The purpose of this study is to test the hypothesis that there is a link between children's musical experiences and attitudes, and their musical skills and understandings. For the purpose of the research, experience and attitudes have been measured by the National Education Monitoring Projects (NEMP) 2000 Music Survey, whilst the NEMP 2000 Assessment Results have been used to provide levels of musical skills and understandings. The first part of this study focuses on the nature of NEMP music assessment in relation to different aptitude, ability and achievement tests, and compares NEMP with various national assessments, in particular the ones used by the United States of America and Wales.

The second part of the study tests the hypothesis that whether a link is present between children's musical experiences and attitudes, and the extent of their musical skills and understandings, as revealed in their NEMP survey results and scores. The analysed results should be helpful in teacher education situations in determining the balance and relationship between teaching musical skills and understandings alongside student attitudes and previous experiences.

Based on the sample used in this research, correlation analyses showed that attitudes toward music do not have a strong influence on students' musical abilities. A greater number of relationships was found between musical experiences and students' NEMP scores. This result is similar to a few other attitude researches which will be briefly discussed and compared.