Young children’s interactions with musical and visual self-guided works: A critical participatory action research study

The purpose of this critical participatory action research (CPAR) study was to document and compare children’s interactions with musical and visual/tactile Montessori manipulatives. Our research questions were: (1) how do young children interact with manipulatives aimed at encouraging music learning? (2) How do young children interact with manipulatives aimed at the visual/tactile sense? (3) In which ways are these interactions similar and in which ways do they differ? Data analysis revealed that the participants, sixteen children aged 3–6, demonstrated a similar amount of looking behaviours with both types of manipulatives. Data analysis also revealed the following differences between the musical and visual/tactile works: the prevalence of deep listening when children were engaged with the musical manipulatives as evidenced by stillness and stare; the use of multimodal and metaphorical expressions by children in relationship to musical manipulatives; continuous focus in relation to the musical works; and more time spent on the visual/tactile works. Our findings show that the inclusion of this curriculum of musical manipulatives continued children’s engagement with and learning through their visual sense (given that looking behaviours were similarly prevalent across tasks); however, it also introduced engagement with and learning through the aural sense (given that children consistently demonstrated task-related listening behaviours while engaged with the musical manipulatives and showed indications of deep listening). Further, it encouraged multiple modes of expression, such as sound-making, singing, movement and the use of metaphor in verbal descriptions.