An Exploration of Pre-Service Music Educators’ Self-Efficacy to Engage Students Across Music Classroom Settings

The purpose of this study was to explore pre-service music educators’ self-efficacy towards fostering student behavioral engagement (attention, participation, and compliance) across music teaching content areas (general, band, choir, or orchestra), and to compare pre-service music educators’ self-efficacy with a university supervisor evaluation through observation in a music practicum setting. Two instruments designed for the study were used: the Self-Efficacy Towards Student Behavioral Engagement Survey (SBE Self-Efficacy Survey) provided data from pre-service music educators, and the Student Behavioral Engagement in Music Observation Rubric (SBE Observation Rubric) completed by a university supervisor following an observation of a pre-service music educator. Thirty-nine undergraduate or post-baccalaureate pre-service music educators enrolled in junior or senior-level music education methods courses and concurrently enrolled in a parallel practicum experience at a large Midwestern university participated in the study. Practicum reflected a secondary music teaching content area (e.g., junior-level preferred band in choral placement) or student teaching in preferred music teaching content area (e.g., senior-level preferred general music in general music). Participants completed the survey to examine respondents’ self-efficacy towards student behavioral engagement in four music teaching content areas. A one-way repeated measures ANOVA was used to determine if significant differences in self-efficacy exist based upon music teaching content areas (p \u3c 0.1809). A paired t-test was used to examine self-efficacy differences between preferred and secondary content areas (p \u3c 0.0001). A university supervisor scored student behavioral engagement performance following an in-field teaching observation with scoring focused on attention, participation, and compliance using the observation rubric. A Pearson correlation determined a small relationship existed between pre-service music educators’ self-efficacy towards student behavioral engagement and an evaluation following a teaching observation completed by a university supervisor (r = +0.0402). Results of the study would indicate equal self-efficacy towards student behavioral engagement across content areas with significant differences based upon preferred to secondary content areas, and a disconnect between pre-service music educators’ self-evaluation and evaluation from their university supervisor