Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-lnqnp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-24T01:40:31.701Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Feeling and thinking about studio practices: Exploring dissonance in semi-structured interviews with students in higher education music

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 March 2017

Kim Burwell*
Affiliation:
School of the Arts and Media, UNSW, Anzac Parade, Kensington NSW 2033, [email protected]

Abstract

While studio-based instrumental and vocal learning is widely regarded as both important and effective in higher education music, research to date has offered little concrete information about studio practices that students have regarded as ineffective. Two recent case studies investigated what appear to be exceptional instances in which students expressed dissatisfaction with the approaches taken by their current teachers. In this paper, data from these studies is mined again, focusing particularly on verbal behaviour from semi-structured interviews. The two studies are compared with each other and with data from a broader study from which they had been drawn, asking how the ‘dissonant’ cases are distinct, and how student interviews might cast fresh light on the complexities of studio practices.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

ASSOCIATION OF EUROPEAN CONSERVATOIRES, Polifonia Profession Working Group (2007) The Conservatoire and the Profession. Retrieved from http://www.polifonia-tn.org Google Scholar
BURWELL, K. (2005) A degree of independence: teachers’ approaches to instrumental tuition in a university college. British Journal of Music Education, 22, 199215.Google Scholar
BURWELL, K. (2010) Rich transcription. Exploring lesson interactions in higher education music. Scientia Paedagogica Experimentalis, 47, 305331.Google Scholar
BURWELL, K. (2012) Studio-based Instrumental Learning. Farnham: Ashgate.Google Scholar
BURWELL, K. (2016a) ‘She did miracles for me’: An investigation of dissonant studio practices in higher education music. Psychology of Music, 44, 466480.Google Scholar
BURWELL, K. (2016b) Dissonance in the studio: an exploration of tensions within the apprenticeship setting in higher education music. International Journal of Music Education, 34, 499512. DOI: 10.1177/0255761415574124Google Scholar
BURWELL, K. & SHIPTON, M. (2011) Performance Studies in practice: An investigation of students’ approaches to practice in a university music department. Music Education Research, 13, 255271.Google Scholar
CAREY, G. M., BRIDGSTOCK, R., TAYLOR, P., MCWILLIAM, E. & GRANT, C. (2013) Characterising one-to-one conservatoire teaching: Some implications of a quantitative analysis. Music Education Research, 15, 357368.Google Scholar
DENZIN, N. K. & LINCOLN, Y. S. (2005) Introduction: the discipline and practice of qualitative research. In Denzin, N. K. & Lincoln, Y. S. (Eds.) The Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research (3rd edn.) (pp.132). Thousand Oaks, London, New Delhi: Sage.Google Scholar
FLAVELL, J. H. BEACH, D. R. & CHINSKY, J. M. (1966) Spontaneous verbal rehearsal in a memory task as a function of age. Child Development, 37, 283299.Google Scholar
GAUNT, H. (2008) One-to-one tuition in a conservatoire: The perceptions of instrumental and vocal teachers. Psychology of Music, 36, 215245.Google Scholar
GAUNT, H. (2010) One-to-one tuition in a conservatoire: The perceptions of instrumental and vocal students. Psychology of Music, 38, 178208.Google Scholar
GAUNT, H. (2011) Understanding the one-to-one relationship in instrumental/vocal tuition in Higher Education: Comparing student and teacher perceptions. British Journal of Music Education, 28, 159179.Google Scholar
HALLAM, S. (2001) The development of expertise in young musicians: Strategy use, knowledge acquisition and individual diversity. Music Education Research, 3, 723.Google Scholar
HAMMERSLEY, M. (2003) Conversation analysis and discourse analysis: Methods or paradigms? Discourse & Society, 14, 751781.Google Scholar
HANKEN, I. M. (2011) Student evaluation of teaching from the actors' perspective. Quality in Higher Education, 17, 245256.Google Scholar
HOLTGRAVES, T. (2015) I think I am doing great but I feel pretty bad about it: Affective versus cognitive verbs and self-reports. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 41, 677686.Google Scholar
HULTBERG, C. (2005) Practitioners and researchers in cooperation – method development for qualitative practice-related studies. Music Education Research, 7, 211224.Google Scholar
JAMES, M., WISE, K. & RINK, J. (2010) Exploring creativity in musical performance through lesson observation with video-recall interviews. Scientia Paedagogica Experimentalis, 47, 219250.Google Scholar
JOHANSSON, K. (2013) Undergraduate students' ownership of musical learning: Obstacles and options in one-to-one teaching. British Journal of Music Education, 30, 277295.Google Scholar
JØRGENSEN, H. (2000) Student learning in higher instrumental education: who is responsible? British Journal of Music Education, 17, 6777.Google Scholar
KOOPMAN, C., SMIT, N., DE VUGT, A., DENEER, P. & DEN OUDEN, J. (2007) Focus on practice-relationships between lessons on the primary instrument and individual practice in conservatoire education. Music Education Research, 9, 373397.Google Scholar
KVALE, S, (1996) Inter Views. An Introduction to Qualitative Research Interviewing. Thousand Oaks, London, New Delhi: Sage.Google Scholar
MADILL, A. (2011) Interaction in the semi-structured Interview: A comparative analysis of the use of and response to indirect complaints. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 8, 333353.Google Scholar
MAYER, N. D. & TORMALA, Z. L. (2010) ‘Think’ versus ‘feel’ framing effects in persuasion. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 36, 443454.Google Scholar
MUSIC COUNCIL OF AUSTRALIA (2011) Higher Education Base Funding Review: Submission to the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations. Retrieved from http://www.mca.org.au/advocacy/2011-papers/16319-higher-education-base-funding-review Google Scholar
NERLAND, M. (2007) One-to-one teaching as cultural practice: Two case studies from an academy of music. Music Education Research, 9, 399416.Google Scholar
NERLAND, M. & HANKEN, I. M. (2002) Academies of music as arenas for education: Some reflections on the institutional construction of teacher-student relationships. In Hanken, I. M., Nielsen, S. G. & Nerland, M. (Eds.), Research in and for Higher Education (pp. 167186). Oslo: Norges Musikkhøgskole.Google Scholar
NIELSEN, S. G. (2010) Using stimulated recall methodologies in researching one-to-one instrumental education. Scientia Paedagogica Experimentalis, 47, 199217.Google Scholar
PERÄKYLÄ, A. (2005) Analyzing talk and text. Chapter 34 in Denzin, N. & Lincoln, Y. (Eds) The Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research (3rd edn.) (pp. 869886). Thousand Oaks, London, New Delhi: Sage.Google Scholar
POTTER, J. (2003) Discursive psychology: between method and paradigm. Discourse & Society, 14, 783794.Google Scholar
POTTER, J. (1998) Discourse analysis as a way of analysing naturally occurring talk. Chapter 10 in Silverman, D. (Ed.), Qualitative Research. Theory, Method and Practice (pp. 144160). London, Thousand Oaks, New Delhi: Sage.Google Scholar
POTTER, J. & HEPBURN, A. (2005) Qualitative interviews in psychology: Problems and possibilities. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 2, 281307.Google Scholar
PRESLAND, C. (2005) Conservatoire student and instrumental professor: The student perspective on a complex relationship. British Journal of Music Education, 22, 237248.Google Scholar
PRING, R. (2000) Philosophy of Educational Research (2nd edn). London, New York: Continuum Google Scholar
ROULSTON, K. (2006) Close encounters of the ‘CA’ kind: A review of literature analysing talk in research interviews. Qualitative Research, 6, 515534.Google Scholar
SCHEGLOFF, E. A., JEFFERSON, G. L & SACKS, H. (1977) The preference for self-correction in the organization of repair in conversation. Language, 53, 361382.Google Scholar
SCHEURICH, J. J. (1995) A postmodernist critique of research interviewing. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 8, 239252.Google Scholar
SCHMIDT, V. A. (2010) Taking ideas and discourse seriously: Explaining change through discursive institutionalism as the fourth 'new institutionalism'. European Political Science Review, 2, 125.Google Scholar
WOOFFITT, R. (2005) Conversation Analysis and Discourse Analysis. A Comparative and Critical Introduction. London, Thousand Oaks & New Delhi: Sage.Google Scholar