Music Assessment

Participant observation, generally thought of as the mainstay of ethnographic research, is often at the heart of much debate about the nature of participation, raising epistemological and ontological questions concerning the intent and position of the researcher in relation to knowledge and to those studied. In this chapter, I argue that participatory processes of research offer a valuable contribution to the ethnographer’s charge of cultural interpretation, particularly when understanding tacit and implicit forms of knowledge in an educational setting. I examine my own participation in a Japanese American taiko drumming ensemble and the ways in which my first-hand, subjective experience caused me to challenge conventional wisdom about the concept of embodiment in educational practice. Using examples from my ethnographic study of taiko drumming, I examine the implications that participatory practices have for understanding, challenging, and reshaping key educational concepts such as learning.

With the expanding landscape of and proliferation of activity related to popular music education, philosophies underpinning and informing the assessment of students participating in popular music programs have come to the forefront of discussion. This chapter discusses the relationships among music education, higher education, and popular music as commoditized product(s), as well as the context for and a set of (sub)cultural practices, and looks through the lens(es) of authenticity before exploring canon and repertoire in popular music education. It highlights examples of assessment practices in particular popular music education contexts and the ideologies and philosophies that consciously or unconsciously undergird these. The chapter then presents a model of assessment derived from working in an innovative way—called “negotiated assessment” (Kleiman, 2009, p. 2)—with undergraduate arts students across disciplines. The chapter proposes this as one possible broad, inclusive approach...

The topic for my PhD project is assessment of music performance by social moderation in upper secondary school. My aim with the study is to develop knowledge of how teachers perceive and meet the challenges of performance assessment, with specific focus on the intersubjective teacher team. Research in the field of music performance assessment has traditionally focused on interrater reliability, comparing scores and assessment statements from individuals judging classical music performance. A number of recent studies have explored how social moderation is practiced in authentic situations, but these have not investigated how teachers assess performance across different instruments and genres in an educational context. My study seeks to fill this gap by observing the ways groups of teachers discuss and
arrive at evaluative judgments of students’ performances at a Norwegian upper secondary school. This case study describes some specific methodological challenges that I encountered in the course of the data collection, related to researching authentic situations using video recording. The ways in which these challenges illustrate issues of identifiability, unpredictability, and reflexivity in qualitative case studies are discussed.

This article presents part of an Australian study the purpose of which was to look at learning singing in a pedagogical environment designed using sociocultural theory.
The classroom environment was transformed over 5 years in consultation with other staff members and used the reflective journals that students wrote during that time, as a way of refining and changing the design. Themes emerging from the journals were analysed to inform changes to the design. One of the main themes to emerge was student reflections about the scientific concepts they were taught and the ways the concepts were introduced. These reflections became the basis for the discussion in this paper. The study demonstrated that the students’ acquisition of scientific concepts of singing affected both their singing performance and their ability to learn in a positive way. The study suggests that scientific concepts of singing could become part of the students’ toolbox that helps develop their singing by making meaning of what they are experiencing kinaesthetically and aurally while they sing.

This article presents part of a five-year Australian study, the purpose of which was to look at learning singing in a pedagogical environment designed using sociocultural theory. The classroom environment was transformed over 5 years in consultation with other staff members and used the reflective journals that students wrote during that time as a way of refining and changing the design. Themes emerging from the journals were analysed to inform changes to the design. One of the main themes to emerge was student reflections about the scientific concepts they were taught and the ways the concepts were introduced. These reflections became the basis for the discussion in this paper. The study demonstrated that the students' acquisition of scientific concepts of singing affected both their singing performance and their ability to learn in a positive way. The study suggests that scientific concepts of singing could become part of the students' toolbox that helps develop their sing...

Entering for graded music examination is a very common musical activity in the process of the instrumental learning. There is evidence that this is a commonplace activity in Hong Kong. Although previous literature has reported the role of these graded music examinations in general on instrumental learning (Salaman, 1994), no research has been undertaken to explore the function of these examinations in Hong Kong. The current small scale empirical research reported in this dissertation, therefore, aims to explore the role of graded instrumental musical examinations in Hong Kong. The questionnaire-based investigation seeks also to understand the nature and possible impact of the context of the Hong Kong educational system and the underlying cultural beliefs in instrumental learning as reported by teachers, pupils and parents. Results suggest that graded instrumental music examinations were, generally, perceived to be of high importance in Hong Kong. The most common reasons for entering for graded examinations were reported to be: (i) goal setting; (ii) proof/certification of learning; (iii) providing a sense of achievement; and (iv) motivation. Whilst there were different shades of opinion on the impacts of graded examinations between the three groups, students, parents and instrumental teachers, there was general agreement of the perceived importance of such assessment.