Developing the music listening skills test (MLST) for pre-school and elementary school teacher candidates

In this study, it was aimed to develop a music listening skill test for primary school teacher candidates to determine their levels of perception of basic musical structures through listening. A total of 260 teacher candidates studying in the department of primary education (early childhood and elementary education) of a public university in Türkiye formed the study group of the research. KR-20 internal consistency coefficient of the Music Listening Skills Test (MLST) was determined as 0.731. The mean of the item difficulty index of the test is 0.60, and the mean of the item distinctiveness index is 0.38. The MLST consists of a total of 27 questions with 53 listening contents converted into audio files in MP3 format to be played by the practitioner. The MLST can be used as a preliminary assessment tool in studies on the development of musical competencies. In addition, the musical structures in the test content can be handled in the music education processes of teacher candidates. Assessing music listening skills can also make it easier to follow the steps to be followed in the education of teacher candidates. In this way, educational contents can be developed and music education programs can be updated.