This investigation into instrumental music teaching at the tertiary (conservatorium) level sought to observe and describe typical teacher and student behaviour in this under-researched educational setting. The aim of the study was to examine a wide range of areas associated with instrumental music teaching in order to identify patterns of behaviour exhibited by teachers and students and to define teaching and learning styles present in advanced applied music teaching. After a review of literature on teaching in general and on music teaching in particular, an observational instrument for individual instrumental music lessons was developed and refined in pilot studies. 12 prominent Australian teachers were videotaped teaching 24 students, with the sample being balanced geographically, institutionally, by instrument (three mainstream groups: piano, strings and winds) and by gender (equal numbers of male and female teachers and students). Steps were taken to observe realistic teaching of typical students and to minimise the observer???s intrusion into the lesson dynamics. The videotaped lessons were analysed using an observational instrument and the data was subjected to various statistical analyses. Results are reported according to five main areas (lesson structure, lesson content, teaching methodology, teacher/ student relationship, and teaching and learning styles) and discussed with reference to existing literature. The conclusions of this study enhance current understanding of studio music teaching, by supporting many of the findings of previous research and substantiating their application to advanced instrumental music teaching. This study provides new insights into the underlying structure of instrumental music lessons, the primacy of technique in terms of lesson content, the use of teaching strategies such as demonstration, evaluation and questioning, gender differences between teachers and between students, and the types of teaching and learning styles that are prevalent in conservatorium settings. Findings contribute to and extend existing research into applied music teaching.

This research examines the usefulness of the Curriculum and Standards Framework as the basis for school music education in Victoria. The thesis consists of a folio of four short research tasks and a Dissertation that examine the question in different ways. The first of the short research tasks uses document and discourse analysis to examine and critique the philosophies of music education and aesthetic education that inform the Curriculum and Standards Framework. The same techniques are used in the second research task to trace the adoption and dissemination of the philosophy of music education as aesthetic education in a range of curriculum documents from around Australia. These two tasks show how centralised curriculum development often produces abstract and impractical goals and strategies. Research tasks three and four use interview and participant observation with teachers based in one Melbourne secondary school to illuminate the highly contextual nature of teaching practice. The theoretical formulations of learning presented in Victorian curriculum materials and policy documents is contrasted with the practical approaches that teachers take in developing educational programmes. These tasks show how school education is always developed in relation to students and resources and not according to abstract standards. The Dissertation reports on a major research project with thirty-two experienced music teachers working in the northern metropolitan region of Melbourne. Interviews with both primary and secondary teachers sought to determine the extent to which the Curriculum and Standards Framework had impacted upon their classroom teaching practice. The research was guided by Grounded Theory (Glaser and Strauss 1967) principles and it showed that the Framework and the associated process of centralising curriculum production failed to deliver any measurable gains or changes in music education in schools.

There is no abstract available for this dissertation.

There is no abstract available for this thesis.

There is no abstract available for this dissertation.

There is no abstract available for this thesis.

published_or_final_version / Education / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

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