There is no abstract in the dissertation / Music Performance

The purpose of this study was to determine Pennsylvania public high school instrumental music teachers' perceptions of changes to instrumental music instruction that may have been the result of a narrowing focus on student performance on standardized tests and sanctions linked to the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (2002). The study used a descriptive design to investigate ways that standardized testing may have influenced student opportunities to participate in school instrumental music, instructional time available for instrumental lessons and performing ensembles, budgetary resources and funding sources, staffing, and instrumental music curricula in Pennsylvania high schools. Data were gathered via an anonymous web-based survey. Of the entire population of 710 full-time high school instrumental music teachers in Pennsylvania, 304 responded. Of those, 247 successfully completed the survey and were appropriate for analysis. Results suggested that across PA high schools, instrumental music opportunities were varied and inconsistent with regard to instructional time, financial resources, access and availability of students, and support for instrumental music within the larger curriculum of the schools. These inconsistencies may have resulted in unequal opportunities to participate in instrumental music programs, partially because of funding and policy priorities at the state and local level that value test-based accountability rather than more comprehensive methods of evaluating child development and learning. Prior research suggested that opportunities to participate in instrumental music were linked to individual and group standardized test performance. Schools in very large urban districts with high percentages of low-income and minority students were the most likely to face reductions in instrumental music opportunities. Implications included the possibility of inequitable reductions to music programs potentially undermining efforts to help reduce or prevent achievement gaps. Reductions in instrumental music opportunities for elementary level students was a particular concern since neurobiological research findings suggest special benefits for early childhood music instruction. Recommendations for further research included replication of the study using identifiable data, case studies of individual high schools, the continuation and expansion of longitudinal studies between neuroscientists and music educators, and a survey of school administrator attitudes toward music education. / Music Education

abstract: This study examined directors’, master teachers’, graduate and undergraduate String Project teachers’ perspectives of the skills and behaviors important for teaching strings. Participants were from the 40 String Projects listed on the National String Project Consortium website, including String Project directors (n = 16), master teachers (n = 7), graduate (n = 6) and undergraduate string teachers (n = 46) involved in String Projects across the United States. Participants ranged in age from 18 to 72 years old. The survey for this study was based on Teachout’s 1997 survey pertaining to teachers’ skills and behaviors in three categories: teaching, personal, musical. A cover letter containing a link to the electronic survey was sent to directors and master teachers for the 40 String Projects, requesting their participation and the participation of their string teachers. Seventy-five participants from 19 String Projects completed the survey. Means and standard deviations were calculated for each item for each of the four participant groups. Overall means for each category of skills and behaviors were calculated followed by a one-way Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA) to determine which of the three categories the teachers and directors believed most important. Three one-way MANOVAs were used to analyze participants’ perspectives for three broad categories of skills and behaviors (personal, teaching, and musical) across the four participant groups. No significant differences were found across all three MANOVA analyses. Additionally, descriptive statistics were used to determine the rankings of importance for the four participant groups on 40 survey items. Results showed that participants in all four groups believed that personal skills and behaviors were more important than teaching and musical skills and behaviors. Also conducted were Pearson Product-Moment Correlations, which analyses revealed a strong positive relationship between the ranked perceptions of musical and teaching skills and behaviors (r = .78, p = .00), between musical and personal skills and behaviors (r = .65, p = .00), and between personal and teaching skills and behaviors (r = .84, p = .00). Strong positive correlations were found between the three categories. Recommendations for research and practice were given. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Music Education 2019

abstract: Since the 1920's, the school musical has been an important event in American high schools and in the lives of students. This study begins with a condensed history of the American musical theatre, into focus on selected shows' value as potential high school repertoire. Review of literature included studies of high school musical theatre, production guides and related materials, and writings both against and in favor of musicals at the high school level. The school musical is usually undertaken as an extra-curricular activity led by performing arts faculty. This study focuses on the preparation, responsibilities, and attitudes of high school music educators toward musical theatre direction. Musical direction is defined as teaching the vocal music, and teaching and leading the instrumental music of the production where applicable. A researcher-designed survey was distributed to Arizona music educators in schools that included grade 12. The response rate was 71%. Questions included items designed to assess the pervasiveness of musical theatre productions, the roles and responsibilities of music educators, and their preparation for those roles. Additional Likert-type questions comprised an inventory measuring attitudes toward musical theatre productions. Results of the survey showed that musicals are produced in 80% of Arizona high schools, and music faculty are expected to lead at least the musical aspects of these productions. Although 62% report that they learned about teaching musical theatre on the job, and that they received no other preparation, 70% report a large amount of personal enjoyment and fulfillment from their work in musical theatre. The mean attitude score for positive feelings about work in musical theatre was found to be significantly higher for choral teachers than instrumental teachers. The primary implications of the study are the need for better preparation and in-service opportunities for music educators in musical theatre pedagogy. / Dissertation/Thesis / D.M.A. Music Education 2010

abstract: Guided by Clifford Geertz's notion of culture as symbolic stories people tell themselves about themselves, the purpose of this study is to examine how youth in an urban area of Phoenix, AZ experience collectively creating and performing original documentary theatre. I pay attention to the ways youth participants--also known as artist-researchers--construct, perform, and/or perceive their identities as they practice drama techniques including improvisation, physical theatre, and Theatre of the Oppressed for the purposes of making docutheatre for social justice. First the artist-researchers chose the topics for their play. Next, they learned and applied drama and research skills to gather and examine data sources used to construct a script that explores hiding and exposure. In the process of sharing and gathering true stories our unique docutheatre-making culture was created. This multimodal qualitative research case study draws upon the genres of arts-based research and visual ethnography as primary modes of data collection and interpretation. Narrative description and the ethnodramatic mode of representation are used in conjunction with still images and this study's companion website (www.meant2see.com) to report research findings. Primary data sources include participant observation fieldnotes, over twenty hours of recorded video footage, photographs, and the project's original script and performance of To Be What's Not Meant to See . Further data include journal entries, drawings, and social media. All data were coded using In Vivo and Process Coding methods and analyzed through a cultural studies lens. Codes were sorted into phenomenological categories representative of recurring ideas and themes. Assertions were then solidified once specific key linkages were constructed. This study's key assertions are: Key Assertion 1: Participation in devising documentary social justice theatre influences and affects the construction, perception, and/or performance of urban youth identities through profound connections made with interviewees during the interview process and through the collection of true stories that provide new information and rare opportunities for self-reflection and self-realization; Key Assertion 2: Portions of the roles urban youth play in their identity narratives are disguised or hidden--purposefully, reluctantly, and/or subconsciously--in order to appeal to friends, families, or the codes of dominant culture. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Theatre 2014

The purpose of this study is to begin to articulate the theoretical identity of the field of dance studies as an academic discipline and to produce a feminist intervention into the phenomena of disembodied scholarship, while asking questions about disciplinarity and interdisciplinarity within dance studies historically and today. My primary research questions are: What are dance studies research methods? And, which research methods, if any, are inherent to dance as an academic discipline? In order to answer these seemingly direct and simple questions, I also question the assumption that we know what dance studies research methods are. In Chapter 1 I first introduce and qualify myself as a dance artist and scholar, connecting my own experiences to my research; I narrate my research questions in detail and describe the significance, limitations, and scope of this project. In Chapters 2 and 3 I provide a history of the disciplinary and interdisciplinary origins of dance studies in higher education and situate that history within contemporary conversations in dance studies on disciplinarity and interdisciplinarity. In Chapter 4 I offer an analysis of the National Dance Education Organization's (NDEO) Research Priorities for Dance Education: A Report to the Nation and The Dance Education Literature and Research descriptive index (DELRdi), an online searchable database that aims to document all literature and research in dance education (not dance studies) from 1926 to the present, as it relates to issues and methods in my own research. In Chapter 5 I identify and describe current research methods found in all dance studies dissertations granted from the 4 doctoral programs in Dance in the United States over a three-year period. This chapter begins to articulate the current theoretical identity of the field. I examine and report on current trends in dance studies research methods and draw comparisons across dance studies doctoral programs, setting the foundation for future discussion of dance studies research methods. In Chapter 6 I summarize the project and make suggestions for the future. A feminist lens is used throughout as a way of providing a feminist intervention into the phenomena of disembodied scholarship by asking questions about research methods (particularly the use of critical theory as a method for research and writing about dance) and if or how particular research methods lead to the production of embodied or disembodied scholarship. / Dance

LIVE ART is a program for students with special needs and students who are typically developed. They work collaboratively, with integrated forms of performance and visual art, culminating in a live performance. LIVE ART sought to use innovative methods of pedagogy, peer support and artistic influence to create a new curriculum where all students, regardless of ability, could grow. Along with this account, this thesis illustrates the experience of one teaching artist and his growth and journey through the program. His personal struggles with previous educational systems are mirrored in the struggles of the students, with their successes leading to his own. The thesis culminates in the revelation of teaching as a necessary mode for his own growth.

Since the Grade 1-9 Curriculum Reform took place in 2001, performing arts curriculum at compulsory education schools of Kaohsiung had faced several difficulties in practice. At the same time, marketing of the performing arts organizations also dropped down due to economic recession. In order to solve the dilemmas of both sides, the researcher thought that a partnership between compulsory schools and performing arts groups is a worthy strategy to try. Two concepts, art education partnership and co-teaching, were used to build up a theoretical framework. It is shown that a successful partnership between a school and a performing arts organization is influenced by many factors. These factors were taken to analyze the cooperative condition happened between the compulsory education schools and the arts organizations at Kaohsiung. Meanwhile, two schools, Kaohsiung Municipal Jiachang Primary School and Kaohsiung Municipal Youchang Junior High School, were chosen as the target cases of this study after a consulting conversation with the Compulsory Education Advisory Group of the Kaohsiung Municipal Department of Education(CEAGK). Members including the school administrative personnel, school teachers, parents and students of both schools were interviewed by selective ways. Taiwan Bangzi Company and the Bean Theatre also contribute their experiences to this study. In addition, observation and document analysis were also used as methods to collect data. Major conclusions are as the following: 1. Full time teachers and appropriate teaching materials are desperately demanded for compulsory education schools at Kaohsiung , unfortunately, even hired teachers has faced job crises at this time. 2. Performing arts groups are aware of the importance to cooperate with schools. 3. Knowing the difficult condition of the performing arts curriculum at school education, the CEAGK adapted strategies to assist teachers improve their skills and employ resources outside schools. 4. ¡§Personal contact¡¨ is a common way to find a partner. No contract was made, but agendas were the only documents for the cooperation. The interview results also reveal that schools need to improve their ways in deliberating the information upon performing arts education partnership. Although to work with schools in educational project is usually the goal for arts organizations, most activities were designed under the ideology of audience development or marketing the coming performance. 5. Both the schools and the performing arts groups respond that ¡§funding¡¨ and ¡§human resource¡¨ are key issues to conquer in dealing with ¡§performing arts education partnership (PAEP).¡¨ 6. PAEP at Kaohsiung is still on the ¡§Exposure Stage¡¨, co-teaching model by an artist and a teacher is still rarely seen. No one has ever attended workshops for the PAEP. 7. Evaluation on the effectiveness of PAEP is still lacked. 8. The PAEP at Kaohsiung was influenced by many factors including policy, funding, key persons, time and the project quality. PAEP should be followed by certain ¡§educational goal.¡¨ At the time of this study, the CEAGK and the performing arts organizations have asynchronous opinions towards the PAEP.

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