<p>The purpose of this essay was to find out how violin students apprehend their tuition and if it is possible to achieve good results without negative comparison or competition.</p><p>The examination is based on eight in-depth interviews with violin students between 8 and19 years of age. All of the students had a strong will to develop and to feel satisfied with their achievements. Almost all of them agree that some degree of comparison and competition between violin students does exist. Although some of the students had seen negative sides of such competition, they agree on comparison as a good thing as long as it´s positive.</p>

The purpose of this essay was to find out how violin students apprehend their tuition and if it is possible to achieve good results without negative comparison or competition. The examination is based on eight in-depth interviews with violin students between 8 and19 years of age. All of the students had a strong will to develop and to feel satisfied with their achievements. Almost all of them agree that some degree of comparison and competition between violin students does exist. Although some of the students had seen negative sides of such competition, they agree on comparison as a good thing as long as it´s positive.

According to Swedish school policy documents, every teacher’s assignment is to individually adapt the education to meet every student’s needs. There are no exact guidelines about how to make these adaptations. The purpose of this study is to investigate how six teachers interpret the policy documents and how they, according to themselves, work to achieve this. This study is built on six interviews with teachers who work with children in the ages from seven to ten. The theoretical perspectives of this study are based on John Dewey’s thoughts regarding every human being having different needs and the importance of meeting those needs. The other perspective is Lev Vygotskij’s zone of proximal development which means that learning is done by being helped by someone who has greater knowledge. The conclusions of this study are that the teachers all think that it is important to adapt the education to every individual. Some of the teachers give their students the same assignments, but give them different amounts of time to finish them. Other teachers expect different results depending on the student’s prerequisites. All of the teachers find it difficult to adapt the education to every student since there are no guidelines about how to do it.

There are different ways of developing a second language. The purpose of this qualitative study is to investigate whether and possibly how music, focused on singing, can improve the development of Swedish as a second language. Through interviews with three vocal teachers, from three different schools in Sweden, and observations of one of the vocal teachers, information about how they work and think about the subject has been collected. The vocal teachers teach groups of second language learners by singing songs made especially for second language learning. The vocal teachers consider singing beneficial in the development of the pronunciation and improvement of the prosody, which affects the students’ capacity to sound like a native Swedish speaker. They also mention factors which contradict the positive improvement of the language learning, for example when the prosody in singing does not coincide with the prosody in speech, which inhibits learning. The teachers are however in agreement about singing being beneficial and the categories of prosody, joy and pleasure are emphasized.

Musical interpretation is, despite being commonly discussed in practice, an under researchedarea. Additionally, most of the studies we have, concentrate on western classical piano players.The aim of this thesis is to contribute another perspective and investigate how tertiarypercussion students and teachers understand musical interpretation. The study is based on eightinterviews with three teachers and five students from different Swedish music colleges. Ianalysed the interviews using a hermeneutic-phenomenological approach and found five broadthemes: the first comprising the definitions of interpretation, second encompassing theprocesses it that interpretation consists of, the third listing the needed skillset, the fourthillustrating the perceived freedom of expression and the last, covering the teaching and learningof musical interpretation. The findings are in many ways line with previous research, but someinteresting differences arise. Participants see interpretation as a multifaceted process that ishighly contextual, personal, and ongoing. Interpretation includes co-creative aspects withcomposers, fellow musicians, and audience. They apply many different methods to facilitatethe process of interpretation. In order to develop interpretational skills, students require asupportive and secure environment. They believe professors should provide guidance throughdifferent approaches ranging from strict guidelines and opinions to discussion and fosteringautonomy and self-confidence

Chapter 1 introduces some of the issues which are addressed in the other chapters of this dissertation. These topics include: (1) the general equilibrium incentives in the provision of public education, (2) human capital production functions in economic modeling, (3) how public education spending may impact income inequality -- both positively and negatively, (4) the effect on public education spending of changes in the college wage premium, and (5) the overall efficiency of government-supplied capital. Chapter 2 develops a public education system in which voters face general equilibrium incentives to pay taxes for education. Middle-aged voters can increase their returns to saving by increasing the aggregate amount of human capital in the economy. I find that if students differ by their ability to increase their human capital levels through schooling, then the public education policy will invest more education funds in more productive students; this perpetuates income inequality. Also, the greater the discount rate for consumption and the elasticity of education funds in the human capital production function, the more likely it is that a public system provides greater growth in the steady state than a private system. Chapter 3 studies the allocation of government spending between general tuition subsidies for college students and need-based aid which is directed solely towards students from low-income households. The way to maximize the number of students may be to provide some need-based aid. I find that government provides more aid directed to low-income students if need-based tuition subsidies are provided rather than student loan subsidies. I also look at the effects of changes in parameters, such as the cost of education and the college wage premium, on the policies. Chapter 4 investigates the returns to aggregate factors of production when labor is disaggregated by education level. I find that a model in which the error term is assumed to be state-wise heteroscedastic and autocorrelated does a better job of approximating the pattern of wages for the different education groups than other models (pooled OLS or random and fixed effects). In addition, this model suggests a significant positive elasticity for public capital. / Ph. D.

The main purpose of this research was to examine the dimensions of affordability of public undergraduate education, focusing on a single state during a particular period of time. The main research question was: What are the dimensions of affordability of public undergraduate education in Virginia? The study examined three dimensions between the years 1981 and 2000: 1) per capita disposable income (adjusted for inflation) in Virginia, 2) financial aid at the state and federal levels, and 3) the burden of a loan for college students. In addition, the study explored several possible influences on these dimensions, including partisan control of the U.S. presidency and Congress and partisan control of the Virginia governor and state legislature. Although this study focuses on the outcomes in a single state (undergraduate, public institution enrollments in Virginia), the national data were explored because states often determine how much they are able to contribute after the national contributions are taken into consideration. The key dependent variable was undergraduate enrollments at Virginia public higher education institutions. Do enrollments tend to increase, decrease, or remain constant when any of the dimensions of affordability increase, decrease, or remain constant? Two-year and four-year public undergraduate institutions in Virginia made up the sample of institutions examined. This research focused on the time frame of 1981 through 2000. The rationales for this specific time period were that 1) appropriate data are available for these years, and 2) it allows a big picture with contrary views of education policy at both the national and state levels. During this time period, Ronald Reagan (1981-1988), George H.W. Bush (1989-1992), and Bill Clinton (1993-2000) each served as president. Three consecutive years of decreases in Virginia's public undergraduate enrollments occurred in 1988-1990. 1990 was the highest year-to-year decrease at negative 4.79% overall. 1990 was the largest decrease in 4-year public institution enrollments in VA while 1988 was the largest decrease in enrollments for 2-year public institution enrollments in Virginia. The following things happened during these years of enrollment decreases, as they related to the dimensions of affordability and the named influences. First 1989 and 1991, were both years that the Virginia public higher education state appropriations were less than 1percent. Even though 1990 itself looked more positive with a 13.43 percent increase, the years preceding and following 1990 were not so positive. Second, when people can afford more, it appears to have an inverse relationship with public institution enrollments. When people can afford more, they most likely enroll at private institutions and when they can afford less, they enroll at public institutions. The highest enrollment year for 2-year public institutions was in 1985, which followed the second largest decrease to disposable income. The inverse relationship is less strong with four-year public institutions and is more evident in the two-year institutions. Thirdly, the 1993-1994 academic year marked the year when the number of loans for higher education appears that they will forever outnumber the amount of grants. This being said, the issue of affordability is really now a matter for after college years when the payback period for these loans begins versus during college attendance. Tuition costs rose by over 80% in four-year public institutions and by over 85% in two-year institutions while disposable income only increased by 36.% over the same time period. The issue of affordability should therefore be more closely examined during the payback period and could perhaps sway someone from enrolling knowing that this payback period is inevitable for most. / Master of Arts

Syftet med denna studie är att utifrån Paul Ricoeurs trefaldiga mimesis-begrepp, utforska hur några musiklärare integrerar och motiverar komposition som ett inslag i instrumentalundervisning. För att nå studiens syfte har kvalitativa forskningsintervjuer genomförts med fyra musiklärare som aktivt använder sig av komposition i sin instrumentalundervisning. I resultatet framkommer att informanterna betraktar komposition som en viktig del i skapande av musikalisk identitet och musikaliskt omdöme, de jämför musik med språk och ser komposition och improvisation som nära besläktade. Det framkommer även ett antal konkreta arbetssätt, bland annat beskrivs hur informanterna arbetar med improvisation som ett verktyg för komposition.  I studiens sista kapitel diskuteras bland annat synen på skapande, musik som språk och musikalisk identitet och omdöme. / The purpose of this study is that based on Paul Ricoeur threefold mimesis-concept, exploring how some music teachers integrate and motivate composition as an element of instrumental tuition. To achieve the purpose of the study qualitative research interviews were conducted with four music teachers who actively use composition in their instrumental tuition. The result shows that the informants consider the composition as an important part in the creation of musical identity and musical judgement, they compare music with language and sees composition and improvisation as closely related. It also reveals a number of specific approaches, including how the informants use improvisation as a tool for composition. The study's final chapter includes a discussion of the view of creativity, music as a language and musical identity and judgement.

Title from first page of PDF document. Includes bibliographical references (p. 47-49).

In recent years, an unstable funding environment for state higher education systems has led to a trend of increasing institutional fiscal autonomy in exchange for reductions in appropriations. With the growing concern that reducing state oversight will result in increased tuition and spending levels, this study was designed to provide a clearer understanding of how fiscal autonomy at public institutions impacts measures important to the state public policy goals of affordability, operating efficiency, and access. To accommodate the diversity and hierarchical structure of public institutions, this study used multilevel modeling techniques to integrate complex, interrelated institution- and state-level data. Institution-level data were provided primarily by the Delta Cost Project and State Higher Education Executive Officers (SHEEO) in the analysis of 395 public four-year institutions across sectors in 43 states. The three dependent variables measured changes in tuition revenue net of institutional grants, education and general spending, and minority student enrollment for academic years ending 2003 through 2009. In addition to other institution- and state-level characteristics and performance measures, explanatory variables included three regulatory or political descriptors: institutional tuition-setting authority, resource control, and state governance structure. Prior to this study, there was little empirical evidence to either support or counter claims that reducing state oversight would lead to increases that could threaten access, particularly for students in low-income and minority populations. This analysis did find evidence of a relationship between tuition-setting authority and institutional outcomes, however, statistical significance varied by outcome measure as well as category of tuition-setting authority. There were also other important factors related to the outcomes including level of appropriations, extent of reliance on state funding, and regional compact affiliation. Although results were mixed, this effort serves as a starting point for future research to help inform state and institutional decision-makers as they search for ways to address funding gaps without sacrificing their public agenda.