Use of Decision Trees to Evaluate the Impact of a Holistic Music Educational Approach on Children with Special Needs

Abstract

In this study, decision trees were used to develop a pre-assessment model to help ascertain the impact of music education on children with special needs. The focus of the study was the application of an educational curriculum for 16 weeks, five sessions of 40 min duration per week, using the Holistic Music Educational Approach for Young Children (HMEAYC). The pilot program was implemented with children with special needs to measure its learning effectiveness. The methodology proved a better indicator for improved learning and a better measure of learning effectiveness. Statistical tests confirmed significant improvements in the values of the learning evaluation indices measured by HMEAYC after its implementation in children with special needs, supporting the positive effect of the implementation of HMEAYC for Taiwan’s special needs young children. For children with better learning results, the accuracy of the decision tree model was 84.0% for in-sample and the sensitivity equaled 98.0%. The results support the future development of evaluation models through machine learning languages, pre-assessment of the effectiveness of the implementation of HMEAYC, and the use of continuous investment in educational resources to improve the efficiency of special early childhood education in resource consumption for sustainable development.

Training Effects and Intelligent Evaluated Pattern of the Holistic Music Educational Approach for Children with Developmental Delay

“…Data from this study confirm that the HMEAYC showed a significant improvement in indicator values, such as language expressiveness, language comprehension, physical movement, social skills, interpersonal relationships, self-directedness, and autonomy for children with developmental delay. The result was consistent with past studies [ 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 , 28 , 29 , 30 ]. This study supports past studies on implementing the HMEEAYC curriculum for young children with developmental delay in Taiwan.…”

“…When the dependent variable is the categorical form, the decision tree is established as a classification tree. In this study, the classification and regression trees (CART) [ 21 , 31 ] apply the Gini index as the criterion for determining branching variables and classifying the data in each branch node to establish a structure of the decision tree with binary classification.…”

“…The primary reference, in terms of effective evaluated indicators [19,21], were divided into the following: (1) linguistic competence consists of language expressiveness (code: LE) and language comprehension (code: LC); (2) physical ability consists of physical movement (Code: PM); (3) interaction with people consists of social skills (code: SS) and interpersonal relationships (code: IR); (4) self-exposure consists of self-directedness (code: SD) and autonomy (code: AB). The language comprehension (LC) (7 questions), interpersonal relationships (IR) (8 questions), and autonomy (AB) (8 questions) are based on the Social Behavior Assessment System for Preschool (SBASP) [26].…”

“…Holistic Music Educational Approach for Young Children (HMEAYC) is based on a music education system developed by Holistic Education [ 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 ]. It integrates local culture and uses modern computer technology to combine specialists and music therapists to create an engaging music curriculum model for preschoolers [ 22 ].…”

The Impact of Integrating Musical and Image Technology upon the Level of Learning Engagement of Pre-School Children

“…The pursuit of quality and efficiency of education has been the focus of much educational research [1][2][3]. It has become a crucial issue for many educational experts and scholars to study how to improve educational methods to improve the quality of education and meet the needs of students [4][5][6][7]. Scholars [4] believed that current educational styles would be very unpredictable if massive defects existed in educational methods and knowledge.…”