Preservice Teachers' Opinions of Music Education Methods Course Content

The purposes of this study were to determine how undergraduate instrumental music education students value methods course components and to compare students' ratings of course component categories to the grade weighting of those categories in course syllabi. Subjects (N = 43), undergraduate music education majors from two large universities, were administered a questionnaire about how they value 14 course components, each belonging to one of three broad categories: teaching experiences, course projects, and exam preparation. Means were calculated for each questionnaire item and ranked from high to low. The three top-ranked items were "Engaging in early field experiences in the schools," "Engaging in peer teaching: ensemble rehearsal," and "Preparing lesson plans for peer teaching." Means for each broad category were also calculated. Furthermore, course syllabi (N = 42), from performance-oriented (instrumental and choral) methods courses (n = 18) and from general music methods courses (n = 24), were examined to determine the grade weighting assigned to each of the three broad categories. According to a two-way repeated measures ANOVA, undergraduate music education majors rated teaching experiences as being significantly (p <.01) more valuable than was indicated on both types of methods syllabi, and course projects as being significantly (p<.01) less valuable than was indicated on the performance-based methods syllabi