Survey of Indiana Music Teachers on Using Composition in the Classroom

Abstract

The primary purpose of this study was to examine composition practices in public schools across the state of Indiana, to investigate who incorporates composition and why they chose to use or not use composing tasks. A second purpose was to learn if teachers had an operational definition for composition. Three hundred thirty-nine teachers participated in a survey to answer questions about their use of compositon in the classroom. Respondents who used composition answered open-ended questions about learning goals for composing tasks and gave examples of typical classroom composing tasks. Although 88.5 % of the respondents indicated that they incorporated composition, only 5.9% reported using composition tasks often. General music teachers were slightly more likely to incorporate composition in their classrooms than were ensemble directors. There were no significant relationships found between years of experience or years at a school, certification, or school use of Standards and the relative use of composing tasks. An analysis of the responses to open-ended questions revealed that teachers used composing tasks for a great variety of purposes. No one definition of composition emerged from the analysis. Instead, respondents labeled a range of activities from dictation and practicing notation and improvising to complex tasks as "composition. " The article calls for developing an operational definition and pedagogy for composition in the classroom and discusses possibilities for future research.