This dissertation investigated the meanings students from beginner jazz ensembles ascribe to learning jazz improvisation through Dalcroze-inspired activities. Over the course of ten weeks, students from three respective beginner jazz ensembles were exposed to Dalcroze-inspired activities as the medium for learning to improvise. The sessions were held on a weekly basis, facilitated by the researcher. Hermeneutic phenomenology guided the research procedures. In-depth interviews, personal reflections, participant reflection essays as well as video recordings were the methods of data collection. Through the use of Atlas.ti 7, the data were organized and analysed by means of coding and categorisation, which led to the identification of five themes. The five themes that emerged from the data analysis were: feeling the music in my body, supporting development as a jazz musician, building character, building relationships, and stimulating and motivating learning. This study provides an understanding of the connection between jazz improvisation and Dalcroze Eurhythmics as well as how students experience learning jazz improvisation through Dalcrozeinspired activities. Through this understanding this study proposes a more holistic approach to jazz improvisation teaching that can inform further research and application of Dalcroze Eurhythmics in jazz pedagogy. / MMus (Musicology), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2015

This dissertation investigated the meanings students from beginner jazz ensembles ascribe to learning jazz improvisation through Dalcroze-inspired activities. Over the course of ten weeks, students from three respective beginner jazz ensembles were exposed to Dalcroze-inspired activities as the medium for learning to improvise. The sessions were held on a weekly basis, facilitated by the researcher. Hermeneutic phenomenology guided the research procedures. In-depth interviews, personal reflections, participant reflection essays as well as video recordings were the methods of data collection. Through the use of Atlas.ti 7, the data were organized and analysed by means of coding and categorisation, which led to the identification of five themes. The five themes that emerged from the data analysis were: feeling the music in my body, supporting development as a jazz musician, building character, building relationships, and stimulating and motivating learning. This study provides an understanding of the connection between jazz improvisation and Dalcroze Eurhythmics as well as how students experience learning jazz improvisation through Dalcrozeinspired activities. Through this understanding this study proposes a more holistic approach to jazz improvisation teaching that can inform further research and application of Dalcroze Eurhythmics in jazz pedagogy. / MMus (Musicology), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2015

The eighth educational reform in China is experiencing a critical period. In the implementation process of this New Curriculum Reform (NCR), teachers become the target of criticism for their failure to act on the new ideas of the NCR. This research focuses on the question, “Why teachers accept the ideas of the NCR yet fail to implement these ideas in their daily teaching?” Through reflecting on my own teaching experience and interviewing a group of Chinese Language Arts teachers in a Beijing model high school, I collected qualitative data to create 8 ethnographic stories, showing teachers’ bodily, emotional and intrapersonal experiences that are rarely published in the academic world. Conclusions show that the coexistence of the new and old curriculum systems causes the discordance of school cultures, and teachers are suffering silently. Recommendations are made for researchers returning to teachers’ bodily experiences for solutions that can integrate reform ideals and reality. / Graduate / 0727 / wwang15473@gmail.com

The eighth educational reform in China is experiencing a critical period. In the implementation process of this New Curriculum Reform (NCR), teachers become the target of criticism for their failure to act on the new ideas of the NCR. This research focuses on the question, “Why teachers accept the ideas of the NCR yet fail to implement these ideas in their daily teaching?” Through reflecting on my own teaching experience and interviewing a group of Chinese Language Arts teachers in a Beijing model high school, I collected qualitative data to create 8 ethnographic stories, showing teachers’ bodily, emotional and intrapersonal experiences that are rarely published in the academic world. Conclusions show that the coexistence of the new and old curriculum systems causes the discordance of school cultures, and teachers are suffering silently. Recommendations are made for researchers returning to teachers’ bodily experiences for solutions that can integrate reform ideals and reality. / Graduate / 0727 / wwang15473@gmail.com

This thesis investigates human product interaction with a focus on the physical experience provided by products. The differences of users&#039 / perceptions are discussed according to the differences of bodily experiences served by products. The interaction with products is taken as a holistic experience phenomenon, and in order to assess users&#039 / understandings and evaluations about the experience with products / perceived pragmatic qualities, perceived hedonic qualities and elicited emotional reactions are analyzed. The research is conducted by means of surveys in order to compare users&#039 / perceptual differences in relation to two different product groups: automobiles and the iPhone, which differ in content of interaction, namely one serves a more physical (bodily) experience while the other a more virtual one. In order to find out the perceptual differences, verbal descriptions of perceived qualities and emotional states are used as measurement tools. A list consisting of bipolar word pairs in relation with pragmatic qualities, hedonic qualities and emotional reactions has been composed, and perceptual differences are investigated through the bipolar word pairs&#039 / relevancy levels according to the product. In addition, in order to show that meaning associations related to the same verbal description are context dependent, the meanings that are associated with the same word pairs for both products are investigated. Apparent differences between the relevant word pairs of the two different product groups have been observed, in addition with pragmatic qualities&#039 / higher relevancy scores compared to hedonic qualities and emotional reactions in defining users&#039 / interactions with products.