What's new in Pedagogy research? - Professional Resources - music teachers and college music students survey about use of practice time

at any time since the first person showed a friend in what manner to clap their hands or beat upon a rock in rhythm, teachers have awaited their students to practice. greatest in quantity teachers think the main goal of each lesson is to prepare the pupil to practice until his or her nearest lesson. But how do our expectations as teachers compare to what really is going upon during the student's practice time? In a investigation titled "Practice Expectations and Attitudes: A view of College-Level Music Teachers and Students" (1) Marilyn Kostka take a view ofed 134 undergraduate and graduate music majors and 127 studio teachers at various corporations and universities. The survey consisted of the following questions, with the student-adapted questions in italics.

* What is your specific instrument or vocal part?

* in what manner many years have you taught private lessons? (How many years have you studied your major instrument?)

* In general, which of the following skills do you have feeling are most and least important in your students' (your) practice? Please rank them in order from 1 (most valuable) to 5 (least valuable).

a. technique

b musicality

c sight-reading ability

d tone quality

e memorization skills

* upon what activity do you wait for your students to spend greatest in quantity of their practice time? (On what activity do you lay out most of your practice time?) (warm-ups, technique, repertoire, sight reading and in the way that forth)

* upon what activity do you await your students to spend the least amount of time? (On what activity do you part with the least amount of time?)

* Approximately by what means many hours do you wait for your students to practice for week? (Approximately how many hours do you practice by week?)

* Do you move that your students have a regular plan or routine for practicing? (Do you have a regular plan or routine for practicing?)

* If "yes" please briefly describe.

* Have you discussed practice strategies with your students? (Have you discussed practice strategies with your teacher?)

* Please circle the alphabetic character which best describes how you, personally, have feeling about practicing:

a. tedious on the other hand necessary

b. relaxing

c challenging

d fulfilling (2)

The contemplate results were interesting, though perhaps not unexpect The teachers reported that they awaited an average of fourteen and a half hours of practice a week (averaged above all the surveyed instruments); on the other hand the students estimated they practiced a little les than ten hours a week. Ninety-four percent of the teachers indicated they give an inkling ofed a regular practice routine, while alone 45 percent of the pupils said they used a regular practice routine. All teachers indicated that they discussed practice strategies with their pupils but only 69 percent of the pupils said they had discussed this with their teacher. When describing their personal feelings about practicing, 38 percent of the learners chose "challenging," and 22 percent chose "fulfilling." Among the teachers, 76 percent chose "fulfilling," while 20 percent chose "challenging." Ranking the importance of the five music skills (musicality, technique, tone quality, sight reading and memorization), the teachers and pupils tended to agree on their relative importance, with "musicality" being the greatest in quantity important to both groups. Memorization skills were ranked last through both groups, and this gave rise to the question of whether memorization was broadly required above the instrument groups, or whether the strategies for memorizing were simply not discussed in the lesson

Reflections

At first glance, the flows of this study might cause single to ask, "What are we saying, and is anyone on the outside there listening?" It also might raise the issue that if music majors and professors have this plenteous of a dichotomy in perception, it could alone be worse with children! We mustn't draw too many conclusions because the scholars surveyed in this study did not work with the professors who were polled--they were sum of two units separate groups of participants. single might, however, guess that their answers were fairly typical, if not universal. Perhaps the greatest in quantity reasonable lessons to learn from this take a view of are that students practice les than we would wish (no surprises there), that we as teachers ne to more clearly articulate practice strategies for each piece and that our pupils need to discover the fulfillment we have feeling when practicing. It would be interesting to ask our possess students these questions; however, without the blanket of anonymity, I am not assured how honest the answers would be!

NOTES

(1) Kostka, Marilyn, "Practice Expectations and Attitudes: A observe of College-Level Music Teachers and Students" Journal of Research in Music Education. 50 (2002): 145-154

(2) Ibid., 148

--Rebecca valets Johnson, NCTM, Ph.D. National Pedagogy Chair Director of Keyboard Pedagogy Capital University Columbus, Ohio

COPYRIGHT 2003 Music Teachers National Association, Inc.

COPYRIGHT 2003 Gale Group