ERIC Number: EJ1152561
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2015
Pages: 16
Abstractor: ERIC
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: EISSN-2379-9021
EISSN: N/A
The Prevalence of the Use of Music as a Teaching Tool among Selected American Classroom Educators: A Preliminary Examination
Killian, Janice L.; Wayman, John B.
Texas Music Education Research, p22-37 2015
The importance of music education in American schools is well established, with 93% of Americans agreeing that music should be a part of a well-rounded education (Harris, 2005). Students preparing to teach in the elementary classroom (elementary education majors) in American colleges and universities typically take a music class (sometimes two) as part of their preparation. The content of these preservice classes for non-music majors often includes personal musical skill development, music literacy, ways to teach music, and occasionally strategies to use music as a tool to teach other subjects. Despite the pervasiveness of university music courses for preservice classroom teachers, relatively few researchers, with the exception of Giles and Frego (2004), Hash (2010), and Kelly (1998), have examined how music is actually used in the general classroom after teachers leave the university. The current study was designed to explore the use of music by elementary classroom teachers who presumably did not teach music as a subject because their schools had a music specialist. The authors asked to what extent classroom teachers used music in their classrooms and found that only two (2.5%) never used music and 42 of the 79 respondents (53.2%) used music daily. Such responses are even higher than the National Center for Education Statistics (2011) data that indicated that 92% of classroom teachers reported incorporating music in other subjects. Perhaps the most important question addressed in this study concerned exactly how the teachers used music. The strategies and methods used varied considerably, but some consensus was apparent. Teachers indicated that they used music as background (70%), memorization (61%), cue for attention (52%), energy release (52%), transitions (46%), and classroom management (44%). The authors intend for results of this study to generate methodology for a larger, more comprehensive examination of this issue. They anticipate that recommendations for instructors of university classes for non-music majors, as well as implications for further research, will be products of this research.
Descriptors: Music Education, Elementary School Teachers, Preservice Teacher Education, Music Activities, Teaching Methods, Interdisciplinary Approach, Teacher Surveys, Interviews, Singing, Qualitative Research
Texas Music Educators Association. 7900 Centre Park Drive, Austin, TX 78754. Tel: 512-452-0710; Fax: 512-451-9213; Web site: http://www.tmea.org
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research; Tests/Questionnaires
Education Level: Elementary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Texas; Georgia; South Carolina; Oregon
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A