From the International Conference on New Horizons in Education, INTE 2014, 25-27 June 2014, Paris, France. This is an open access article published under a Creative Commons Licence. The date stated is the date "available online".
This is a report into research into the felt experience of muscular tension in 15 piano students, as reported using a number of 5-point Likert items measured before and after a 14-week series of Alexander group sessions (including 10-minutes of individual attention). The 5-point items ran between 1 (severely tensed) to 5 (very mild tension) and the subjects rated 8 different body parts. No objective measure of tension was employed nor was any attempt made to measure the impact on performance or other outcomes. The 15 subjects were selected for evidence of tension.
The Likert scale in this case is the composite of the 8 different Likert items, producing a single measure of "tension" for each subject, pre- and post-test.
The results show significant improvement in most cases. Interestingly, looking at individual items, the area that was reported as most tense in the pre-test score (shoulders, average 2.00) was reported as the least tense in the post-test scoring (average 4.07). This raises the question as to whether subjects were reporting absolute or relative feelings.
The authors conclude that the positive results indicate the need for a further trial with larger numbers.