The present study was designed to compare the effects of negative feedback statements and specific directives in music performance instruction. Twenty-five college undergraduates and 25 fifth- and sixth-grade students were taught by rote to play on soprano recorder an accompaniment part to the theme to Sesame Street. All subjects were taught in individual lessons by the same teacher. In approximately half the lessons at each age level, the teacher communicated corrective information through negative feedback statements. In the remaining lessons, the teacher communicated corrective information through specific directives. Results indicate that subjects' attitudes and performance achievement were unaffected by the experimental conditions. All subjects expressed positive attitudes about the experience, and the time required to reach the final performance goal and the quality of student performance were not different between the group receiving negative feedback and the group receiving directives.

The purpose of this collective instrumental case study was to examine the experiences of six undergraduate students from traditionally marginalized populations with regard to their preparation for, admission to, and retention within a music education degree program. Analyzed and reported through the lens of critical theory, data sources included semistructured interviews with the participants and structured interviews with their high school music teacher and a university-based mentor. Participants described a lack of resources with regard to their preparation for auditions as well as a lack of information regarding the application and audition process. Such inhibiting factors were mediated by personal initiative, hard work, and dedication. The presence of role models and mentors was considered an important aid to their retention within music education degree programs. Participants also provided suggestions for improving access, admission, and retention of students from traditionally marginalized populations.

We tested whether observers' perceptions of private lessons are affected by the type of verbalizations used by teachers to make corrections in student performance. We compared verbal corrections that were expressed as directive statements (i.e., specific directions to change some aspect of performance in a subsequent trial) and verbal corrections expressed as negative feedback statements (i.e., negative evaluations of student performance in a preceding performance trial). Participants viewed two videotaped private lessons. In one lesson, all corrections of student performance errors were expressed as directions to change some aspect of performance in the subsequent trial. In the other lesson, all corrections were expressed as negative feedback statements followed by a direction to play again. Subjects responded using a paper-and-pencil questionnaire with 10 statements about the teacher and student in each lesson. There were no meaningful differences in subjects' responses between the two lessons, both of which were rated highly positively. Asked to cite differences observed between the two lessons, few subjects identified any aspect of the teacher's feedback.

The purpose of the study was to examine the effect of teacher experience on student progress and performance quality in an introductory applied lesson. Nine experienced teachers and 15 pre-service teachers taught an adult beginner to play ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’ on a wind instrument. The lessons were videotaped for subsequent analysis of teaching behaviors and performance achievement. Following instruction, a random sample of teachers was interviewed about their perceptions of the lesson. A panel of adjudicators rated final pupil performances. No significant difference was found between pupils taught by experienced and pre-service teachers in the quality of their final performance. Systematic observation of the videotaped lessons showed that participant teachers provided relatively frequent and highly positive reinforcement during the lessons. Pupils of experienced teachers talked significantly more during the lessons than did pupils of pre-service teachers. Pre-service teachers modeled significantly more on their instruments than did experienced teachers.

The purpose of this study was to determine whether the perceptions of observers who are informed of the proximal goals of instruction differ from those who are not so informed. Music education majors (N = 120) viewed one of three randomly assigned stimulus tapes. Each stimulus tape contained seven teaching episodes. Subjects wrote brief statements about their observations and rated the quality of the teaching while they watched each of the episodes. Half the subjects (n = 60) were informed of the instructional goals addressed in each of the episodes; the remaining subjects (n = 60) were not so informed. Observers' written statements were classified according to topic, depth, and evaluative quality. Subjects not informed of the instructional goals wrote significantly more teacher-directed, inferential, and positive statements than did the subjects who were informed of the instructional goals. In both observation conditions, 80% of the written observations pertained to the teachers, and only 14% pertained to the students. Subjects' mean ratings of teaching quality did not differ significantly between the observation conditions.