The purpose of this study was to explore the content of reflective dialogues between student teachers in music and their cooperating teachers, as well as to understand the effects of reflective dialogue on professional development. I was guided in this analysis of 49 transcriptions of interviews and reflective dialogues between student teachers…

We examined the effects of presentation modality and learning style preference on people's ability to learn and remember unfamiliar melodies and sentences. In Experiment 1, we gauged musicians' and nonmusicians' learning efficiency for meaningful and less meaningful melodies as well as sentences when presented visually or auditorily. In Experiment…

In the present study, we examined whether collective efficacy, group cohesion (task and social), and perceived motivational climate (task-involving and ego-involving orientations) in a music ensemble predict instrumentalists' perceived conductor support. Ninety-one (N = 91) skilled high school instrumentalists participated in the study. To assess…

The purpose of this study was to examine the professional contributions of Alice Carey Inskeep (1875-1942), who contributed significantly to music education through her "positive and effective teaching, supervising, community service, and leadership in music education". Inskeep was born, in Ottumwa, Iowa, and taught for five years in that city's…

We examined the content of the 2002 and 2004 National Biennial In-Service Conferences of MENC: The National Association for Music Education; the 2002 and 2004 Midwest Clinic: An International Band and Orchestra Conferences; the 2002 and 2004 Orff-Schulwerk Conferences; and the 2003 and 2005 American Choral Directors Association Conventions. Each…

The purpose of this study was to explore perceived concerns of preservice music education teachers across four different points in professional development. A 45-item Teacher Concerns Checklist (Borich, 2000), based upon Fuller and Bown's (1975) three-stage model of teacher development, identified respondents' levels of self-concerns, task…

The purpose of this research was to discover materials and methods used and examine influences on how and why sight-singing is taught in Florida middle-school choral programs. Members of the Florida Vocal Association completed an online or paper version of a questionnaire (N = 152). Data yielded several results that support previous research and…

The use of peer mentoring in a successful high school jazz band was explored during one academic year of instruction using ethnographic techniques. Participants included primary informants (student jazz band members, director, assistant director, adult mentors) and secondary informants (guidance counselor, principal, parents, non-jazz band member…

The purpose of this study was to examine the impact that education level and primary performance instrument have on the evaluation of music performances. Participants (N = 423) in the study were middle school (n = 187), high school (n = 113), and college (n = 123) musicians who performed on either a brass (n = 115) or a nonbrass (n = 301)…

This study is an examination of motivation orientations (mastery, intrinsic, cooperative, individual, competition, ego, approach success, avoid failure, hypercompetition, personal development competition) and musical self-concept in relation to measures of academic achievement and career goals of preservice music teachers. The research questions…

This study addressed the cognitive processes of musicians using imagery to improve expressive performance. Specifically, it was an examination of the extent to which musicians translate imagery into explicit plans for the sound properties of music. Eighty-four undergraduate and graduate music majors completed a research packet during individual…

Using two sequential key press sequences, we tested the extent to which subjects' performance on a digital piano keyboard changed between the end of training and retest on subsequent days. We found consistent, significant improvements attributable to sleep-based consolidation effects, indicating that learning continued after the cessation of…

The primary purpose of this study was to examine composition practices in public schools across the state of Indiana, to investigate who incorporates composition and why they chose to use or not use composing tasks. A second purpose was to learn if teachers had an operational definition for composition. Three hundred thirty-nine teachers…

Adult piano students (N = 711) from 24 states across the U.S. rated the existence and importance of 31 potential benefits of adult piano study. Benefits selected from existing adult music and leisure-benefit research were organized into three categories: Personal, Skill, and Social/Cultural. The category of Skill Benefits was the most-agreed-upon…

This article presents an acceptance speech by Jere T. Humphreys, the recipient of the Music Educators National Conference (MENC) 2006 Senior Researcher Award. Humphreys discusses his observations about music education research in MENC's first and second centuries. Most of his observations focus on the present--the nexus of the two centuries: first…