Item analysis of the primary measures of music audiation in elderly care home residents.

This study described the responses of 180 elderly care home residents on the Tonal and Rhythm subtests of the Primary Measures of Music Audiation test (Gordon, 1979). Separate analyses on each subtest yielded a mean score, a standard deviation, two reliability coefficients and their corresponding standard errors, a frequency distribution, and item difficulty and item discrimination indexes with individual item response distributions. Tonal item errors seemed due to subjects' inabilities to discriminate small interval changes in melodies, while rhythm item errors seemed due to subjects' inabilities to discriminate changes in duration or changes in complex rhythm patterns. Any generalizations or implications are primarily confined to female, Caucasian, elderly care home residents because of the restricted population sample used in the study. Even so, implications are that institutionalized elderly persons may have difficulty learning or performing music which requires discrimination of small interval changes, duration changes, or complex rhythm patterns. Music with marked changes in pitch or duration and with simple rhythm patterns should facilitate successful musical experiences.