TY - JOUR
T1 - Surveying Colorado band directors' opinions of skills and characteristics important to successful music teaching
AU - Miksza, Peter
AU - Roeder, Matthew
AU - Biggs, Dana
PY - 2010/1
Y1 - 2010/1
N2 - This study was designed to (a) gather band directors' opinions of skills and characteristics important to teaching and (b) examine the relative effectiveness of electronic versus paper survey methods. Survey respondents ranked lists of music, teaching, and personal skills or characteristics in order of importance and answered open-ended items regarding advice for 1st-year teachers and the struggles and rewards of band directing. The final response rate was 66% (N = 235). Personal and teaching skills and characteristics were ranked higher than music skills. The items "maintain high musical standards," "be able to motivate students," and "enthusiastic, energetic" were the highest ranked skills or characteristics. Perseverance, patience, and long-term vision were the most common forms of advice to 1st-year teachers. Issues related to classroom management and student success were the most-often-cited struggles and rewards of band directing, respectively. An experiment comparing response rate and response quality as a function of survey method (i.e., e-survey vs. paper survey) and follow-up notification (i.e., postnote, no postnote) also was completed using a smaller subsample of respondents ( n = 102). Response rates for the e-survey conditions were better than those for the paper survey conditions. Greater proportions of respondents from the paper survey conditions completed the open-ended items.
AB - This study was designed to (a) gather band directors' opinions of skills and characteristics important to teaching and (b) examine the relative effectiveness of electronic versus paper survey methods. Survey respondents ranked lists of music, teaching, and personal skills or characteristics in order of importance and answered open-ended items regarding advice for 1st-year teachers and the struggles and rewards of band directing. The final response rate was 66% (N = 235). Personal and teaching skills and characteristics were ranked higher than music skills. The items "maintain high musical standards," "be able to motivate students," and "enthusiastic, energetic" were the highest ranked skills or characteristics. Perseverance, patience, and long-term vision were the most common forms of advice to 1st-year teachers. Issues related to classroom management and student success were the most-often-cited struggles and rewards of band directing, respectively. An experiment comparing response rate and response quality as a function of survey method (i.e., e-survey vs. paper survey) and follow-up notification (i.e., postnote, no postnote) also was completed using a smaller subsample of respondents ( n = 102). Response rates for the e-survey conditions were better than those for the paper survey conditions. Greater proportions of respondents from the paper survey conditions completed the open-ended items.
KW - Electronic survey methods
KW - Music teacher effectiveness
KW - Teaching rewards
KW - Teaching struggles
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U2 - 10.1177/0022429409351655
DO - 10.1177/0022429409351655
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:77949471821
SN - 0022-4294
VL - 57
SP - 364
EP - 381
JO - Journal of Research in Music Education
JF - Journal of Research in Music Education
IS - 4
ER -