Teachers’ Beliefs and Actions on affective responses during music listening activities in higher education in China

Abstract

Music listening is very important in all stages of music learning. Affective response and cognition take place simultaneously during the music-listening process. However, there is a paucity of research on how university music teachers deal with the issues of involving the affective responses of students in listening. This study employed a questionnaire survey to investigate the current situation of teaching beliefs and actions of music academics towards affective responses while listening to music in China. The views of 160 music university teachers recruited from 15 different universities have been surveyed. The questionnaire was designed based on the concept of music teaching and learning with an acceptable reliability of K=0.58. The survey data identified the potential correlation between the teacher’s beliefs and their actions (r=0.67). Moreover, the possible correlation between several predictors associated with the teachers (gender, educational degree, teaching experience and the type of university, and so on) also have been investigated. The results of this study revealed that around 90% of respondents agreed that affective responses can be enhanced music cognition during the teaching process. The relationship between teachers’ beliefs and actions is found to be positive but not linear related. In addition, it was found that the teacher’s knowledge of effective pedagogical responses during music listening has the potential to broaden the scope of their teaching.