Abstract
The purpose of this inquiry was to describe the preservice music teacher education perceptions of 10 experienced music teachers who had participated in studies of teacher education 10 and 20 years ago. Data included written responses and two individual interviews. The first four themes show participants’ reactions to the past and suggestions for the future in the areas of musicianship, fieldwork, student teaching, and detracking of curricula. Changing expectations of themselves in their teaching over the years included a focus on process, relationships, and well-being. The final theme, thoughts on change in music teacher education, provides combined general perceptions from participants about preservice music teacher education over the past 20 years. A discussion with connection to current preservice music teacher education literature is included after each theme.
Research in music teacher education has expanded in the last 20 years. Given the 43 chapters devoted to the topic in the 2020 Oxford Handbook on Preservice Teacher Education in the United States (Conway et al., 2020), it is fair to consider the preservice preparation of music teachers as a continued concern for the profession. Additional music education scholarship has examined later career music teacher wisdom (Peterson, 2016; Robinson, 2020), and general education researchers have regularly studied teacher education through longitudinal investigations (Beck et al., 2017; Bullough, 1989; Bullough & Baughman, 1997; Cochran-Smith et al., 2012; Levin, 2001; National Center for Educational Statistics [NCES], n.d.). Most of these general education studies examined teachers in a time period of 1 to 5 years. Beck et al. (2017) discuss challenges of longitudinal work suggesting that it is not common due to expense and teacher mobility. They mention “asking teachers to recall earlier phases in their life and/or career” as one particularly useful way to gather more longitudinal information (Beck et al., 2017).
More than 20 years have passed since I began studying the perceptions of beginning music teachers regarding their preservice teacher education (Conway, 2002). Ten years have now passed since I published a 10-year follow-up to the original work (Conway, 2012). By returning to the teachers who participated in past studies and documenting their teacher education responses at the 20-year mark, I saw a unique opportunity to provide an update on preservice music teacher education from the lens of teachers who had been reflecting on these issues since the start of their careers.
Purpose and Research Questions
The purpose of this inquiry was to describe the preservice music teacher education perceptions of 10 experienced music teachers who had participated in teacher education studies over the past 20 years. Research questions included (a) How do participants describe their reactions to a present-day examination of the findings from the original study and follow-up teacher education studies in which they had participated? and (b) How do they describe implications for teacher education related to changes in their own teaching practices in the past 10 years?
Findings in Original and Follow-Up Studies
Participants 1 in my original study (Conway, 2002) reported that the “best” aspects of their teacher preparation included student teaching, fieldwork, and applied lessons while the “worst” aspects of preparation included teacher education courses, early field observations without context, and some instrument methods courses. Suggestions for the profession included detracking the curriculum (instrumental versus choral), extending the time for student teaching, better preparing preservice teachers for administrative duties of the job, and providing more preparation for working with beginners.
In the “10 years later” investigation (Conway, 2012), I was surprised to report that teachers with 10 years of experience supported the same “best and worst” aspects as they had in the original study, including the strength of applied lessons and ensembles and the weakness of courses outside of music. Additional suggestions for teacher preparation included fieldwork in diverse (e.g., rural, suburban, and urban) settings, broad preparation (outside of band, orchestra, choir), and a focus on the practical. Many of these suggestions from the follow-up study were also addressed in other music education research at the time (Ballantyne & Parker, 2004; Brophy, 2002; Conway et al., 2007; Roulston et al., 2005). While discussing findings for this latest inquiry, I will highlight more recent music teacher education research.
Design
The original study was called a “qualitative formative program evaluation” (Patton, 1990), and the follow-up study was described as a “qualitative reflection on the results of the 2002 study (Patton, 2002)” (Conway, 2012, p. 327). My reading of Patton (2015) suggests that the current study should be considered “generic qualitative inquiry” (p. 154) or “basic qualitative research” (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016, p. 22). Patton (2015) states, Not all inquiries need to be formally conceptualized within one of the specific inquiry traditions reviewed in this chapter. The quite concrete and practical questions of people working to make the world a better place (and wondering if what they’re doing is working) can be addressed without allegiance to a particular epistemological or philosophical tradition. . . There is a very practical side to qualitative methods that simply involves skillfully asking open-ended questions of people and observing matters of interest in real-world settings to solve problems, improve programs, or develop policies. (p. 154)
My participants were “people working to make the world a better place” through their 20 years of music teaching and the design of this work asked open-ended questions in the effort to “solve problems, improve programs, or develop policies” in relation to music teacher education. The use of the terms “generic” from Patton (2015) and “basic” from Merriam and Tisdell (2016) reflect a type of qualitative research as different from other designs such as case study, ethnography, or phenomenology and by no means is centering this type of work as the only qualitative design choice.
Participants
Ten of the 12 participants who were studied for the follow-up report participated in the present study. Of the two who did not participate, one was no longer teaching and the other was unavailable due to family obligations. In Supplemental Table 1, I provide information regarding the current teaching setting and the work of these teachers over the past 10 years. Names appear in the same order as they were presented in the original study. All 10 teachers had worked with preservice interns and student teachers, some with as many as 50 to 60 interns and 20+ student teachers and others with just one or two of each. Two of the participants were now teacher educators working in higher education. It is important to note that these teachers have been and are working in what might be considered more “traditional” school music settings of band and general music with less experience in areas such as technology and popular music courses.
Data Sources and Procedures 2
Each participant was asked to review the two previous studies and then respond via email to the following prompts: (a) As you read the two past studies, what were your reactions to the articles in general as well as to the specific information reported on you?; and (b) What other thoughts do you have at this point in your career about teacher education? Four participants completed the written reflection resulting in 14 single-spaced pages of text. Two of the four (Elle and Joan) are currently teacher educators and provided extensive responses (approximately five single-spaced pages each) regarding the changes in their perspectives since becoming involved in teacher education at the collegiate level. Although only four participants completed a written reflection, all 10 reported reading the studies and were able to reflect on their reactions to the articles during their first interview (described below).
Each teacher participated in a 45- to 60-minute individual interview in Fall 2019. This was held in person at the schools of the seven participants in Michigan and via Facetime for the three participants not in Michigan. I arranged with the teachers to arrive to the on-site school interviews several hours early so that I was able to observe instruction in the setting to put interview responses in context. Two of the three out-of-state participants provided me with a teaching video to provide context. At the beginning of each interview, I reminded the participants of the general categories of findings from the original and follow-up studies (see Supplemental Appendix A) and asked for their reflections upon reading those articles. We discussed their work with student teachers and interns in the past 10 years since I had last interviewed them. Additional prompts included (a) What would you say are your current views regarding preservice music teacher preparation? (b) What is teacher education doing well? (c) What is still a problem?
After transcribing interviews and beginning to code the written response and first interviews, I interviewed all 10 participants again in May of 2020 for 45 to 60 min. Due to the global pandemic, all of those interviews were held via Zoom. Prompts for the second interview included (a) How do you think your views on teacher education have changed since your responses 10 years ago? And since 20 years ago?; and (b) With 20 years of teaching now behind you, what other information can you provide to the profession regarding the preparation of teachers?
Analysis, Trustworthiness, and Organization of Findings
Transcriptions were created from interview recordings resulting in 148 single-spaced pages of text. Two coders (myself and a trained research assistant from the University of Michigan’s Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program) conducted simultaneous analysis of the written responses and first interview transcripts. The first round of coding used the findings from the previous studies in which these participants were represented as a priori codes. Then, analysis continued with more open coding and a search for additional emergent themes. Monthly meetings were held between January and May 2020 to compare coding schemes.
Data collection triangulation, member checks, and attention to investigator expertise were the primary techniques used to address the trustworthiness of this study. I collected multiple data sets from 10 experienced teachers. Participants reviewed the findings sections of this article to check for accuracy. I had enough background in the content area and association with the participants to be empathetic in my interview approach and to establish the necessary rapport. In addition, I had maintained regular contact with these participants over the course of more than 20 years, and that might be considered “adequate engagement in data collection” (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016, p. 246). Although the participants were not consistently studied for the 20 years, my rapport with them and my knowledge of their experiences over the past years added to the trustworthiness of this study.
Findings
Findings are presented within six themes. The first four themes show participants’ reactions to the past and suggestions for the future in the areas of musicianship, fieldwork, student teaching, and detracking of curricula, which were all themes from the 2002 and 2012 studies. All quotes for these themes come from Fall 2019 interviews unless otherwise stated. The fifth theme documents the changes the participants believe have taken place in their own teaching practices that might relate to needed changes in teacher education. All evidence for this theme comes from Spring 2020 interviews unless otherwise stated. The final theme, minimal change, provides combined general perceptions from participants about preservice music teacher education over the past 20 years. A discussion with connection to current preservice music teacher education literature is included after each theme.
Musicianship
As had been documented in the original and follow-up studies, many participants continued to reiterate the importance of applied lessons and ensembles in the preservice curriculum. Although I called this theme “Musicianship,” this quote below from Teri expands on what these courses do for undergraduate students: I don’t necessarily think it’s about musicianship; it’s about the struggle. It’s the process of the struggle because if you don’t remember or you don’t know what it’s like to push yourself to the absolute limit and to be able to get through it, then you can’t teach beginner band. To cry in a lesson or not be able to hit a high note or to miss the solo, you know what I mean. If you don’t have the experience on those things, you can’t be empathetic to this student who cannot get this note to be able to come out and suddenly gets it. If you don’t know what that feels like to finally succeed, then how can you transfer that to your kids. It’s about being a musician, of course, and you need to be as good of a musician as you can possibly be, but you need to have that experience of struggle to be able to create empathy.
Doug discussed his observation in student teachers that “the ears are also a really inconsistent thing.” He went on to share that learning to hear the ensemble score “in your head” is an important skill for new teachers. Reflecting on her work with her current University students in her pre-interview email, Joan said, I find that my students (and many of the applied-music and theory/aural-skills faculty at my university) have a one-dimensional perception of musicianship. Many of my students lack musicianship that will help them be successful music teachers. I look into the aural skills classrooms as I pass in the hallway and I see disengaged students who are slouched in their chairs doing Curwen hand signs. . .There’s just a disconnect between the aural skills, theory, piano classes, and what students need for real life. I would love to reform the whole thing for the MUED students, but it’s like trying to steer the Titanic.
In her interview she added, “I think they’re [her preservice students] very attached to their primary instrument . . . they primarily identify as ensemble people.”
Also reflecting on work with university students in her pre-interview email, Elle said, I find things like matching pitch, improvising, keeping beat steady, learning how to break down and prepare a piece more important than skill building on their instrument. It seems like, at least at MY SCHOOL, that there is a lot of time working on primary instruments, when I’d like personal musical development happening on multiple instruments and in multiple genres.
Several participants shared reflections about the time it took to attain the instrument performance skills as an undergraduate in relation to the broader musicianship required in their jobs today. A representative quote from elementary music teacher Allison: Whenever I take my trombone out, I am like “I spent so many years taking lessons and so much money,” so I kind of have some guilt there. . . . It [elementary music] takes a lot of skills I have learned to do. I really wish that I had done more choral classes.
Discussion
Defining musicianship beyond primary instrument skills has been suggested in multiple recent teacher education sources. Taggart and Chapman Hill (2020) reviewed the empirical literature in this area and suggested, “The structure of music programs in K-12 schools and colleges/universities limits the ability to build the broad, versatile musicianship called for here” (p. 316). Although these 20-year veteran teachers hold these same concerns about the need for broader musicianship, they also recognized the importance of high-level applied lesson and ensemble experiences. It is my hope that these two elements of music teacher preparation do not have to be mutually exclusive, but the challenges of restructuring are, as Joan suggested, like “steering the Titanic.”
Fieldwork
All eight of the participants teaching in P-12 settings made comments about teacher preparation needing to do more to get students into settings that were beyond the large suburban ensemble-based settings. Most music education majors have spent their own middle school and high school years in these types of programs and thus, need more diverse experiences. Brian, who teaches in a rural school that is somewhat distant from most colleges and universities, suggested a need for a stronger “link of programs [referring to teacher education] with the schools, even with the ones out here.”
Both teacher education participants addressed the challenges to fieldwork placement. Joan wrote in her pre-interview email that “Fieldwork is SO valuable, but I struggle to get my students out when their schedules are jam packed.” In her Fall 2019 interview, she added, “Number one, do they have a car to get wherever they’re supposed to be going? Is there a teacher nearby? And does the teacher nearby play well with others?” Elle wrote, I’ve really been pushing students to observe in two different districts, in schools that “look” different from what they experienced. I’ve seen an increase in students’ desires to do this. . . However, some factors prevent this from happening including recommendations from university ensemble directors and transportation.
Discussion
The challenges of creating preservice fieldwork in diverse settings is well documented in past research (Legette, 2013; MacLeod & Walter, 2011; Powell, 2020). Joan and Elle’s perspective as teacher educators as compared with the eight participants who were in P-12 settings provided an interesting comparison in this study and highlights a divide in understandings between the two populations (P-12 teachers and teacher educators). In a recent study of cooperating teachers’ understandings of their work (Baugh & Conway, 2021), the perception from cooperating teachers that student teachers needed more and more diverse field experiences also emerged. I am at a loss to suggest ways to fix these issues, but future researchers may want to continue to explore fieldwork models with varied goals and in diverse settings. Researchers may also want to explore how to engage P-12 educators in understanding all the challenges of fieldwork to see whether better collaborations between P-12 educators and teacher educators can result in more successful field experiences.
Student Teaching
Responses from the P-12 teachers in this study continued to support the student teaching experience as the most valuable aspect of teacher education. Terri shared the benefits of practical teaching experience: “There’s no other class that they can take, other than student teaching, that will really drive the points home.” Josh highlighted the need for the practical application that student teaching offers: “Kids [meaning student teachers] come in knowing stuff. I think they’re very smart, it’s just the application.”
In response to quotes regarding the importance of student teaching from the 2002 study, both Elle and Joan wrote essentially the same comment in their pre-interview email: [In response to 2002 study quote [In response to 2002 study quote: “I don’t think I really learned anything about how to be a teacher until I hit student teaching” (p. 28).] Oh, God! How insulting: As a music teacher educator who works really hard to make the class content relevant, this is a gut punch, even if part of me knows this may be the view of my students. They just aren’t in a place to understand what will be used and what won’t be. (Elle)
Discussion
My original study finding that student teaching was considered the most important part of the teacher education curriculum has been cited 295 times in the past 20 years and data from this 2020 investigation suggest the concept still stands true today. Baumgartner (2020) provided an extensive review of the literature on student teaching with a focus on placement decisions, triadic relationships, observations, and student teaching seminar content. However, he suggested that “few researchers have focused their inquiry on what is taught (and how) during the internship” (p. 535). Given the importance of this spot on the learning to teach continuum, the field needs to know more. Finally, Elle and Joan bring forth a key dilemma in preservice curricula in that so much of the content is introduced outside of the context of schools (pre-student teaching) and it gets a bit lost in the process. Although we have solid bodies of literature on teacher identity and socialization (Pellegrino, 2020; Raiber, 2020), many music teacher education programs have yet to find a way to sequence coursework, fieldwork, and student teaching in a way that addresses the challenges brought forth in this study.
Detracking of Curricula
Since the original study, the participants’ former undergraduate institution had “detracked” music education curricula in response to calls for broader preservice teacher preparation. Preservice students had more opportunity to choose their coursework and were not “tracked” into either a vocal or instrumental curriculum. Participants in this study had worked with preservice interns and student teachers from this institution over the last 10 years and reported mixed reactions to the effectiveness of this change.
Both Trish and Doug expressed concerns that instrumental music student teachers no longer seemed to have strong secondary instrument skills. They believed this was due to the fact that students may have “chosen not to take some of those classes” (Doug). However, Marie reflected that she had felt unprepared to teach beginning band in a previous job and when asked to give suggestions for teacher education she stated, “Make them do the band and the choir piece.” These ideas contradict one another as teacher education can either require broad preparation or encourage specialization, but it is hard to do both.
Elle wrote in her pre-interview email: “Okay, this came out in 2002 and we are still fighting for students to take any courses outside of their band/choir/orchestra track. The south LOVES its tradition!” She added in her interview that We do want to stop the tracking, but the problem is getting the ensemble directors (at the university) to agree to it . . .We want to focus on the teaching and student loop and how to make connections and making sure that your ideas are coming across. We want to consider multiple strategies for the same thing. How do you use modeling? What are your goals for these students in the future? What skills are they going to need to be able to do that? How will you teach that?
Discussion
Discussions of detracked curricula seem connected to the need for teacher educators to encourage the disposition to learn (Raiber, 2020) and to support the development of adaptive expertise throughout one’s career (Conway & Hibbard, 2020). Darling-Hammond and Bransford (2005) suggested, The goal for teacher preservice preparation, then, is to provide teachers with the core ideas and broad understanding of teaching and learning that give the traction on their later development. . .to become “adaptive experts” who are prepared for effective lifelong learning that allows them to continuously add to the knowledge and skills. (p. 3)
The follow-up study supported the theme that “teacher education was doing the best that it can do” (Conway, 2012, p. 332) and analysis of data from the current study supported that as well. Participants agreed that the content of every possible musical and student interaction cannot be covered in 4 years. Thus, the focus needs to be on developing musicianship (not only applied instrument and ensemble skills) that will be used in many types of musical settings and with many ages of students.
Ways Their Own Teaching Practices Have Changed
In terms of things that have changed in their own teaching over the past 10 years, many participants described changes in their expectations of themselves and/or their music programs. Doug discussed a change to a focus on people more than music when he said, I think it is a switch in perspective thing because when you go into your first-year teaching, that is all you are—a musician and not really a teacher yet. . . . when I was a year one, I wanted all of the kids to graduate high school as great musicians. It was so altruistic when I started, but now it’s all about people.
Teri said, “I am not afraid of anything anymore. As you get older, you get a little bit less politically correct. I will tell you exactly what I think, and if you don’t like it, the door’s right there.” Brian shared a change in professional expectation with regard to feeling less performance pressure: . . . because this school takes the view of education as it’s a process, it’s about the learning and it’s about the individual. It’s not about going out there, and using the words of my old school, “killing everybody” because that’s what they would always say when we got back from festivals.
Alison mentioned changing priorities in relation to health and well-being: I am at that age where I am trying to balance between health and teaching all of the time. . . . But I think because of the high trauma, the kids we work with, I mean you don’t go into our job unless you really care about kids and how do you find the balance of staying mentally healthy and physically healthy.
Josh also discussed changing approaches to work–life balance: “I don’t answer school emails after 6 pm. I refuse to . . . That’s important if you’re going to have a family.” There was clear evidence that current expectations both personally and professionally reflected a focus on process over product at school, a concern for students as people first and musicians second, and the need for attention to work–life balance.
Discussion
That these teachers highlight work with people and understanding the process of teaching as changing characteristics in their own work might not be surprising. However, teacher educators might consider how the relational capacities of learning to teach (Conway et al., 2018) are introduced in the preservice curriculum. Hibbard (2017) suggested, To further students’ integrated understanding of classroom relations, instructors in higher education are encouraged to help preservice teachers see classrooms through relational lenses such as presence, paying close attention to the relational triangle of teacher, student, and subject matter. (p. 188)
With regard to a focus on teacher well-being and work-life balance, there has been increased attention to these ideas in music education research (Shaw, 2014, 2016) and a new Area of Strategic Planning and Action for the Society for Music Teacher Education is now devoted to Music Teacher Health and Wellness (https://smte.us/aspas/). However, I do not see these important ideas as typical in the preservice curricula.
Thoughts on Change in Music Teacher Education
Typical responses from all participants suggested minimal change in teacher education since the original study. Joan wrote in her pre-interview email: “Overall, I’m blown away looking at the article from 20 years ago because things really haven’t changed, especially in regard to detracking (at least at my university).” Discussions with participants regarding methods classes, fieldwork, and student teaching often mirrored findings regarding these topics from the past 20 years (i.e., the need for more and diverse settings for fieldwork and student teaching and concerns regarding connecting theory of coursework with teaching practice). Even with the focus of the current study being about what has changed, every interview seemed to harken back to the notion that “the more things change, the more they stay the same” (Merriam-Webster, 2021).
Discussion
Although the notion that not much has changed in music teacher education in the past 20 years might not be news to those of us in teacher education, Allsup and Nicholson’s (2020) somewhat concerning work examining school change suggested that schools and society at large are changing to be “increasingly shaped by nationalistic concerns, not the least of which is economic” (p. 23). They discuss the impact of globalism, income inequality, automation, and low wage economic systems “which make learning competitive more than self-forming” (p. 23). However, at the end of the chapter they also outline reasons why we should maintain hope: “Schools change, but concepts like growth, dignity, and equity will always be present, even if dimly heard. And, yes, there is hope. The arts and humanities play a vital role in securing these values, regardless of change” (p. 38). The challenge for music teacher education, in this context, is to continue to advocate for change in the preservice curriculum in ways that will ensure a focus on growth, dignity, and equity.
Conclusions and Recommendations
The two decades of reflections from these 10 teachers continues to document that P-12 teachers see need for a focus on practical issues in preservice music teacher education, which may be accomplished by allowing more student choice in the degree (detracking) and offering many and diverse settings for fieldwork and student teaching. New in this study as compared with the original and follow-up teacher education discussions is the voice of teacher educators highlighting some of the barriers to providing choice in the curriculum, fieldwork flexibility, and diverse student teaching. For 20 years in studying these teachers, I have been curious about the difference in inservice teacher perspectives about teacher education between those teaching elementary music as compared with those in secondary contexts. However, the design of this and the past studies do not provide a way to compare. Future researchers may want to explore teaching level and teaching context in relation to perceptions of teacher education. In addition, all the teaching contexts of the participants in this study might be considered traditional instrumental and general music and future researchers may want to explore other teaching contexts.
Longitudinal studies in general education provide some models for this work. The Beginning Teacher Longitudinal Study conducted by the NCES (n.d.) followed 2000 new teachers for the first 5 years of teaching and provides information on teacher characteristics (race, ethnicity, educational background and other demographics) as well as teacher mobility, retention, and attrition as related to mentoring and other supports and motivating factors. Music teachers were not examined in this study.
Finally, as was suggested by Robinson (2020), looking to experienced teachers for their wisdom about the profession provides important insight. Participants suggested that over 20 years, both personal and professional expectations had changed. They needed their adaptive expertise to assist them in adjusting music program goals to meet changing community demographics, declining resources, new music classes, new technologies, and ever-changing characteristics of students. Future researchers may wish to continue to explore the needs of experienced teachers in areas of health and well-being and work-life balance. For now, we shall see whether these 10 teachers are still up for continued conversation in 2030.
Supplemental Material
sj-docx-1-jmt-10.1177_10570837221075676 – Supplemental material for Preservice Music Teacher Education: The View From 20 Years Later
Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-jmt-10.1177_10570837221075676 for Preservice Music Teacher Education: The View From 20 Years Later by Colleen Conway in Journal of Music Teacher Education
Supplemental Material
sj-docx-2-jmt-10.1177_10570837221075676 – Supplemental material for Preservice Music Teacher Education: The View From 20 Years Later
Supplemental material, sj-docx-2-jmt-10.1177_10570837221075676 for Preservice Music Teacher Education: The View From 20 Years Later by Colleen Conway in Journal of Music Teacher Education
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Supplemental Material
Supplemental material for this article is available online.
Notes
References
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