Outlining New Guidelines for the Assessment of the Education Diploma in Music

Abstract

The intention in this pilot study is to outline the preliminary guidelines for the development of new assessment practices in the education diploma in music at Finnish general upper secondary schools. The rationale for the study arose from the ongoing education policy debate in Finland that suggests that one of the academic subjects in the general upper secondary school graduation examination could soon be replaced by an education diploma in artistic subjects. The study was conducted by asking Finnish general upper secondary school music teachers and students to respond to a semi-structured e-questionnaire that aimed to find out the participants’ perspectives firstly, on the general goals and importance of an education diploma in music, and secondly, on the development of the assessment practices in the diplomas. A small sample of Finnish general upper secondary school’s music teachers (N=13) and students (N=5) answered the questionnaire during the 2019 spring semester. The results of data analysis suggest that participants found it problematic to incorporate different types of assessment tasks and goals in the diplomas in their present form. Against this backdrop, we recommend that the diploma should be re-designed in order to have clear assessment formats for the use of diagnostic, formative, summative and integrative assessment tasks.