Abstract
The Journal of Music Teacher Education (JMTE) has recently started reviewing manuscripts in a new type of format. The JMTE website states:
The purpose of this article is to guide authors in developing these types of article submissions. I begin with clarification of the terms analysis, program, practice, and policy, followed by a discussion of submissions that would not qualify for the column. I conclude with key characteristics of what an APPP (Analyses of Programs, Practices and Policies) “is” and gesture to two upcoming APPP invited projects to appear in the JMTE as examples for future submissions.
Clarification of Terms
Analysis
An analysis includes a detailed description of the program, practice, and/or policy with a clear connection to scholarly literature. It should offer critical and rigorous consideration of the pros and cons of the program, practice, or policy. All articles submitted for an APPP need an analysis of at least one element (program, practice, policy) and many will include two or three of these ideas.
Program
Authors might choose to analyze their music teacher education program and curricula at the macro level. For example, if there were recent reforms, they might provide the rationale for this programmatic change, the approach to change, and the challenges and successes of implementation of the new teacher education curriculum. In addition, a program might also be a formal collaboration with a P–12 (e.g., after school instrumental music program) or community partner (e.g., New Horizons ensembles or an Early Childhood program).
Practice
A practice could be as fine-grained as a single element within a course: one lesson or topic; a single approach, theory, or focus (e.g., a Social and Emotional learning focus in a course); or a particular class activity (e.g., a debate on competition in music ensembles), assignment (e.g., autobiography of myself as a learner), or assessment (e.g., video representation of secondary instrument skills). On a broader scale, authors might describe a larger “unit” within their course (e.g., a 4-week focus on the teaching of improvisation within instrumental or general music methods). Within such a practice description, authors also would include the meeting schedule (how often the course meets and for how long), course readings, assignments, peer interactions, class activities, assessments, and instructor reflections on the unit.
Policy
Some teacher education programs and practices may have been influenced by policy at national, regional, state, institutional, departmental, or course level. Conversely, some programs and practices might have the power to influence policy, as well. Authors are encouraged to consider the role and influence of policies (both hard and soft/written and unwritten) in their work. In a recent Arts Education Policy Review article, Graham et al. (2020) discussed policy in relation to both policy texts and policy actions (Richerme, 2019). They suggested: Policy texts can include everything from national education legislation to state arts standards to local arts graduation requirements. Impactful yet often overlooked policy texts include institutional mission statements and reports, printed and online pedagogical materials, and the taken-for-granted “grammar of schooling” (Tyack & Cuban, 1995, p. 85), such as bell schedules and school day length. (p. 2)
State certification course requirements and exams could be considered examples of policy texts. Authors might choose to discuss the intersection between these policies and their project.
Graham et al. (2020) also use the term “policy actions” to include changes made in response to policy texts, or individual or collective responses to these policy texts. The authors suggested that when writing about policy, authors “illustrate specific policy actions” (p. 2) and . . . use stories of existing programs and practices or hypothetical scenarios, in which they imagine a realistic arts teaching and learning setting. Since policy actions are rarely simple or straightforward, authors can often make their examples more impactful by considering them from multiple angles. Particularly when told with detail, openness, and humility, an author’s personal experiences with policy texts and actions can support their arguments. (p. 2)
In the next section, I outline types of articles that will not be considered for the APPP column.
What an APPP Is Not
“Here is What I Do”
Having served on the JMTE Editorial board from 2006 to 2012 and now returning as Editor in Chief in 2022, I have over 7 years of experience encountering articles submitted to the JMTE that are not successful in the review process. Many of these manuscripts fall into what I call the “Here is What I Do” category of submissions. These manuscripts often come across to the reader as self-promotion and/or does not connect to the works/previous findings of other scholars, and/or provide critical points of view. Oftentimes, such submissions reflect solely an account of one person’s approach to a specific instructional approach, method of assessment, or other related topic. This is not a JMTE-specific phenomenon—I also have seen this type of submission during my current work on the editorial board for two international journals (Research Studies in Music Education and Music Education Research), my 12 years as Editor-in-Chief of Arts Education Policy Review, and past 6-year terms on other editorial boards (Journal of Research in Music Education, Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education, Update: Applications of Research in Music Education). When an article reflects a personal perspective devoid of critical examination and correlation (for lack of a better term) to existing research findings, it is not likely to be accepted.
Self-Study of Teacher Education Practices
For readers who are unfamiliar with the research design referred to as Self-Study of Teacher Education Practices (S-STEP) (Kitchen, 2020), there may be a fine line between this type of research and an APPP submission. There are several solid models of S-STEP studies in music education, including Conway et al.’s (2010) description of what undergraduate and graduate students learn from one another; Conway et al.’s (2014) study using an S-STEP to consider growth in learning to teach graduate courses in music education; Pellegrino et al.’s (2019) collaboration between music teacher educators and music theory faculty in using S-STEP to examine improvement of improvisation and composition in the undergraduate curriculum; and Causby et al.’s (in press) report on an S-STEP collaboration between college ensemble conductors and instrumental music teacher educators regarding the intersections between their courses. These studies all consider the voices of teacher educators as they navigate the complex world of teaching and learning. Samaras and Freese (2009) suggested the following five important elements of S-STEP: “(a) a focus on professional and self-improvement; (b) reflection and inquiry are made public; (c) required collaboration for validation of findings and new understandings; (d) openness and vulnerability; (e) self-study leads to a reconceptualised role of the teacher” (p. 5).
A key difference between S-STEP and an APPP is the degree to which the authors collaborate, reflect, and change their practices within the context of the study. There is a research intention with an S-STEP that might not be as explicit with an APPP. I expect, as this new column of APPP attracts authors, that some will discover the design of S-STEP along the way and should submit such manuscripts instead as empirical studies.
Program Evaluation
Music teacher education has a history of discussion of program evaluation (Colwell, 1985, 2003; Ferguson, 2007) which, like S-STEP, is a type of empirical investigation (Patton, 2015) and should be submitted to the JMTE as a research study—not an APPP. Ferguson (2007) suggested: Within music education, Colwell (1985) presented eight methods that are particularly appropriate for evaluation of music teacher education programs: the Context-Input-Process-Product (CIPP) evaluation, the systems approach, and the behavioral objectives, goal-free, art criticism, accreditation, adversary, and transaction methods. Other methods well known to music education program evaluation include case-study and survey methods. (p. 2)
I would encourage any readers interested in program evaluation to consult Patton’s (2015) comprehensive text. Patton defines program evaluation as “studying how a program works and what results it gets to render a judgment about its effectiveness” (p. 6) and clarifies that If all a program evaluator looks at is whether the intended outcomes are attained, especially using standard performance indicators such as reading tests, employment statistics, and health outcome data, then other, unintended effects will be missed. To find unanticipated effects, you have to go into the field where things are happening, observe what is really going on, interview program participants about what they’re experiencing, and find out through open inquiry what is happening, both intended and unintended. (pp. 10–11)
Sample program reviews or program evaluations in the JMTE in the past 5 years include (from most recent):
Key Characteristics of an APPP
Now that I have highlighted what an APPP is “not,” I provide four key characteristics that the JMTE Editorial Board will look for in the APPP submissions.
Connected to Music Teacher Education and Teacher Education Scholarship and Research
All APPP submissions should make explicit connections to literature in music teacher education, teacher education, and/or other bodies of literature such as psychology, sociology, learning sciences, and so on. The connections between the literature and the program, practice, and/or policy must be explicitly clear to the reader through discussion and citation.
Includes Thick Description of the Program, Practice, and/or Policy
The reader needs careful detail regarding the program, practice, or policy such that they could replicate the work in their own setting. Some of this might appear in the form of an online supplement, particularly when manuscript length is a concern. Documents such as degree outlines, or Memorandums of Understandings (MOU) between partner institutions could serve as samples of rich descriptions for program analyses. Within the practices category, authors could include examples of assignments and assessments, and/or samples of student work (and be sure to include multiple instances of author reflection on the student work). Policy-focused pieces should include the policy documents being discussed, along with some historical account of the policy in question.
Critical Analysis
One of the key criteria that JMTE reviewers will consider in the APPP is whether the author provides a critical analysis of their work. Authors should consider posing and answering provocative questions such as: (a) What evidence is there that this program, practice, or policy was effective? (b) How might stakeholders do things differently the next time? (c) What sources in the literature challenge the arguments I have made?
Transferability of Ideas
Finally, authors are encouraged to acknowledge the content-specific issues in the program, practice, or policy and assist readers in considering how and if suggestions are transferable to their contexts. Gestures should be made to both general teacher education practice as well as music teacher education research.
Models of APPP
Two JMTE Editorial Board members have been invited to present examples of APPP that will appear soon in the JMTE. Bernard’s work will focus particularly on the practice portion of an APPP, using disciplinary literacy as a curricular framework for methods courses. Disciplinary—or artistic—literacy focuses on subject-specific practices, vocabulary, and text for students to better understand, interpret, and apply their knowledge within a discipline (Bernard & Abramo, 2019; Coiro et al., 2008; Moje, 2008). In music methods, disciplinary literature might approach content through the following: (a) a focus on varied texts/objects; (b) taking on particular artistic roles and identities as students engage with the text; or (c) working with others through dialogue, discourse, and practices about the text to make decisions and problem solve. Music teacher educators may create opportunities to challenge certain practices related to functional-based literacy (Benedict, 2020) prevalent in methods courses. A disciplinary literacy approach through methods curricula may model how teacher candidates can implement such a framework in P–12 curriculum development, and how a disciplinary literacy framework might be used to improve communication with administrators and evaluators.
Shaw and Hill will consider “introduction to music education” courses as a practice in music teacher education. Such “intro” classes are increasingly common in degree programs and offer significant flexibility in terms of objectives and content. This exploration of courses first reviews what we know about curricular approaches based on empirical research (Mishra et al., 2011; Shaw & Hill, 2018). Second, the authors will discuss the potential for these courses to be sites of sociological exploration. Given the flexibility that these courses afford music teacher educators, they may allow for investigation of the intersections of music education and race, gender, social class, and more. The authors provide specific suggestions for music teacher education in these areas.
Concluding Thoughts
The JMTE Editorial Board is looking forward to reviewing manuscripts submitted under the APPP category, which will replace the former “Interest Article” column in the journals. We believe this new column will provide more clear and specific implications for music teacher education. My JMTE Editorial Assistant and Michigan Ph.D. student Daniel Taylor and I searched for other journals within teacher education that publish similar work; we did not find any models of this type of column. So, let’s go forth and create an avenue for more diverse scholarship opportunities in music! May we lead by example for all areas of teacher education.