An Exploration of Recent Approaches to Research in

Music Education Joanne Rutkowski, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus of Music Education, Penn State

Mara E. Culp, Ph.D. Candidate, Penn State Lindsay J. Fulcher, Ph.D. Candidate (ABD), Penn State; Assistant Professor of Music Education, Ball State

Yo-Jung Han, Ph.D. Candidate (ABD), Penn State Anne-Marie Hildebrandt, Ph.D. Candidate, Penn State

MacKinlay Himes, Ph.D. Candidate, Penn State Daniel J. Shevock, Ph.D., Lecturer of Music, Penn State Altoona

Kristina R. Weimer, Ph.D. Candidate (ABD), Penn State

The Pennsylvania Music Educators Association Annual State Conference

April 1, 2016

Background ●  The past 20 years (Phillips, 2008) ●  Previous research

o  Content analyses (Lane, 2011; Rutkowski, Thompson, & Huang, 2011; Schmidt & Zdzinski, 1993; Yarbrough, 2002)

o  Research approaches (Miksza & Johnson, 2012) ●  Recent investigations

o  Not conducted in the last five years o  “Content analysis” limited to one journal (Jorgensen & Ward-

Steinman, 2015) o  Investigated ratio of research designs in submissions and actual

publications in one journal (Sims, Lordo, & Phelps, 2016)

Purpose

•  The purpose of this project was to explore and categorize research approaches that have been employed in studies in Music Education from 2010-2015

Specific Problem

•  What dissemination venues? •  Articles? •  Conferences? •  Symposium Proceedings?

•  The specific problem of this study was to identify research approaches used in studies published in refereed journals since 2010

Method

•  Approach to the project • Content analysis

•  Journal Selection •  Each member contacted 2 senior researchers to identify “top tier”

research journals •  The Journal of Research in Music Education (JRME) •  The Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education (CRME) •  Music Education Research (MER) •  Research Studies in Music Education (RSME) •  Journal of Music Teacher Education (JMTE)

Method – Procedures •  Articles listed chronologically by journal •  Each article assigned a research approach

•  If design stated, we used that •  If not, we assigned an approach based on discussion

•  First review: articles distributed among individual team members for review

•  Second review: articles where initial review was

inconclusive examined by small groups

Method – Reliability Check

•  Reliability check •  Randomly selected FIVE articles from each journal •  Each of the five Independently reviewed by two

research team members •  Discussion among the research team if disagreement •  If design not stated, the team made the decision

•  Data Analysis •  Designs tallied

Results

119

81

140

62 71

50%

54%

60%

53% 38%

JRME BCRME MER RSME JMTE

# Articles Approach Stated

Most Used Approaches (%)

Descriptive Case study Qualitative Quasi- experimental

Mixed Methods

20.93

16.70

8.88 7.19 6.55

Least Used Approaches < 5 (1%) < 10 (2%)

Autoethnography Discourse Analysis Grounded Theory Meta-Analysis Naturalistic Factor Analysis Time Series Self-Study

Ethnography Experimental Historical Test Development

Results - Listed in Rank Order by Total

JOURNAL Descriptive Case study Qualitative Quasi- experimental

Mixed Methods

Correlational

JRME 32 13 5 18 2 11

BCRME 19 9 7 7 2 5

MER 16 31 20 0 21 7

RSME 15 18 4 2 3 3

JMTE 17 8 6 7 3 3

TOTAL 99 79 42 34 31 29

Results

JOURNAL Literature Review

Philosophical Predictive Action Research

Narrative Content Analysis

JRME 0 0 6 0 1 3

BCRME 7 1 6 1 2 5

MER 2 7 1 6 2 0

RSME 0 2 1 3 6 1

JMTE 7 5 0 3 2 4

TOTAL 16 15 14 13 13 13

Results

* Autoethnography, discourse analysis, grounded theory, meta-analysis, naturalistic, factor analysis, time series, self-study

JOURNAL Phenomeno- logical

Ethnography Experimental Historical Test development

Other *

JRME 2 2 7 5 4 6

BCRME 2 1 0 0 2 5

MER 6 4 0 2 0 3

RSME 1 3 1 0 0 1

JMTE 0 0 2 1 0 1

TOTAL 11 10 10 8 6 16

JRME Descriptive (26.89%)

Quasi-experimental (15.13%)

Case study (10.92%)

BCRME

Descriptive (23.46%)

Literature review, Qualitative, Quasi-experimental (8.64%)

Case study (11.11%)

MER

Mixed methods (15%) Qualitative

(14.29%)

Case study (22.14%)

RSME

Descriptive (24.13%)

Narrative (9.68%)

Case study (29.03%)

JMTE

Descriptive (23.94%) Literature review, Quasi-experimental

(9.86%) Case study (11.27%)

Conclusions •  Research approaches have clearly broadened in the last few

decades, consistent with Phillips (2008) •  Journals seem more open to a variety of approaches to

scholarly inquiry •  All journals have 2-3 designs not represented

•  JRME: still primarily quantitative, but many qualitative •  MER, RSME: more qualitative and mixed methods

•  Only 50% of authors state their design/approach •  Authors should consider:

•  overall approach guiding their inquiry •  stating what the approach is

Discussion

Abstract & References

Extended Handout: