An Investigation of Music Teaching in the Arts and Humanities Learning Area in the Eastern Region of Taiwan

[[abstract]] The main purpose of this study was to investigate the music teaching status of the implementation of the Arts and Humanities Learning Area, and to examine differ-ences in the execution of curriculum and teaching conditions between teachers of dif-ferent backgrounds in elementary schools and junior high schools in the eastern region of Taiwan. Questionnaires were sent to 238 elementary schools and junior high schools in the eastern region of Taiwan. The return rate of the questionnaires reached 66%. Findings of this study included: (1) there are many unprofessional teachers par-ticipating in music teaching; (2) most of the teachers need to teach other subjects and to take part-time administrative jobs concurrently; (3) teaching hours differ due to the schools; (4) the main teaching method is music teaching as a single subject; (5) most teachers teach based on the textbooks with some teaching materials developed by themselves; (6) the teachers often teach singing, but rarely teach creating; (7) the most used integrated mode is interdisciplinary integration within the Arts and Humanities Learning Area; (8) teachers utilize authentic assessment frequently; (9) the main teaching equipments are pianos; (10) about 50% teachers consider teaching equip-ments to be insufficient; (11) the teaching equipments with the greatest lack are audio equipment, projectors and computers; (12) the resources and information of inservice training that teachers need most is music appreciation instruction; (13) the main diffi-culty is the shortage of professional music teachers in the Arts and Humanities Learn-ing Area. There are significant differences in ways of teaching, teaching materials, needs of inservice training and the difficulty of teaching between different gender, number of years in teaching, position, county, level taught in school, type of school, and pro-fessional background. Based on research findings, various suggestions are provided for educational organizations, school administrations, music educators, as well as fu-ture research.