Teaching music is a phenomenon that should be studied by people who decided to connect their lives with pedagogy as it presents information about the techniques and methodology of work with students to achieve as high results as possible. Therefore, the scope of the study is the pre-service and beginning teachers’ learning with specific emphasis put on the effect of pre-service on the further career of teachers. The study under consideration has the pre-service and beginning teachers’ learning as its topic. The purpose of the study is the research of the main influences of the pre-service upon the further careers of teachers.
Introduction
The main problem of the research is the study of pre-service and beginning teachers’ learning in the context of the influence of pre-service upon the development of careers of beginning teachers. The need for such a study is obvious nowadays as teachers are needed to develop an esthetically educated society. Thus, in order to produce more skillful and highly qualified teachers who would teach people culture and music in particular, the research of the pre-service effect on teaching careers is of great importance (Colwell, pp.35 – 36).
The topic of pre-service and beginning teachers’ learning has always been of great importance in musical education. This course, as well as the majority of courses in arts and social sciences, deals with the point of teaching a good teacher and prepare him or her to all the challenges in their practice. The following questions are of special importance in this research – pre-service and beginning teachers’ learning, the effect of pre-service on the further career development of teachers and challenges that can be faced by young teachers in the initial stages of their work. The topic of the pre-service and beginning teachers’ learning also interested many scientists in all epochs and this fact is another proof of the significance of the topic chosen for the current research.
Literature Review
The works on the pre-service and beginning teachers’ learning are numerous. They were created in different epochs and with different methods of gathering and processing information because the level of the scientific development of the mankind was different. These works touch upon such general topics as pre-service and beginning teachers’ learning and the challenges of the first stages of the work as a teacher. At the same time, some of these works are dedicated to such specific questions as the effect of pre-service on further practice of a teacher and all possible tests and preparations to help beginning teachers to adjust to their work faster and easier.
Oh and Ankers (2005) examine the general issue of the pre-service and beginning teachers’ learning and its practical influence upon the career development of young teachers and upon their confidence in class. Basic idea of the book is that pre-service and beginning teachers’ learning is very important for teachers but very often it can lead to serious problems and affect the further careers of teachers negatively.
The work by Tjeedrdsma (1998) was dedicated to pre-service and beginning teachers’ learning and developed one of the aspects that are to be considered in the research. The work explores the issues of help to pre-service teachers from university supervisors or cooperating experienced teachers. This, according to the author will make the first steps of beginning teachers easier, and without this help the majority of the teachers would experience problems in their first appearances in class.
Rikard, Knight and their colleagues (1997) dedicated their work to another sphere of pre-service teaching and concentrated on the issue of training cooperative teachers whose aim will be to help pre-service teachers with encouragement and advice. Meanwhile, Richardson-Koehler (2006) took their time to examine the development of the plans of pre-service teachers from just hoping to pull through the day in class to creating a larger strategy for several weeks beforehand.
Another issues studied thoroughly by different scholars was how research in music education should be conducted. They paid attention to the basic methodologies, approaches and techniques of gathering and processing data for certain kinds of research. Colwell et al. (2002) examined the main ways of teaching and learning music and pre-service teaching in particular. At the same time, Lichtman (2006) dealt with the basis of the qualitative research as one of the types of research used in the musical education. While Phillips in 2008 examined one more aspect of music education – music therapy as one of the purposes for which music is studied. All this allows us to state the method of the research, its main instruments and procedures.
Method
As far as this is to be a qualitative descriptive study, the method used during it will also be qualitative with use of its three main approaches, namely analytic, critical and speculative ones. The data needed for the study are the main problems faced by pre-service teachers and the frequency with which they occur, as well as the ways to solve those problems.
Among the most efficient methods of gathering information are such as deep study of the literature on the topic, interviews with the experts in the issue as well as surveys or direct researches of certain educational establishments where pre-service teaching is taught and teachers experience certain problems in the beginning of their practice. The statistical data is also important, so the quantitative method will be used to consider the extent to which the issue is important in practice. These methods possess the highest validity coefficients and will give us the most objective data for the research (Lichtman, pp.56 – 61).
Analysis
Analysis of the data gathered by the researchers is a very significant task. It will be carried out in accordance with the qualitative method. The main questions of the analysis will be not the statistics of certain phenomenon but the causes and results of it, as well as the doers of these or those events and their motivation. This kind of analysis will be of great use in musical education as it allows to predict the reaction of students and to formulate the program of pre-service teaching in the way that will provide for the most successful results.
Data analysis and interpretation will also be carried out on the basis of the qualitative research method that will be used in the study. Interpretation will not be based on figures and exact formulas as it might be in a quantitative research, but will be drawn on the ground of qualitative analysis together with the usage psychological and behavioral techniques for implementation of the results of the research in the teaching practice in musical education (Phillips, pp.45 – 49).
Discussion
The current proposal of a descriptive qualitative research is aimed at studying the pre-service and beginning teachers’ learning with specific emphasis put on the effect of pre-service on the further career of teachers. This, according to the researchers, will allow improving the musical education as new techniques and methodologies, as well as suggestions to help pre-service teachers, will be discovered and thus the results of music education will be higher. The methods proposed for the research are qualitative; they include gathering the data from specialized literature, interviews with experts and direct researches.
The biases of the research are certain subjectivity and inaccuracy that can be faced in respect of the data analysis and interpretation as far as they will be conducted by staff that can have certain, even hidden, prejudice. The problems of the research can be funding and equipment opportunities, as well as the necessary amount of relevant scholarly sources on the topic. But, the problems and biases of the research can be overcome by support of the state and help from different non-governmental organizations that can be addressed by the researchers.
References
Colwell, Richard J., and Carol Richardson, ed. (2002). The New Handbook of Research on Music Teaching and Learning. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Deborah M. Oh , Anne M. Ankers , Joseph M. Llamas , Catherine Tomyoy, 2005 – effect of pre service on teaching career. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Lichtman, Marilyn. (2006). Qualitative Research in Education, A User’s Guide, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.
Phillips, K. H. (2008). Exploring research in music education and music therapy. New York: Oxford University Press.
Concluding Comments
To conclude the proposal, the research in the pre-service and beginning teachers’ learning is a significant step in the development of musical education in respect of teaching and studying it. The qualitative methods will allow gathering and analyzing information for its further use for theoretical and practical purposes of scholars and students of musical education.