3
reflective practice and dialogue (Lomos, Hofman & Bosker, 2011), building teachers’ leadership capacities (Harris, 2010), bridging pre-service teachers experiences and early years of teaching (Cuddapah & Clayton, 2011) and making meaningful changes in their own practice (Huggins, Scheurich, & Morgan, 2011). Variables such as group cohesion, the tendency for a group to stick together and remain unified in the pursuit of objectives and/or the satisfaction of member affective needs, and collective efficacy, a judgment of the combined capabilities of its members to accomplish a given task (Bandura, 1986), may affect the development of a community of practice and performance (Kozub & McDonnell, 2000; George & Feltz, 1995). This study examines the influence of group cohesion and collective efficacy on CoPs in the collegiate marching band through quantitative and qualitative inquiry.
Participants included 53 undergraduate wind, percussion, and auxiliary members from a large, urban university participating in marching band. Thirty-five percent were freshman, 26% sophomores, 23% juniors, and 16% seniors. Forty-eight percent of the participants were male and 52% were females and ranged in age from 18 to 24 years of age (M = 19.46, SD = 1.61). The ethnic composition of the instrumentalists included: 77% white American, 6% Hispanic American, 8% Asian American, and 9% African American. The majority of the instrumentalists indicated they were not music majors (77%), followed by 23% studying music (either performance, music education, music business, music composition or music technology).
In the quantitative phase, participants completed questionnaires assessing their perception of the ensembles’ functioning regarding group cohesion, collective efficacy and persistence. For the qualitative phase, student beliefs regarding student leadership roles, ensemble identity, and group functioning were examined using focus group discussions.
Preliminary multiple regression analyses indicated that ensemble group cohesion and collective efficacy beliefs significantly accounted for 50% of the variance in the community of practice scores. For the qualitative phase, student beliefs regarding student leadership roles, ensemble identity, and group functioning were examined using focus group discussions. Through axial coding five themes emerged: identity, work ethic, tradition, communication, and serving the campus and city communities.
An understanding of the nature of ensembles as CoPs has the potential to strengthen and influence practicing educators pedagogical paradigms and strategies as well as future music educator training methodologies, possibly enhancing students’ interpersonal relationships in the music ensemble.
Beth Gibbs, Grand Valley State University An Analysis of Assessment Methods in Elementary Music Classes
Teacher evaluation has become a topic of increasing scrutiny in recent years. Many states now require that teacher evaluations include data to support evidence of student growth and achievement. A recent position statement by the Michigan Society for Music Teacher Education (Butler, Hash, & Taggart, 2012), recommended that music teachers work with administrators to identify objective measures of student learning and to “utilize assessments that clearly measure
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