"It is the purpose of this paper to suggest effective methods for teaching modern dance to deaf elementary school children"--Introduction. / Typescript. / "August, 1954." / "Submitted to the Graduate Council of Florida State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science." / Advisor: Christine Foster, Professor Directing Paper. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 40-42).

This study investigated children's attributions for their performance in creative dance and folk dance. Eighty-six grade 5 and 6 children from a suburban elementary school participated in five creative dance and five folk dance lessons as part of their regular physical education program. After participation in each dance type, children completed a questionnaire which assessed their perceived success and attributions for their performance. After rating their perceived success in creative/folk dance, children gave an open-ended attributional statement for their performance, and then scored their statement along the four causal dimensions (personal control, locus of causality, stability, external control) (Weiss, McAuley, Ebbeck, & Wiese, 1990). Thirteen dance lessons were videotaped and the teacher's behavior was analysed. Results showed that children in both creative and folk dance tended to: (a) perceive their performance as successful, and (b) make functional attributions by attributing their performance to factors which they perceived as being personally controllable, internal, and not under the control of other people. Results indicated no significant effects of dance type or gender for perceived success and the four causal dimensions. However, two significant effects were found for grade, as the grade 5's perceived their performance to be more successful than the grade 6's, and also attributed their performance to factors that were less under the control of other people. Results from children's open-ended attributional statements and the observational recordings of the teacher's behavior supported the notion that creative dance and folk dance are two distinct forms of dance. The overall results appear to have positive implications with respect to the influence of creative dance and folk dance on the motivation of children. The findings therefore support the inclusion of dance in elementary physical education programs.

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