluated using a traditional evaluation approach. It is further found that there are statistically significant differences among the scores of the experiement subjects as a result of process evaluation in piano course.Key Words: Piano Education, Measurement and Evaluation, Process and Product Evaluation.