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musical growth and achievement” (pg. 10). Additionally, the authors indicated that music teachers would most likely need to provide their own assessment data to show evidence of student musical growth in contrast to other subject areas wherein student data is often collected through standardized testing. This can be a challenge for elementary music teachers who teach a wide variety of musical concepts at multiple grade levels and often rely on informal assessment to monitor student growth.
To formally assess the musical growth of their students, elementary music teachers must choose which aspects of student musical growth to assess, establish criteria for student performance, and find a way to implement the assessment in timely manner which doesn’t disrupt from the classroom routine. Difficulties in beginning this process may be compounded by administrators who remain uninvolved in creating or implementing new music assessments. In a review of assessment practices of secondary music teachers, Russell and Austin (2010) noted the importance of sharing and evaluating assessment strategies among music colleagues to counter the lack of administrative involvement. Elementary music teachers would also benefit from sharing ideas for assessing their students in ways, which would allow them to collect data to use as evidence of student musical growth.
The purpose of this study is to gather information about current assessment practices among elementary music teachers in Michigan and to analyze teacher submitted assessment tools which have been found helpful in collecting information about student musicianship. Because teacher evaluations are often partially based upon evidence of student growth, results of the study will be used to provide recommendations to elementary music teachers about methods for gathering assessment data.
Participants in the study will be elementary music teachers in the Midwest United States. Participants will complete an online questionnaire about their current assessment practices in the elementary music classroom. Items in the questionnaire will be designed to elicit responses about the frequency of both informal and formal assessment, the types of assessment tools used to collect evidence of student musical growth, the types of musical concepts assessed in elementary music classes, and student familiarity with assessment criteria. Participants will also have the option of submitting successful assessment tools via email attachment.
Survey responses will be analyzed using descriptive statistics to report frequency of engagement in different methods of assessment. Assessment tools which have been submitted will be analyzed for the following qualities:
type of tool, number of items, number of musical concepts
measured, specificity of criteria, type of feedback available to students, and ease of use. Analysis of the assessment tools is intended to provide a profile of promising assessment methods currently in practice, and to provide elementary music teachers with suggestions for designing or adapting assessment tools for use with their own students.
Butler, A., Hash, P., & Taggart, C. (2012). Music teacher evaluation: Clarification and recommendations. Michigan Music Educator, (49)3. 10-13.
Russell, J., & Austin, J. (2010). Assessment practices of secondary music teachers. Journal of Research in Music Education, 58(1), 37-54.
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