Assessment and Enhancement of Teaching Effectiveness of Piano Majors in Colleges and Universities Based on AHP Modeling

Teaching is an important way to cultivate students’ comprehensive quality and develop their potential, and the assessment and enhancement of teaching effectiveness plays an important role in education reform and improving education quality, whose main purpose is to improve the quality of teaching and to ensure students’ learning outcomes [1]. The choice of assessment methods should be determined according to the characteristics of teaching objectives and teaching content, and the commonly used assessment methods are formative evaluation, summative evaluation, and peer evaluation. Formative assessment is carried out continuously during the teaching process, aiming to understand the students’ learning progress and problems, and to adjust the teaching strategies in time [2]. Formative evaluation can be carried out through classroom exercises, group discussions, interactive questions and answers, etc., through timely feedback to help students improve their learning results; at the same time, it can better stimulate students’ motivation to learn and cultivate students’ independent learning awareness and ability [3-6]. Summative evaluation is carried out at the end of teaching, used to summarize the whole learning process and learning outcomes. Commonly used summative evaluation methods include examinations, assignments and project reports, etc. Through summative evaluation, students’ learning level and mastery can be understood, thus providing teachers with further teaching guidance and improvement suggestions [7-10]. Peer evaluation refers to the process of teachers evaluating and exchanging experiences with each other. By observing other people’s classrooms and listening to other teachers’ suggestions, teachers can find their own shortcomings and room for improvement, and improve their own teaching level; at the same time, it also aims to ensure educational equity and ensure that every student can enjoy high-quality educational resources [11-13].

In the traditional teaching effectiveness assessment system, the performance results of piano students are accomplished by means of examinations such as individual performance. However, piano is a performing art, which ultimately needs to be presented to the audience through the stage. The closed-door examination not only fails to measure the comprehensive performance quality of the students, but also is not conducive to the teachers to find out the real problems in their own teaching, thus reducing the intrinsic value and motivational function of the evaluation. Therefore, exploring the evaluation methods suitable for the teaching effect of piano majors can help to improve the quality of teaching.

And with the development of information technology, AHP model has been widely used in the field of education assessment, such as teaching quality, teachers’ teaching ability, teaching philosophy, etc. [14-17]. AHP is a multilevel analysis method, through the construction of hierarchical structure model, decompose the complex system into a number of levels, so as to realize the analysis and solution of the systematic problems, which is not only effective for decision-making, but also can be used to assess the teaching quality of different teachers, identify problems and improve teaching [18-19]. AHP can effectively collect teachers’ teaching practices, quantitatively assess teachers’ teaching quality, promote teaching improvement and talent cultivation, and take into account the different backgrounds of each teacher, and can be implemented according to the actual situation, which can play an important role in a sustained manner; the technical characteristics of the AHP scaling and selection model enable it to effectively collect and process data to improve the accuracy of teaching decisions [20-22].

In piano education, building a scientific evaluation system is an important way and an effective means to realize the teaching effect and thus improve the quality of students. This paper uses the questionnaire method to reveal the actual situation of piano teaching in colleges and universities. Combined with the teaching status quo, reasonable evaluation indexes are screened out through literature analysis and expert consultation, the weights of the evaluation indexes are determined by hierarchical analysis, and the corresponding evaluation standards are designed to construct the evaluation system of the teaching effect of piano classroom teachers and the learning effect of piano classroom students. The teaching effect of piano majors in colleges and universities is evaluated from two aspects to realize the positive promotion effect on piano teaching.

2

Hierarchical analysis

AHP is also known as hierarchical analysis. The hierarchical approach has the advantage of meeting both quantitative and qualitative requirements for multi-objective analysis. The principle of this method is to quantify the decision maker’s empirical judgment, and after quantification, it can more accurately explain the relationship between different indicators and goals or the influence of the size of the decision maker to provide the basis for the decision maker needs to make. The mechanism of hierarchical analysis lies in the hierarchization of complex problems, and the construction of hierarchical models through certain mathematical methods and subjective judgments, so that complex problems in the level of analysis to obtain a relatively objective solution to the idea and basis. The basic idea is: 1)

Clearly need to analyze the problem, the key step is to identify the nature of the problem, for the overall goal of a clear definition, and then is to carry out hierarchical processing, that is, in accordance with the interrelationship between the factors, distinguish between different levels of hierarchical level of clustering, recombination, and ultimately subdivided into the problem of the different constituent factors, to build a multilayered analysis of the structural model.

2)

Determine the judgment scale of each level of factors.

3)

Organize experts to evaluate the importance of factors, and construct a two-by-two judgment comparison matrix after comprehensive analysis.

4)

Solve the matrix, according to the specific indicators or factors of the model, for the levels of the total sorting, and take the consistency test, resulting in the eigenvectors (weights) of the matrix.

5)

Weight transfer, that is, consistency and normalized hierarchical total ranking test, the result is to derive the lowest level of indicators, such as specific measures or indicators, etc. on the highest level of the importance of the goal (the overall goal) of the weights.

6)

Calculations and comparisons to select the best solution.

Problem solving using hierarchical analysis generally includes the following steps: 1)

Construct a hierarchical analysis model of the current problem:

The essence of the hierarchical analysis method is based on the problem to be solved, the problem will be subdivided, and a hierarchical way to establish the analysis model, and then based on the established model to analyze the factors affecting the goal, to analyze layer by layer, the target layer that is the construction of the hierarchical analysis model to solve the final problem, the element layer is the impact of the problem of the target level of the elements, the indicator layer is the impact of the element layer of the evaluation indexes. Evaluation indicators.

2)

Construct judgment matrix:

Construct the judgment matrix to obtain the weight value of each level element, the method is to compare the relative importance of the two adjacent elements of each level relative to the elements of the previous level, the value of the comparison is generally used in the “5-point scale” method, to obtain the importance of the two adjacent elements of the same layer between the two elements of the matrix, so as to calculate the importance of each element of each level relative to the elements of the target level through the matrix, the index level is the evaluation indicators affecting the elements of the element level. The importance matrix of each neighboring element between the same layer is obtained, through which the importance degree of each layer element relative to the element of the previous layer is calculated, which is the required weight value: (1) $P = [\begin{matrix} P_{11} & \dots & P_{\ln} \\ \dots & \dots & \dots \\ P_{n 1} & \dots & P_{n n} \end{matrix}]$

The value of P_ij in the formula is generally used in the “5-point” scale method, but specific problems are analyzed specifically, it is not necessarily necessary to use the “5-point” scale measurement method. 3)

Calculate the weight vector of each layer for hierarchical sorting and consistency test:

Using the judgment matrix obtained in the previous step, the weights of the elements of each layer are calculated to obtain the single sort, the common methods of calculating the weights include the sum-product method and the square-root method, and after obtaining the weight vectors, the consistency test is carried out according to the consistency test method, and after the consistency test is passed, the final weight vectors can be obtained.

Step1: Set $P = (P_{i j})$ as a nrd order square matrix, and then normalize each column of the P matrix to get the $A = (A_{i j})$ matrix, where: (2) $A_{i j} = \frac{P_{i j}}{\sum_{i = 1}^{n} P_{i j}} i, j = 1, 2, 3, \dots, n$

Step2: The matrix $A = (A_{i j})$ after normalization is subjected to a summation operation by rows to obtain $C = {(C_{1}, C_{2}, C_{3}, \dots, C_{n})}^{T}$ , where: (3) $C_{i} = \sum_{j = 1}^{n} A_{i j} i, j = 1, 2, 3, \dots, n$

Step3: The C matrix obtained in the previous step is normalized to obtain the result $W = (W_{1}, W_{2}, W_{3}, \dots, W_{n})$ , which is the desired target eigenvector: (4) $W_{i} = \frac{C_{i}}{\sum_{i = 1}^{n} C_{i}} i = 1, 2, 3, \dots, n$

Step4: Calculate the largest eigenroot λ_max of judgment matrix P by judgment matrix P and eigenvector W_i: (5) $λ_{\max} = \frac{1}{n} \sum_{i = 1}^{n} \frac{{(P W)}_{i}}{W_{i}} i = 1, 2, 3, \dots, n$

${(P W)}_{i}$ is the ird component of PW, and P_i in the P matrix represents the ith element in the P matrix.

Step5: Consistency test: (6) $C I = \frac{λ_{\max} - n}{n - 1}$

CI is the consistency judgment index, n is the order of the judgment matrix, and λ_max is the eigenvector. Calculate the consistency ratio: (7) $C R = \frac{C I}{R I}$

In equation (7), CR is the consistency ratio and RI is the consistency judgment index.

3

Evaluation and enhancement of teaching effectiveness of piano majors in tertiary institutions

3.1

Survey on the current situation of piano teaching and problem analysis

The questionnaire in this paper was administered to art majors in a college. Aiming at the freshman, sophomore, and junior grades of 100 piano students to conduct a questionnaire survey. In the survey, the data are basically true and effective, and interference factors are excluded. The main subject of the interview in this paper is 10 piano teachers, and the topic of the interview is generally the specific ways and methods of piano teaching.

3.1.1

Faculty

As a piano teacher in a college, having a general understanding of the basic situation of the teachers in that school, interviews were done with the piano teachers in that school and their general situation was organized. Their statistics are shown in Table 1. Most of the teachers have been teaching for 6 or 8 years.

Table 1.

Basic information of teachers

Teacher’s name	Professor course	Age	Educational background	Teaching age	Learn the piano time
A	Piano	28	Undergraduate	6	Primary school
B	Piano	32	Undergraduate	8	Primary school
C	Piano	44	Undergraduate	18	Junior high school
D	Piano	32	Undergraduate	8	Junior high school
E	Piano	29	Master	4	Primary school

3.1.2

Basic survey of piano students

The basic situation survey of piano students, as shown in Figure 1, was conducted in the form of a questionnaire on 105 art students in a university, and 105 questionnaires were finally returned, with 100 valid questionnaires. The survey was conducted mainly from the students’ love of music, the students’ basic piano situation, and the feedback on piano teaching. From the aspect of students’ interests and hobbies in music, about 67% of the students still love music, which can be seen that students are still motivated to learn music. Only 13% of the students are not too fond of music. 20% of the students are average in their enjoyment of music. It can be seen that 71% of the students are also fond of piano. Only 7% of the students showed a dislike for the piano. 39% of the students took lessons around the age of 16, which is just about to enter high school. Only 14% of the students took piano when they were 3-5 years old. 37% took piano when they were 6-9 years old. 10% took piano lessons when they were 10-15 years old.

3.2

Evaluation of piano teachers’ teaching

The establishment of the evaluation system of piano classroom teaching effect must be based on the principles of music education goals, piano syllabus and classroom evaluation, change the single teaching mode, combine a variety of evaluation methods, so that the content of the teaching reform of the compulsory piano course is presented in the evaluation system of piano classroom teaching, and quantitative scores to reflect the level of piano teaching, and ultimately to achieve the purpose of incentivizing students to learn and promoting the teacher’s teaching to improve the The purpose of teaching effect.

The effect of classroom teaching is a comprehensive concept, involving the teaching content, teaching effect and many other aspects. In order to evaluate the teaching effect, it is necessary to decompose the teaching effect into single-factor issues to consider, and then through a certain model and then synthesized into the evaluation of the total teaching effect, that is to say, it is necessary to establish an indicator system, through the analysis of the indicator system to achieve the evaluation of the overall teaching effect. Educational evaluation index system is an organic whole composed of different levels of evaluation indexes according to the logical structure of the evaluation object itself, which is a quantitative standard system to measure the development level or status of the evaluation object, and is at the core of educational evaluation.

This topic is based on a comprehensive analysis of the literature, following the general law of educational evaluation, in accordance with the national requirements for the training of institutions of higher learning, teachers should master the modern teaching theory, the characteristics of modern classroom teaching, the basic requirements of classroom teaching, taking into account on the one hand, a university with a wide range of students, students are more active in their thinking, on the other hand, in recent years, the introduction of young teachers, the level of teachers’ teaching level has a certain gap in the characteristics of the evaluation index. The draft evaluation index system was constructed taking into account the characteristics of the wide student population on the one hand, and the introduction of more young teachers in recent years on the other hand, the teachers’ teaching level has some gap. And the two evaluation subjects, student and expert evaluation, are synthesized into one evaluation index system that evaluates four aspects: teaching attitude, teaching content, teaching method, and teaching effect. On this basis, a university held a student symposium and an expert meeting to form a draft evaluation index system of classroom teaching effect of teachers in a university, in which there are 4 primary indicators and 21 secondary indicators.

In order to make the primary indicators more perfect, this subject prepared the “Classroom Teaching Effectiveness Evaluation Indicators Expert Opinion Questionnaire of a college and university”, and consulted 34 experts through the form of questionnaire, a total of 34 questionnaires were issued, 34 questionnaires were retrieved, and 34 questionnaires were valid, with a recovery rate of 100%. The distribution of the surveyed experts is shown in Table 2, which consults and investigates 27 experts from the second-level colleges, the Academic Affairs Office, the Teaching Supervisory Group and other departments of a university, including 5 deans in charge of teaching in the second-level colleges, accounting for 17.65%. Teachers are engaged in teaching 12 people, accounting for 35.29%. 8 teaching administrators, accounting for 23.53%. Supervisory experts include 8 people, accounting for 23.53%.

Table 2.

The survey expert distribution list

At all levels	The director of teaching at the secondary school	Teacher who works in teaching	Teaching manager	Supervisor
N	6	12	8	8
Proportion	17.65%	35.29%	23.53%	23.53%

The title structure of the surveyed experts is shown in Table 3, and all the consulted experts have intermediate titles or above, of which 10 have senior titles, 12 have associate titles, and 12 have intermediate titles.

Table 3.

The survey expert title structure table

Title category	High level title	Secondary title	Intermediate title
N	10	12	12
Proportion	29.41%	35.29%	35.29%

The statistical results of the first-level indicators are shown in Table 4. The first-level indicators in the primary indicators of classroom teaching effectiveness evaluation are all recognized indicators in classroom teaching evaluation, covering the whole content of classroom teaching, and through the analysis of the experts’ questionnaire, it is found that the experts’ recognition rate of the four first-level indicators is very high. The approval rate of experts for “teaching attitude”, “teaching content” and “teaching method” was 100%, and the agreement rate for “teaching effect” was 94.12%, and 2 experts believed that “teaching effect” should be changed to “student response”.

Table 4.

The statistical table of the results of the first level index experts

Primary indicator	N	Proportion
Teaching attitude	34	100%
Teaching content	34	100%
Teaching method	34	100%
Teaching effect	32	94.12%

We start from three evaluation subjects, namely, students, administrators and experts, respectively, to construct an all-round evaluation system for classroom teaching effectiveness evaluation. In terms of the weights of the results evaluated by different evaluation subjects, taking into account the fact that students are the participants from the beginning to the end of the teaching process, they are the evaluators who have the most right to speak. While managers and experts are experienced but relatively few times of listening to classes, after repeatedly consulting the leaders and supervisors and experts, we design the relationship between different evaluation subjects as follows: the weight of the results of students’ evaluation of teaching is 0.5, the weight of the results of the managers’ evaluation is 0.2, and the weight of the results of the experts’ evaluation is 0.3, i.e., the formula for calculating the comprehensive evaluation results of a certain course is as follows: $P = S * 0.5 + Q * 0.2 + R * 0.3$

Where: P is the comprehensive evaluation result, S is the student evaluation result, Q is the peer evaluation result, and R is the expert evaluation result.

After coordinated analysis, the comprehensive evaluation result ≥90 points is excellent, 80-90 points is good, 70-80 points is moderate, 60-70 points is passing, and less than 60 points is failing. The weights of primary and secondary indicators are determined through the above steps as shown in Table 5. The main factor affecting teachers’ teaching effectiveness lies in the aspect of teaching content, and the indicator is important by 36%.

Table 5.

Evaluation index of classroom teaching quality in a university

Primary indicator	Weighting	Evaluation criteria	Weighting
Teaching attitude	0.18	On time, class, discipline, teachers, teaching	0.232
		Strict requirements, strict management, strong sense of responsibility and fairness in class	0.187
		Be fully prepared, be proficient in teaching and be full of emotions	0.314
		Arrange the appropriate homework and revise it in time	0.140
		According to the students’ need for guidance, patient answers are difficult	0.127
Teaching content	0.36	The idea, basic concept, basic principle, basic knowledge or skill is accurate	0.361
		The key points are clear, the difficulty is clear, the content is refined, the logic is strong	0.232
		To absorb the latest results of the subject, specify the appropriate extracurricular books and articles	0.154
		The knowledge is wide, the information is large, the teaching content is enriched	0.128
		Emphasis on teaching objectivity, theoretical contact practice	0.125
Teaching method	0.22	The teaching process is arranged properly and the teaching schedule is reasonable	0.195
		Focus on the communication of teachers and students, be good at enlightening and induce, actively reform the teaching method, gradually	0.221
		Chart specification, the amount of the book, hierarchical (non-multimedia teaching)	0.167
		Emphasis on quality education, focus on cultivating students’ self-study ability and analyzing the problem	0.158
		Using the teaching method properly, the advanced teaching method can be applied correctly under possible conditions	0.159
		Sound, smooth and organized	0.1
Teaching effect	0.24	The students are serious, the classroom discipline is good, the teaching atmosphere is strong	0.175
		Through the teaching of this course, the formation of the class is promoted or further	0.152
		Can master the basic concepts, basic knowledge, basic principles and basic skills of this course	0.278
		The learning method has improved and the ability of learning has been improved	0.342
		In this semester, the general evaluation of classroom teaching of teachers in this course is subject to the teacher’s classroom teaching	0.053

3.3

Evaluation indexes of students’ learning effect in piano classroom

Piano classroom teaching is presented in the form of individual lessons, group lessons and collective lessons. Using the developmental and dynamic evaluation model, we should pay attention to how the teachers’ classroom teaching content is designed, what kind of teaching means and methods are used to make students’ playing skills get greater progress, so that students learn to think, learn to imagine music, improve their aesthetic ability, learn to cultivate their emotional values and so on, and if the students’ playing ability, musical expression, appreciation of music and cognitive ability are improved, the teaching effect will reflect the teaching effect. If the students’ playing ability, music expression, music appreciation and cognitive ability are improved, the teaching effect will reflect the teaching effect. Especially in piano teaching, individual differences are relatively large, and the perception and expression of music are different. Therefore, after the students enter the school, according to the different degrees of piano playing, teachers should carefully select the teaching repertoire for the students according to their learning ability and playing ability, and reasonably arrange the teaching of solo, ensemble, improvisation accompaniment, and music appreciation, etc. The evaluation of the quality of the student’s learning should include the following: playing skills, emotional experience, artistic and practical ability, piano performance ability, and the ability to learn emotional values of music. The evaluation of the students’ learning quality should include their playing skills, emotional experience, artistic practice ability, piano theory foundation, and regular grades.

Based on the level of importance of each indicator as shown in Table 6, expressed in percentage: 28%, 35%, 20%, 8.5%, 8.5% respectively. The evaluation criteria can be measured on a graded scale, using A, B, C, D or excellent, good, fair, pass or fail. “A” is excellent, able to fulfill the requirements of the indicators very well, with a score of 95. “B” is excellent, able to fulfill the requirements of the indicators well, but with slight deficiencies, with a score of 80. “C” is passing, basically fulfilling the requirements of the indicators, but obviously inadequate, with a score of 65. “D” is failing, can not fulfill the requirements of the indicators, the score is 50 points. In the actual piano classroom teaching, the five aspects mentioned above to evaluate the quality of student learning should be based on the actual situation. Compulsory piano courses require all majors to study for 2 years, and this part of the students is regarded as general students. The piano assessment results of the general students should be: performance skills, emotional and emotional experience and usual grades in 3 parts, the weighting ratio is 50%, 30%, 20% respectively. After 2 years of study, students who enter the major should be regarded as majors. Since these students are required to hold a graduation concert upon graduation, their piano examination results should be: performance skills, emotional and affective experience, artistic practice and usual grades in 4 parts, with weighting ratios of 50%, 20%, 20%, and 10%, respectively. Major students enter the graduation stage after 3 years of study, we should regard this part of the students as graduates, because after graduation most of the students will be engaged in piano teaching, so their piano examination results should be: performance skills, emotional experience, artistic practice ability, piano theory foundation and usual grades of these 5 parts, the weighting ratio of 28%, 35%, 20%, 8.5%, 8.5%, respectively, with the addition of piano pedagogy and works of art, and the addition of piano pedagogy and works of art. Among them, the assessment contents of piano pedagogy and work analysis are added.

Table 6.

Evaluation index of students’ quality of learning in piano class

Measure content and weight	Measuring point	Evaluation grade
Measure content and weight	Measuring point	A	B	C	D
Performance skill (0.28)	Timeliness	9.6	8.2	6.7	5.5
	Rhythm	9.6	8.2	6.7	5.5
	Posture	4.8	4.4	3.36	3
Emotional experience (0.35)	Expression	9.6	8.2	6.7	5.5
	Speed	9.6	8.2	6.7	5.5
	Strength	9.6	8.2	6.7	5.5
Artistic ability (0.20)	Play a piano concert	14.48	12.2	9.8	8
	Accompany	9.6	8.2	6.7	5.5
	Play the game	9.6	8.2	6.7	5.5
Piano theory foundation (0.085)	Piano analysis	9.6	8.2	6.7	5.5
Piano theory foundation (0.085)	Piano teaching	9.6	8.2	6.7	5.5
Normal grade (0.085)	Learning attitude	9.6	8.2	6.7	5.5
Normal grade (0.085)	Back to class	9.6	8.2	6.7	5.5

3.4

Strategies for Improving the Teaching Effect of Piano Majors in Colleges and Universities

According to the analysis of the evaluation results of the above primary and secondary indicators, it can be learned that the main factor affecting teachers’ teaching effectiveness lies in the teaching content.

First of all, for the students, teachers need to be well prepared for teaching, to understand the textbook thoroughly, to know the extracurricular knowledge related to the knowledge of the lesson, to understand the ins and outs of each knowledge point and the causes and consequences, and to cite appropriate examples to solve problems and analyze problems. Secondly, for the teachers themselves, read some books and reference materials that are beneficial to teaching, and constantly replenish their knowledge. In classroom teaching, they not only need to consolidate and utilize their professional knowledge and skills, but also need to add new knowledge, information and skills in teaching practice, so as to expand their own knowledge continuously. Again, for the school itself, the school needs to provide students with certain learning platforms, such as regular academic lectures and a variety of academic activities, etc., from the academic point of view to assist classroom teaching, enriching the vision of teaching and learning to realize the diversity of teaching. In short, based on the teachers’ own perfect knowledge, they need to fully adopt appropriate teaching methods to enrich the content of their classroom teaching.

Adopting the AHP model method, the department and the teaching and research department formulate the scientific “Piano Basic Course Grading Standard”, and score the students’ status in terms of performance skills, emotional experience, artistic practice ability, piano theory foundation and usual performance, etc., and credit all the grades into the total grade according to the scientific ratio, so that the final grades can truly reflect the whole process of the student’s learning. Through this assessment method, the evaluation covers all important aspects of teaching and runs through the whole process of teaching, so the introduction of AHP model in piano teaching plays a positive role in the improvement of piano teaching effect.

4

Conclusion

This study adopts a questionnaire and interview method to investigate the actual situation of piano teaching in colleges and universities. Based on the principles of piano teaching syllabus, teaching objectives, etc., the hierarchical analysis method combined with the advice and suggestions to experts is used to screen the representative evaluation factors and construct the evaluation system of classroom teaching effect of college English courses. The study shows that:

The evaluation indexes of piano teachers’ teaching effect include teaching attitude, teaching content, teaching methods and means, and teaching effect. And the teaching content is the key factor affecting the teaching effect. Therefore, teachers need to expand their knowledge by acquiring new knowledge, information, and skills.

The learning effect of students is mainly evaluated from five parts: performance skills, emotional and affective experience, artistic practical ability, piano theory foundation, and usual grades. Therefore, the introduction of the AHP model plays an important role in improving piano teaching effectiveness.

Language:: English

Publication timeframe:: 1 times per year
Journal Subjects:: Life Sciences, Life Sciences, other, Mathematics, Applied Mathematics, General Mathematics, Physics, Physics, other

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Assessment and Enhancement of Teaching Effectiveness of Piano Majors in Colleges and Universities Based on AHP Modeling

Jiang Jiang

Published Online: Mar 24, 2025

Received: Nov 07, 2024

Accepted: Feb 11, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/amns-2025-0792

KeywordsQuestionnaire, Hierarchical analysis, Evaluation system, Teaching effect

© 2025 Jiang Jiang, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Keywords
Questionnaire, Hierarchical analysis, Evaluation system, Teaching effect