Effectiveness of preservice music teacher education programs: Perceptions of early-career music teachers

Abstract

The quality of teaching in schools is directly linked to the quality of preservice preparation that teachers receive. This is particularly important in the area of music teacher education, given the unique challenges that classroom music teachers commonly face. This paper reports on research designed to investigate the knowledge and skills that early-career music teachers perceive to be necessary to function effectively in the classroom, and their perceptions of the effectiveness of current teacher education programs in preparing them to teach secondary classroom music. Questionnaires were completed by 76 secondary classroom music teachers in their first three years of teaching in Queensland, Australia. Importance-Performance Analysis was used to determine those areas of the preservice course that constituted a high priority for attention. The findings suggest that preservice teachers need increased support in their development of pedagogical content knowledge and skills, and non-pedagogical professional content knowledge and skills. This research provides an empirical basis for reconceptualising music teacher education courses and raises important issues that music teacher educators need to address in order to ensure that graduates are adequately prepared for classroom music teaching.