High-quality music teacher professional development: a review of the literature

ABSTRACT

Most published journal articles describing professional development (PD) initiatives for K-12 music teachers have not explicitly alluded to the ‘features of high-quality PD', a solid theoretical framework arisen in content areas with more tradition in PD research (e.g. mathematics and science education). The goal of this review was to examine the music-specific PD literature using this framework. We reviewed seven mainstream music education journals from 1990 to 2015, identifying 17 articles reporting on a total of 24 PD initiatives (e.g. workshops, courses, programmes, school-based PD). Results show interesting differences in the extent to which the various features considered (i.e. content focus, active learning opportunities, collective participation, duration, and coherence) are exhibited in these music-specific initiatives. This analysis is relevant for music education theory, policy, and practice, as it suggests concrete ways of improving the quality of the PD offered to school music teachers.

KEYWORDS:

• Teacher professional development
• K-12 music teachers
• features of high-quality PD
• teacher learning
• educational change

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Alfredo Bautista is a Research Scientist and Lecturer at the Education & Cognitive Development Lab (ECDL), National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University (Singapore). His research focuses on teacher professional development and the analysis of exemplary instructional practices. Alfredo currently works with preschool, primary, and secondary teachers, and his main content areas of interest are mathematics, music, and the arts. His work has been published in mainstream journals in education and psychology, both generalist and content-specific.

Xenia Yau is a part-time Research Assistant at the Education & Cognitive Development Lab (ECDL), National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University (Singapore). She is currently a third year Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.) student at the National University of Singapore. Her research focuses on the analysis of exemplary instructional practices and music teacher professional development.

Joanne Wong is a full-time Research Assistant at the Education & Cognitive Development Lab (ECDL), National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University (Singapore). Her research interests include music teacher professional development and ethnomusicology. She is currently completing her master’s by research, looking at music teachers’ views regarding effective professional development.

Additional information

Funding

This study was funded by the Education Research Funding Programme, National Institute of Education (NIE), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, project no. OER 02/14 AA. The views expressed in this paper are the author's and do not necessarily represent the views of NIE.