Measuring Music Education

Theoretical Framework

This investigation draws on the work of Karen Barad, a contemporary philosopher who also holds a degree in theoretical particle physics. Her most cited work, Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning (Barad, 2007), has received marked attention from writers in fields ranging from media studies (e.g., Deuze, 2012) to economics (e.g., Orlikowski, 2015) to education philosophy (e.g., Fenwick & Edwards, 2010; Taguchi, 2010; Wegerif, 2013). Since the current emphasis on measurement in education relies on a worldview that foregrounds scientific verification, Barad’s physics background allows her to provide a unique philosophical perspective on the process and implications of measurement.

Although measurement within a scientific laboratory clearly looks different than measurement within educational settings, the same general set of procedures governs both practices. Writing about measurement in education and psychology, Thorndike and Thorndike-Christ (2010) explain:

Measurement in any field involves three common steps: (1) identifying and defining the quality or the attribute that is to be measured, (2) determining the set of operations by which the attribute may be isolated and displayed for observation, and (3) establishing a set of procedures or definitions for translating our observations into quantitative statements of degree or amount. (p. 10)

These steps occur regardless of whether one is measuring qualities of a particle in a physics experiment or aspects of student learning in a music classroom; while the “what” may change, the overarching “how” does not. Thus, Barad’s writings about measuring quantum phenomena can inform music educators’ understandings of their own measurement practices.

Measurement is distinct from assessment. Consistent with Thorndike and Thorndike-Christ (2010), Payne (2003) explains that in education, “Measurement is concerned with the systematic collection, quantification, and ordering of information. It implies both the process or quantification, and the result” (p. 7). In contrast, educational assessment is “the interpretive integration of application tasks (procedures) to collect objectives-relevant information for educational decision making and communication about the impact of the teaching-learning process” (Payne, 2003, p. 9). In other words, measurement involves gathering data and assigning numbers to qualities such as attributes or behaviors, while assessment encompasses making inferences and value judgments about the collected information (e.g., Miller, Linn, & Gronlund, 2009; Reynolds, Livingston, & Willson, 2009). Put simply, “Assessment = Measurement + Evaluation” (Payne, 2003, p. 9).

Measurement is central to the Model Cornerstone Assessments. Authors of related documents explain that they aimed to “develop common tools to measure student learning” (Common Arts Assessment Initiative, 2014, p. 1) and that the Model Cornerstone Assessments would “show how student learning can be measured through rich performance tasks” (State Education Agency Directors of Arts Education, 2014, p. 8). The term measure also appears in all current versions of the Model Cornerstone Assessments; each of the 23 assessment drafts begins with the opening line “Model Cornerstone Assessments (MCAs) in music are tasks that provide formative and summative means to measure student achievement of performance standards in the National Core Music Standards” (e.g., National Association for Music Education, 2015a, p. 2; 2015c, p. 2). ³ While the Model Cornerstone Assessments ultimately enable teachers to “assess” students by interpreting and communicating the information they collect, their authors, in alignment with definitions in education literature, indicate that the process of measurement serves as a necessary precursor to such action.

Because Barad’s (2007) interest lies in the ways in which individual scientists engage with quantum phenomena, she writes almost exclusively about the process of measurement rather than about how the experimenter or wider scientific community assesses those measurements. Yet, since Barad’s larger philosophical project involves drawing on contemporary scientific measurement practices to reconceptualize existence, applying her writings to practices beyond measurement is consistent with her work. As such, this philosophical inquiry focuses on the process of measurement while at times extending Barad’s ideas to aspects of assessment.

First, in this philosophical inquiry I explore Barad’s (2007) concepts of reflection and diffraction and use them as a framework through which to analyze documents related to the Model Cornerstone Assessments. Second, I explain Barad’s writings about measurement apparatuses and apply them to the Model Cornerstone Assessments. Third, I investigate the limits of measurement apparatuses. Fourth, I examine the relationship between teacher and student in the measurement process using Barad’s concept of intra-action. Finally, I posit four suggestions for music education policy and practice.

Reflection and Diffraction

Barad (2007) draws on aspects of the physics phenomena of reflection and diffraction to distinguish between reflective and diffractive methodologies. She explains that reflection involves mirror images, writing, “To mirror something is to provide an accurate image or representation that faithfully copies that which is being mirrored” (p. 86). In reflection, objects are held at a distance, and a clear boundary exists between observer and object. Researchers relying on a reflective methodology consider themselves and their measurements independent from the phenomena under their investigation. In contrast, diffractive patterns necessitate “marking differences from within and as part of an entangled state” (p. 89). In diffraction, observer and object are not fixed but emerging and contingent on each other. ⁴ Researchers relying on a diffractive methodology consider themselves part of and evolving in integration with the phenomena they measure.

Writers of documents associated with the music Model Cornerstone Assessments imply that those adopting the assessments will use a reflective rather than a diffractive methodology. For example, authors state that teachers can use the pilot and final versions of the assessments “to monitor and improve student learning in the arts” (Common Arts Assessment Initiative, 2014, p. 1). Similarly, the writers of the Conceptual Framework that accompanies the National Core Arts Standards assert that teachers can “capture student work based on the model cornerstone assessments” (State Education Agency Directors of Arts Education, 2014, p. 6). Words like monitor and capture insinuate a distanced observer distinct from students and their work. Just as one can monitor a room from a hidden camera or capture a candid photograph, these authors imply that a teacher can measure student growth without altering students’ learning processes or musical experiences.

Barad (2007) explains the false assumptions underlying reflective methodologies, writing, “Scientific practices may more adequately be understood as a matter of intervening rather than representing” (p. 54). By isolating certain qualities and quantities, quantum physics experiments do not just represent existing conditions, they change the phenomena under investigation. This does not mean that measurement is not reproducible; reproducibility results from adherence to specific procedures of measurement (Barad, 2007). In other words, scientists control their experimental conditions so that they intervene with phenomena in the same manner each time, thus allowing them to replicate findings.

Through the act of measuring, scientists and music educators alike alter the phenomena under investigation. Take, for example, the part of the second-grade “creating” Model Cornerstone Assessment that involves improvising two four-beat long rhythmic “answers” to a teacher’s rhythmic prompts (National Association for Music Education, 2015a). During the task, the teacher measures student learning and then assesses it with a rubric, and the students fill out a self-assessment sheet, which includes statements such as “I kept a steady beat” and “My answers were expressive” followed by the choices of yes with a smiling face, no with a frowning face, and sometimes with a neutral face (National Association for Music Education, 2015a, p. 7). Consider how a group of second graders might respond in the following three scenarios: The students improvise without the teacher using the Model Cornerstone Assessment; the teacher explains the Model Cornerstone Assessment and then the students improvise; the students improvise and then the teacher explains that he or she just measured and assessed their improvisations using the Model Cornerstone Assessment. ⁵ Would a student in each context have a different musical experience? If so, why?

In all three scenarios, decisions the teacher makes regarding content and pedagogy will affect students’ experiences. For instance, while the second-grade students improvise, the music educator may focus their attention on specific musical concepts or on other aspects of the experience, such as their emotions or bodies. These decisions affect students’ immediate musical experiences as well as their future musical engagements; students who practice using dynamics while improvising will likely attend to that musical quality differently in subsequent music performing, listening, and creating experiences. Yet, in the first and third scenarios, when students do not anticipate that the teacher will measure their improvisations, the quality and intensity of students’ attention and their accompanying emotions will likely contrast those of students made aware of forthcoming measurements.

In the second scenario, in which, as suggested in the assessment’s instructions, the teacher makes the students aware of the measurement before the improvisation, the students approach the musical endeavor with the prospect of measurement. Second-grade students who know that they and their teacher will determine to what extent they have kept a steady beat have more reason to focus their full attention on that quality than those who do not anticipate that a teacher will measure their improvisations. In other words, students respond differently to the direction “keep a steady beat” than to the statement “I’m going to measure the steadiness of your beat.” Additionally, students may experience nervousness, excitement, or other feelings before, during, and after the measurement. While any musical experience can arouse such emotions, the process of measurement has the potential to alter the type, quality, and strength of students’ emotional experiences.

Students may also change when teachers share their assessment of the measured performance with them. ⁶ Such action can affect how students in this scenario remember the musical experience. For example, imagine a student who circled the yes and smiling face next to the statement “I kept a steady beat” only to have the teacher indicate that he or she did not keep a steady beat. The student, who may have felt happy after the initial musical experience, may now look back on the event with sadness. Similarly, in the third scenario, in which the teacher makes the students aware of the measurement only after the musical experience, while the students will not feel the embodied-emotional reactions or cognitive intensification associated with an impending measurement, their perceptions of and feelings about the musical experience will likely change as they reflect on their actions and receive input from their teacher. In short, the prospect of measurement can affect one’s anticipation of a musical experience, the process of measurement can affect one’s engagement during a musical experience, and the results of past measurements can affect one’s memories of a musical experience. While an individual student’s reactions to any form of measurement depend on a variety of factors, ranging from prior experiences to the current classroom environment to his or her general disposition, these scenarios reveal that measurement does not just “monitor” or “capture” students’ music-making and learning but fundamentally changes it.

Because students cannot undo the alterations resulting from their learning being measured and assessed, those processes will affect their future musical engagements. In other words, experiencing measurement and assessment contributes to one’s changing musical self. Imagine that the teacher in the second and third aforementioned scenarios then repeats the improvisation exercise without any measurement. Since the students have practiced intensely focusing their attention on the musical elements named in the measurement and assessment processes, such practices will influence their subsequent musical endeavors. For example, a student who circled the no and frowning face next to the statement “I used interesting rhythms” cannot help but bring that information to subsequent musical endeavors.

Measurement and assessment do not just change existing experiences, they constitute one’s evolving experiences. Randall Allsup (2015) writes, “We are more than the music we make; we are simultaneously made and remade by the music we make” (p. 8). The experience of hearing a specific genre of music or undertaking a certain musical practice contributes to one’s evolving musical self and interfaces with all future musical endeavors. Likewise, while students are more than measurement results, they are made and remade by measurements and assessments.

Although measurements and assessments can leave students upset or unmotivated, they can also positively impact their musical development. Students who intensely direct their attention toward keeping a study beat or the complexity of their rhythmic improvisations can build on those experiences in their future musical endeavors. In addition to propagating false assumptions about the nature of measurement, language that neglects the role of measurement and subsequently assessment in producing an individual’s continually changing musical experiences may cause teachers and students to miss the potentially beneficial ways in which these processes can enhance learning. If measurement in part constitutes students’ changing musical and educational experiences and selves, then measurement apparatuses deserve significant attention.

Measurement Apparatuses

The act of measuring necessitates a specific measurement apparatus that forms boundaries in order to function. Barad (2007) explains, “Apparatuses are not mere observing instruments but boundary-drawing practices—specific material (re)configurations of the world—which come to matter” (p. 140). This statement has two important implications. First, the boundaries drawn by measurement apparatuses do not preexist those apparatuses. For example, the authors of the music Model Cornerstone Assessments create boundaries between the practices of “creating,” “performing,” and “responding” as well as between types of musical engagement such as “ensembles,” “composition-theory,” “technology,” and “guitar/keyboard/harmonizing instruments” (National Association for Music Education, 2016). Within each measurement apparatus, ⁷ the authors distinguish further boundaries between qualities such as “expressive” and “formal,” thus demarcating limits between concepts associated with those labels (e.g., National Association for Music Education, 2015b, p. 7). The boundaries between and within these practices are not inevitable or universal but temporary configurations determined by the apparatuses’ creators. Likewise, teachers and students adapting the Model Cornerstone Assessments to meet their local needs inevitably draw new boundaries between musical practices and qualities.

Second, boundaries are “practices” that those using measurement apparatuses sustain and reinforce. When second-grade students measure and assess their learning by filling out the self-assessment sheets following their rhythmic improvisations, they reproduce the boundaries between the musical concepts enumerated on their sheets. The boundaries between musical concepts and practices exist in and through the act of making informal and formal measurements. Teachers also produce boundaries through practices beyond measurement and assessment; actions such as selecting content and emphasizing and labeling certain terms all contribute to divides between different types of musical practices and concepts as well as between “school” musical practices and music-making taking place elsewhere in society. These boundary-producing practices exist in integration with those created and reinforced through measurement and assessment procedures.

It is important to note that measurement need not involve a physical apparatus beyond the human body. Just as scientists can use their eyes to approximate quantities such as distances and speeds, music educators can use their ears to measure various musical qualities. For example, a teacher can measure and assess a student’s tone by listening and comparing the sound to memories of prior musical experiences without using a written rubric. Yet, when codified measurement apparatuses do exist, their repeated use can affect how people understand the qualities named within them.

Barad (2007) contrasts physicist Werner Heisenberg’s position that quantities in quantum systems such as position and momentum exist in the world waiting to be measured with physicist Niels Bohr’s assertion that quantities emerge through measurement, noting that Heisenberg eventually agreed with Bohr. According to Bohr, concepts are “idealizations” or “abstractions” that lack determinant meanings absent the appropriate experimental arrangements (p. 296). A particle does not exist in a single position waiting to be measured; rather, it exists in multiple positions simultaneously. The practice of measurement forces the particle into a single, identifiable position.

Likewise, the aspects of music-making named in a given measurement apparatus are not waiting to be measured; they only come into existence through measurement practices. For instance, through their measurements, those choosing to utilize the “creating” Model Cornerstone Assessments produce the practice of “creating.” In fifth grade, “creating” might be notating or recording music for a specific purpose or context while using at least three of the musical elements named in the assessment instructions (National Association for Music Education, 2015b), and in eighth grade, “creating” might be making music with a beginning, middle, and end for a short video (National Association for Music Education, 2015c). If the majority of music educators in a given district or state decide to use and reuse these assessments, these practices will come to constitute musical “creating” in those locations. Likewise, any repeated assessment—be it an adaptation of a Model Cornerstone Assessment or an assessment formulated from scratch—has the potential to constitute a specific musical practice.

Additionally, while fifth- and eighth-grade students could take the aforementioned tasks in a number of directions, the associated measurement apparatuses ultimately inform how they will engage with them. Both the fifth-grade and eighth-grade assessments’ final scoring rubrics rate students’ musical creations on “expressive intent” and “craftsmanship” (National Association for Music Education, 2015b, p. 14; 2015c, p. 10). For the teachers and students using these measurement apparatuses to make assessments, these qualities will contribute to understandings of “creating” as well as distinguish high-quality musical “creating” from that of lesser quality. Such perceptions are not inevitable; they exist through the repeated boundary-making practices necessitated by specific measurement apparatuses as well as through decisions, ranging from selecting content to determining pedagogy to connecting with music makers outside of the classroom, that function in integration with measurement and assessment. A measurement apparatus does not just capture preexisting musical practices, it produces musical practices.

Given the important role of measurement apparatuses, the authors of the Model Cornerstone Assessments deserve credit for not simply preserving past boundaries. For example, the authors of the current drafts of the Model Cornerstone Assessments ask music technology students to construct their own message or interpretation while arranging a cover song of their choice (National Association for Music Education, 2015e). Such tasks contrast those teachers might create in conjunction with the 1994 National Music Standards. Yet, no matter how innovative, educational measurement apparatuses become problematic if teachers do not continually adapt them to their individual circumstances.

While the authors of a recently added statement on the music Model Cornerstone Assessments webpage assert that the Model Cornerstone Assessments “provide adaptable assessment tasks” (National Association for Music Education, 2016), the authors of the Conceptual Framework for the National Core Arts Standards simultaneously assert their variability and universality, writing, “These tasks are intended to serve as models to guide the development of local assessments and as such, will eventually be benchmarked with student work and available on the NCCAS website” (State Education Agency Directors of Arts Education, 2014, p. 9). Additionally, the Conceptual Framework authors state that the online repository for student work will utilize the labels “near standard,” “at standard,” and “above standard” (State Education Agency Directors of Arts Education, 2014, p. 6). Despite these authors’ acknowledgment of possible local variations, the prospect of nationwide labels for student work may encourage educators teaching in diverse situations to adopt the same measurement apparatuses and make comparisons across school, district, and state lines. ⁸ While music educators might benefit from freely available choices of rigorous, adaptable assessments and accompanying examples of student work, such action becomes problematic if music educators and students confine themselves to specific measurement apparatuses, thus placing limits on their possible musical understandings, practices, and experiences.

The Limits of Measurement Apparatuses

By bounding concepts and practices, measurement apparatuses determine inclusions and exclusions. Barad (2007) writes, “Given a particular measuring apparatus, certain properties become determinate, while others are specifically excluded. Which properties become determinate is not governed by the desires or will of the experimenter but rather by the specificity of the experimental apparatus” (p. 19). For example, through the Uncertainty Principle, Heisenberg demonstrated that one can measure either a particle’s position or momentum but not both simultaneously; the incompatibility of the measurement apparatuses needed for each quantity limit a scientist to making one measurement or the other.

Although different apparatuses will determine and ultimately create different quantities, none can determine all of them at once (Barad, 2007). While the proposed Model Cornerstone Assessments name a wide range of musical qualities and practices, some potential musical information will always cease to exist in any measurement endeavor. For example, without alteration, the eighth-grade “creating” assessment task does not allow students to express themselves through music without a clear beginning, middle, or end or to engage with musical material in ways that a teacher may not consider “expressive.” Likewise, the scoring rubrics for the “creating” Model Cornerstone Assessments inevitably exclude or minimize other potentially meaningful aspects of what someone not entrenched in these measuring apparatuses’ language might call “creating.” Measuring “creating” with an apparatus highlighting virtual audiences’ reactions to students’ cross-genre improvisations would produce markedly different conceptions of “creating” than those fostered by the current drafts of the Model Cornerstone Assessments.

More problematically, writers of materials related to the Model Cornerstone Assessments include value-laden terminology that implies uniformity among those interfacing with the measurement apparatuses. For instance, authors of the Conceptual Framework for the National Core Arts Standards explain that the Model Cornerstone Assessments “are intended to engage students in applying knowledge and skills in authentic and relevant contexts” (State Education Agency Directors of Arts Education, 2014, p. 16). Such language assumes that all teachers and students will agree on what constitutes “authentic” and “relevant.” Yet, teachers’ and students’ prior experiences, current environments, and future aims interface with what each individual currently terms “authentic” and “relevant.” ⁹

Such situations create an instance of what philosopher Jean-François Lyotard (1983/1988) terms the differend. He explains:

The differend is the unstable state and instant of language wherein something which must be able to be put into phrases cannot yet be. This state includes silence, which is a negative phrase, but it also calls upon phrases which are in principle possible. This state is signaled by what one ordinarily calls a feeling: “One cannot find the words,” etc. (p. 13)

These statements suggest that the differend can occur in two potentially overlapping ways.

First, the differend forms when a practice or concept that one can put into language does not fit within a specific discourse. For example, Deborah Bradley (2011) uses Lyotard’s writings about differends to critique Wisconsin’s preservice music teacher assessment guidelines, which she asserts contain Eurocentric and elitist phrase regimens that lead to the omission of certain forms of music-making from curricula. As demonstrated through their emphasis on notation and Western musical terminology, the revised 2014 National Core Music Standards, like their 1994 predecessors, ¹⁰ clearly favor Eurocentric musical practices. Language for non-Eurocentric musical practices exists, but music educators and students cannot argue for it within the parameters imposed by the language, albeit adaptable, of the current drafts of the Model Cornerstone Assessments. Through its advocates’ voices, a musical practice or concept not named in the Model Cornerstone Assessments becomes a differend as it “‘asks’ to be put into phrases, and suffers the wrong of not being able to be put into phrases right away” (Lyotard, 1983/1988, p. 13).

A second instance of the differend occurs when an experience defies language. While Lyotard uses the example of silence, aspects of musical experiences also seem to fit within this explanation. For example, Susanne Langer (1957) asserts that music does not involve the discursive symbolization inherent in language; instead, through presentational symbols, a composer “articulates subtle complexes of feeling that language cannot even name, let alone set forth” (p. 222). Such aspects of music thus constitute a differend that defies current rhetoric. In Lyotard’s (1983/1988) words, “What remains to be phrased exceeds what [human beings] can presently phrase” (p. 13). While it is beyond the scope of this philosophical inquiry to discuss all of the potential facets of musical experiences that may currently lack expression in language, aspects of the emotional, social, and ethical qualities of musical engagement may all serve as possible instances of the differend.

While the authors of the Model Cornerstone Assessments deserve recognition for including a wide range of music-making, no measurement apparatus will ever address the full range of language related to the world’s vast musical practices or account for the parts of musical experiences that defy clear quantification. As such, the limits of the Model Cornerstone Assessments call into question the ambitious goals articulated by the authors of the Conceptual Framework for the National Core Arts Standards. These authors call the Model Cornerstone Assessments “worthy to teach to,” adding:

Indeed, the term cornerstone is meant to suggest that just as a cornerstone anchors a building, these assessments should anchor the curriculum around the most important performances that students should be able to do (on their own) with acquired content knowledge and skills. (State Education Agency Directors of Arts Education, 2014, p. 15)

The image of “anchors” and practice of “anchoring” are problematic because whether state and district leaders adopt the Model Cornerstone Assessments directly or write their own variations, such language suggests the need to solidify music education curricula and measurement apparatuses regardless of changing local musical differends that teachers, students, and community members may find particularly meaningful. While music educators, students, and other stakeholders will inevitably need to make choices about what to measure at a given time and place, language such as “anchor” and “worthy to teach to” neglects the limits of measurement apparatuses and may dissuade individuals from highlighting the currently unmeasured and immeasurable aspects of musical experiences.

Intra-Action

Thus far in this philosophical inquiry I have primarily focused on the relationships between measurement and student and measurement apparatus, student, and teacher. The effect of measurement on teachers and on teacher-student relationships has gone largely undiscussed. How might the measurement process interface with teachers’ evolving selves and teacher-student engagement?

The diffractive methodology discussed earlier necessitates what Barad (2007) terms “intra-action.” She distinguishes between “interaction,” which occurs between discrete entities, and “intra-action,” through which determinant entities emerge (p. 128). To use a physics example, interaction occurs if a wave collides with a wall and then retreats unaffected by the event. In contrast, intra-action involves a wave and wall that both alter as a result of their meeting; the wave changes as it is sent backward from the wall and interferes with itself, and the wall changes as it absorbs energy from the wave. The intra-action between wave and wall in part constitutes the evolving identity of each. Barad asserts the intra-active nature of both scientific measurement and existence more broadly, writing, “Reality is therefore not a fixed essence. Reality is an ongoing dynamic of intra-activity” (p. 205).

The current drafts of the Model Cornerstone Assessments do provide students opportunities to intra-act with their musical surroundings. For example, the accomplished level of the ensemble performing assessment asks students to draw on their own interests in order to select, analyze, prepare, and perform three contrasting musical pieces with attention to appropriateness for performance contexts (National Association for Music Education, 2015d). According to the assessment rubric, students who successfully meet this standard will have “Exhibited insightful expressive qualities representative of stylistic/composer and personal intent with attention to nuance and sub-phrasing as a means to connect with the listener” (National Association for Music Education, 2015d, p. 13). Such writing suggests intra-actions between student and music and student and listener.

Yet, when it comes to teachers, measurements, and students, rather than intra-actions, authors writing materials associated with the Model Cornerstone Assessments imply the existence of interactions. For example, authors of the Conceptual Framework for the National Core Arts Standards state, “With a focus on processes, enduring understandings, essential questions, and assessments, these arts standards represent a new and innovative approach to arts education that will serve students, teachers, parents, and decisionmakers now and in the future” (State Education Agency Directors of Arts Education, 2014, p. 25). The word serve implies that students, teachers, parents, and decisionmakers have fixed identities; the materials “serve” preexisting needs rather than change or produce the aforementioned actors. In other words, students, teachers, parents, and decisionmakers interact with the named materials and with each other, leaving each individual’s identity fundamentally unchanged.

When Model Cornerstone Assessments documents do suggest that teachers might alter as a result of intra-actions, they highlight teacher-teacher relationships rather than teacher-student ones. For instance, authors of the “Common Arts Assessment Initiative” (2014) document explain that the pilot version aims “to promote collaboration and exchange of instructional ideas among teachers” (p. 1). While teachers may alter in the process of sharing ideas with each other, how they change as a result of intra-acting with students during measurement practices remains absent from this and similar documents.

Understanding not just measurement but existence as intra-active means that when a teacher measures and assesses student learning, both teacher and student alter. For instance, the teacher might change as he or she realizes that specific tone production suggestions had little impact on the majority of students’ performances or as he or she becomes curious about how a student came to make a certain compositional decision. Simultaneously, the student may feel proud at having met a specific expectation, frustrated at not fully comprehending a measurement apparatus, or grateful for a better understanding of what he or she can improve.

Through these intra-actions, the very idea of what it means to be a “teacher” and “student” emerges. “The one who measures” comes in part to constitute a teacher’s evolving self while “the one who has his or her learning measured” comes in part to constitute a student’s evolving self. However, given that constructions of “teacher” and “student” necessitate each other, a more accurate statement might be, “Intra-active measurement and assessment processes produce the integrated, evolving constructs of ‘teacher’ and ‘student.’” Such intra-actions can bring teachers and students closer together or distance them, cause them to work harder at their respective roles, or make them apathetic. However, intra-actions cannot leave “teachers,” “students,” and their relationships with each other unchanged. In short, measuring and assessing are not just actions that teachers do to students but intra-active processes that produce “teachers,” “students,” and “music education.”

Implications

In considering the nature of measurement in music education, I argued that measurement changes and ultimately in part constitutes musical experiences, measurement apparatuses create musical practices and propagate inclusions and exclusions, and “teachers” and “students” emerge as a result of intra-acting during measurement and assessment processes. These assertions suggest four possible implications for practice. First, discourse about measurement, and more broadly assessment, necessitates accompanying language noting the intra-active nature of such engagements. Words like measure and assess are problematic because as transitive verbs, they transfer action from one noun to another. For instance, the phrase “The teacher measures student learning” shifts the action away from an unchanged teacher. Such language neglects that teachers and students alter through and are constituted by measurement and assessment processes. Yet, given the current educational political climate, it is impractical and potentially detrimental to eliminate words such as measure and assess from music education discourse.

Instead, music educators might complement terms such as measure and assess with language such as grow, develop, and become. For example, teachers, students, and policymakers might make statements such as, “Students develop through self-assessments of their improvisations” or “Students grow when teachers measure and assess their compositions.” Rather than implying that measurement takes a snapshot of existing practices, such language acknowledges that measurement, in conjunction with assessment, alters and inevitably produces musical experiences. The aforementioned statements also have the added advantage of positioning measurement and assessment as processes that students participate in rather than as acts done to them. Placing students as the subject of statements about measurement and assessment reinforces their active role in these processes.

Teachers, students, and policymakers could also use complementary language to acknowledge the intra-active nature of teachers’ measurement and assessment experiences. For instance, authors might consider phrases such as, “By measuring and assessing students, teachers can become more responsive to their developmental needs.” Such discourse emphasizes that rather than distanced observers, teachers evolve through and are constituted by their measurement and assessment practices.

A second implication for policy and practice is that because measurement apparatuses produce and reinforce a particular set of musical experiences, policymakers, teachers, and students might empower themselves and each other to engage critically with and potentially alter them. Regardless of whether teachers and students use measurement apparatuses they created or ones formulated by others, they might consider the limits of their existing practices. For example, teachers and students might examine the instructions, self-assessments, and teacher rubrics associated with the Model Cornerstone Assessments proposed for their grade level or musical elective and discuss what aspects of music that they find meaningful are missing from such documents.

Because assessment involves the combination of measurement and evaluation (Payne, 2003), music educators and students might also interrogate how they make value judgments about measured quantities. For instance, they could ask: What meaning do we find in these value judgments, and how do they affect our musical and educative experiences? To what extent do these evaluations reflect the values of music makers in our multiple communities? How might we evaluate these measured quantities differently?

Additionally, Barad (2007) asserts the need for analyzing “how boundaries are produced rather than presuming sets of well-worn binaries in advance” (p. 30). Drawing on this statement, teachers and students might engage in critical dialogue about who produced their measurement apparatuses, how they created them, and for what purposes. As a result of such explorations, teachers and students might consider how they could alter their existing measurement apparatuses as well as create possible alternative measurement apparatuses. Such action aligns with a conception of the Model Cornerstone Assessments as adaptable “models” rather than unchangeable mandates. By giving themselves the agency to engage critically with and alter measurement apparatuses, music educators and students can develop higher order thinking skills related to the process of measurement and adopt measurement apparatuses meaningful for their particular circumstances.

Third, teachers, students, and policymakers might balance discourse calling for relevant and reliable assessments (e.g., State Education Agency Directors of Arts Education, 2014, p. 16) with language promoting spaces for uncertainty, experimentation, and vulnerability. As such, music education policymakers might reconsider or qualify language such as “The evidence that is collected tells students what is most important for them to learn. What is not assessed is likely to be regarded as unimportant” (State Education Agency Directors of Arts Education, 2014, p. 15). Perhaps drawing on Lyotard’s concept of the differend, music educators, students, and policymakers might recognize and celebrate that there exist aspects of musical experiences that defy the language of measurement and assessment. While teachers can perhaps hint at unnamable musical facets using language such as poetry and metaphors, ¹¹ they might also facilitate musical spaces not directly focused on measurable goals. Although past measurements and assessments will always influence subsequent musical endeavors, by complementing such discourse with the promotion of unmeasured experiences, music education teachers, students, and policymakers can meet the demands of the existing education climate while retaining possibilities for experiences highlighting the unique aspects of musical engagements praised by philosophers such as Langer.

Finally, if measurement and assessment are intra-active processes through which “student” and “teacher” emerge, then music educators and students might question to what extent they feel satisfied with the evolving identities forming as a result of current measurement and assessment intra-actions and contemplate the possibilities of changes to those intra-actions. Music educators might ask: How can I promote measurement and assessment intra-actions through which “students” emerge possessing the dispositions needed to seek out more musical growth and to feel capable and empowered to continue learning music beyond school walls? To what extent do my measurement and assessment intra-actions benefit or harm my relationships with students as well as my own conception of myself as “teacher”? What possible “students” and “teachers” do my current measurement and assessment practices exclude or inhibit from emerging, and how might I act otherwise?

Moreover, since Barad (2007) conceives of intra-action not just as a part of measurement but of life, music educators and students might reimagine music education as a fundamentally intra-active process. As such, teachers and students might consider how the assumptions, aims, and questions underlying all aspects of their musically educative intra-actions contribute to their evolving conceptions of “students,” “teachers,” and relationships between the two. For example, music educators and students could question how their intra-actions with music makers outside of the classroom enable the emergence not just of “students” but of “musicians” who consider themselves contributing members of various local and global musical communities. Teachers and students might also contemplate how their musical intra-actions reinforce exclusions, social injustices, and hegemonic systems in their school and beyond, perhaps countering such practices with intra-actions favoring empathy, openness, and reflective ethical action. Such undertakings involve asking not just how musical endeavors can alter others but how teachers, students, music-making, and their interrelationships change in the process.

In summary, current discourse surrounding the music Model Cornerstone Assessments assumes a reflective and interactive worldview in which measurement apparatuses “capture” existing circumstances. Yet, Barad (2007) demonstrates the inaccuracy of such assumptions with regard to measurement, instead positing the concepts of diffraction and intra-action and explaining measurement apparatuses as boundary-making practices. Measurement apparatuses produce both musical experiences and evolving entities such as “students” and “teachers.” By reconsidering their language and action, policymakers, music educators, and students can promote more accurate understandings of measurement and assessment processes and empower themselves to reimagine their intra-actions with measurement and with each other.