Desert Skies Symposium 2017

The 2017 Desert Skies Symposium was held this past week (Feb. 23-25) at Arizona State University. It was a wonderful location with first class hosts. All attendees presented high quality research, and it was good to see a large group of Ph.D. students in attendance. Daniel Mockenhaupt (MME student) and I went to present the results of our latest study (see abstract below), and I am happy to say our research was well received. Dr. Clifford Madsen provided some excellent insight to what we are doing (thank you Dr. Madsen!). My thanks to all the wonderful people who attended this great conference. What is next? Stay tuned as Dr. Brian Russell and I will be presenting our latest research at the ISAME conference in Birmingham, UK this April.

Music Education in the United States: Perceptions from the K-12 Educational Community

Abstract

As the United States entered the new millennium, previous research suggested that music education struggled within the realm of public education (Music for All Foundation, 2004; Council for Basic Education, 2004). Given these realities, Ciorba and Seibert (2012) sought to examine the professional self-perceptions towards music education from members of the K-12 educational community in the state of Oklahoma. Results indicated that music teachers’ overall perceptions toward music education were significantly higher than those reported by the rest of the educational community (i.e., administrators, teachers of other subject areas, and support staff). When asked how they would improve music education, adminis­trators, music teachers, and support staff reported the need for increased music education funding while teachers of other subject areas recommended improvements in curriculum and scheduling. Since the publication of this study, recent research has revealed that music education continues to struggle within the K-12 curriculum. For example, Burrack (2014) revealed that 55% of the schools in Florida were operating with budget reductions between 2011 and 2012. As a result, 375 music-teaching positions were eliminated. West (2012) reported that music teachers often faced scheduling conflicts due to the emphasis placed on standardized test subjects. Furthermore, proposed budget cuts threatened to have a negative impact on music programs in the states of Minnesota (Hansen, 2015), Massachusetts (Cole, 2015), and Pennsylvania (Sylvester, 2015).

On a positive note, 94% of elementary schools, 92% of middle schools, and 93% of high schools in the state of Michigan continued to offer arts related courses (Quadrant Arts Education Research Project 2012). In the state of California, the Val Verde Unified School District resumed music instruction in the elementary schools (Ghori, 2014). Major (2013) examined a Michigan school district to determine the process used to keep their music program intact. It was determined that positive synergy in the educational community, high quality music teachers, and strong parental support played a large influence in administrators’ decisions to keep music education within the district.

Given the results of the previous research, a need exists to further examine the K-12 educational community’s perceptions towards the importance of music education at the nationwide level. Specifically, this study was designed to answer the following research questions:

• What are the demographics of a nationwide sample as reported by the Music Education Perception Measure (MEPM)?

• Do significant differences exist between administrators, music teachers, teachers of other subject areas, and support staff in regards to their perceptions toward music education?

• What suggestions can members of the K–12 educational community offer to improve music education?

The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), in connection with the United States Census Bureau offers a website that includes an online database (http://nces.ed.gov), which lists all K-12 public school districts in the United States. Using this information, a stratified random sample of 10 districts per state was chosen based on the characteristics of each state population. Once a list of school districts was assembled, the researchers visited every school website within each of the chosen districts and compiled an email list of 178,444 administrators, music teachers, teachers of other subject areas, and support staff.

In January of 2016, an invitation containing a description of the study and a link to the Music Education Perception Measure (MEPM) was sent to every email address through Survey-Monkey. The MEPM consists of 17 statements designed to measure participants’ personal self-perceptions towards the importance of music education. Each statement was aligned with the following response items: (a) Strongly Disagree, (b) Disagree, (c) Agree, and (d) Strongly Agree. Those who received the email message were informed their participation was completely voluntary. Two follow-up emails were sent one week apart from the initial invitation to those who had not completed the survey. The survey remained opened throughout the Spring 2016 semester. The final sample (N = 6.089) included (a) 338 administrators, (b) 631 music teachers, (c) 4,044 non-music teachers, and (d) 1,075 support staff.

Results were similar to those reported by Ciorba and Seibert (2012) in that music teachers’ overall perceptions towards music education were significantly higher than those reported by administrators, teachers of other subject areas, and support staff. In addition, while participants representing all four groups indicated increased funding as one of their top responses, administrators, secondary non-music teachers, and support staff also indicated a need to increase students’ accessibility to music classes through improved scheduling.