Date of Award

11-2015

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

PHD - Doctor of Philosophy

Department

Expressive Therapies

First Advisor

Michele Forinash

Second Advisor

Robyn Cruz

Third Advisor

Josephine Kim

Abstract

School violence has become a serious social issue and one of the major problems in schools in Korea. Group drumming interventions have shown positive effects in helping adolescents to reduce stress, manage anger related to aggression, promote social skills, and decrease behavioral incidents. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of a therapeutic group drumming intervention on school violence prevention in middle school students. The research questions were (a) Which of the following three interventions was most effective in reducing aggression of middle school students in Korea: a lecture-based general prevention program, a therapeutic drumming group that used activities designed to address aggression prevention, or a drumming group that taught group drumming skills? and (b) How might a therapeutic drumming impact middle school students with regards to school violence prevention? A pre- and post-test non-equivalent group design was first used for quantitative data collection using the Korean version of Aggression Questionnaires (K-AQ) and its four subscales: physical aggression, verbal aggression, anger, and hostility. Participants (N = 231, female = 116, male = 115) were from the third year class (9th grade) of an urban middle school in Daegu, Korea. The participants were divided into three groups: general prevention group (control group), therapeutic drumming group, and drumming group. The quantitative results suggested a significant Time × Group interaction on KAQ total scores (F (2,228) = 4.65, p < .05, ��2 = .039) and on physical aggression (F (2,228) = 3.21, p < .05, ��2 = .027) and hostility (F (2,228) = 3.18, p < .05, ��2 = .027) sub-scale scores, with no significant differences on verbal aggression and anger sub-scale scores Post hoc analysis revealed that the therapeutic drumming group had a significant reduction in total aggression scores and on the subscales of physical aggression and hostility compared to the drumming group; however, no significant differences were found between the therapeutic drumming group and the control group (the general lecture group). Ten participants (female = 4, male = 6) were selected from the therapeutic drumming group for interviews and 55 participants from the therapeutic drumming group were asked to fill out an open-ended survey to obtain qualitative data. A total of 492 meaningful statements resulted from the survey and interviews, and these statements were categorized into seven themes: somatic responses to drumming, emotional processing, group cohesion, empathy, relationship with peers, self-esteem, and selfregulation. The findings of this study indicated that both the control group and the therapeutic drumming intervention were significantly associated with a reduction in aggression related to school violence. Moreover, students in the therapeutic drumming group reported enhanced peer relationships, which they thought in turn lowered hostility. This study implied that collaborative work with school music teachers and music therapists may be used effectively to mitigate aggression related to school violence in middle school students in Korea.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

Language

English, Korean

Number of Pages

109

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