• Journal of Music and Human Behavior
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.67-83
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• 2013

Assessment in music therapy is a vital part for both the therapist and client in the process of therapy. Based on what is assessed, objectives are identified to formulate specific action procedures and strategies. The existing assessment tools involve lists of skills and behaviors in developmental domains without the music assessment protocol. In this study, the authors attempted to develop an assessment protocol using rhythm production for assessing skills in cognitive and emotional-behavior domain, namely Music Therapy Assessment for Cognitive and Emotional Behaviors (MACEB). The test items of the MACEB-Rhythm were developed using rhythmic patterns varying in terms of item difficulty, which are based on the various degree of clarity in the grouping/gestalt, saliency in part-whole relationship, and complexity in repetition vs. variability. Also the developed tool purported to examine one's level of emotional behavior trait by analyzing performance of musical parameters such as tempo, pacing, and loudness in the reproduced output. In order to verify the logical sequencing of test items, firstly 61 subjects participated in verifying the item difficulty for the selected 15 pilot items. The test items were revised and re-sequenced based on the gathered scores of item difficulty. In the second procedure, seven experts in the fields of music education, music therapy and music psychology whose research interest lie in music cognition revised the developed rhythm protocol items focusing on learning sequence, cognitive process and feasibility for skills assessment. The study attempted to provide foundations for using rhythm as an assessment protocol prior to its verification of assessment validity and reliability.