This study explores the impacts of popular music education in classroom practices from different aspects such as learning by ear, motivation, musicianship, peer learning and creativity. The Sing by Ear approach was created based on the concepts of informal learning in singing a cappella. A total of 323 participants aged 11–14 were invited to participate in the 3-month project. Students learnt to sing cover songs by ear in an a cappella setting instead of reading music notations. The result from the case studies showed that students gained positive experiences in musicianship, peer-learning and peer-teaching, confidence and satisfaction, and creativity following the project. A pedagogical model was proposed based on the literature and findings in the study to inform the research and practice in popular music education for teachers and researchers. Copyright © 2023 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

To investigate music teachers' perceptions and concerns in fostering music creativity of students with intellectual disabilities, findings are presented from a study of nine music teachers purposely sampled from across all three categories (mild, medium, severe) of Hong Kong's special school for students with intellectual disabilities. Personal profiles identify respondents' displaying three professional knowledge gaps -- music expertise, special-education training and prior experience of being taught 'creativity'. Findings also indicate that respondents add to the creativity literature: first by supplementing Hargreaves' 2012. "Musical Imagination: Perception and Production, Beauty and Creativity." "Psychology of Music" 40 (5): 539-557] 'process' to include 'music making' and 'body movement', and second, that music creativity may be described as a spectrum that embraces various forms of expressions. Copyright © 2022 Routledge.

In Hong Kong, the principle of 'one curriculum framework for all' applies to all students, including students with special educational needs (SEN) (EDB 2020. "Special Education Needs." https://www.edb.gov.hk/en/curriculum-development/major-level-of-edu/special-educational-needs/index.html). Students with intellectual disabilities (ID) are expected to achieve the same learning targets as their counterparts in mainstream schools. Within this common curriculum framework, students (age 6-14) study Music with one of its overall aims 'to develop creativity' (CDC 2003. "Music Curriculum Guide" ("Primary 1 - Secondary 3"). Hong Kong: CDC, 11). This qualitative multiple case study reports a sample of nine music teachers fostering the musical creativity of students with ID. A discussion of the findings reveals that in this sampling: (1) instructional strategies focus on the process not product of musical creativity, (2) creative fostering strategies embody gamification and (3) these music teachers re-frame creativity as being innate and commonly held by their students with ID. Copyright © 2021 Routledge.

The purpose of this study was to explore how instrumental teachers reflect their professional development pathways with reference to their own apprenticeship experiences. The participants were three female instrumental teachers who taught the piano and violin. Reflections of teachers’ own learning experiences on their career pathways and professional development were collected from the participants through interviews, teaching diaries, and field notes. Several themes emerged from the data collected over an approximately six-month period. First, all the participants experienced long musical apprenticeships. Second, the teachers rarely perceived pedagogical skills are ‘learnable’ skills as performing skills. Finally, all the teachers were only interested in practical, examination-oriented professional development programmes, as opposed to academic or pedagogically-oriented outcomes such as journals or conferences. The unitisation of professional development choices would appear to be the most urgent and pressing problem faced by instrumental teachers. Copyright © 2021 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

The COVID-19 pandemic has made online and distance learning the new normal at all levels of education. Music as a school subject that relies heavily on multimodal sensory and auditory-motor interactions has been dramatically affected. Music teachers may not be coping mentally or psychologically with these drastic changes. This study examined the psychological impact of COVID-19 on music teachers’ (N = 120) mental health and well-being through a questionnaire survey and semi-structured interviews (n = 10). The Fear of Coronavirus-19 Scale, the Generalized Anxiety Disorder Scale and a shortened version of the Chinese Teacher Stress Questionnaire were used to measure Hong Kong music teachers’ experiences of psychological pressure and problem behaviours linked to the outbreak of the infectious disease. The findings revealed that music teachers are experiencing stress, fear, and anxiety in response to the pandemic. They are concerned about the effectiveness of online music teaching, parental expectations, students’ adaptability to online learning, technological integration and maintaining transformative teaching professionalism. Copyright © 2021 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

This study analyses responses (n = 309, across 94 schools) to the General Self-Efficacy Scale (Zhang and Schwarzer [1995]. "Measuring Optimistic Self-Beliefs: A Chinese Adaptation of the General Self-Efficacy Scale." Psychologia: An International Journal of Psychology in the Orient 38 (3): 174-181) from Hong Kong primary teachers of inclusive music classes. Analysis of these results sheds light on the impact that contextual reforms have on these non-core subject music teachers' practice. Respondents' perceived self-efficacy is moderate - characterised as a see-saw relationship between their personal and external domains. A possible behavioural intervention suggests professional-sharing being further enriched were current Education Bureau's in-service SEN courses to be inclusive of all primary school subjects, including music. Specific factors that underpin these respondents 'moderate' self-efficacy are identified as forming two clusters, human resource management and stress, with possible behavioural interventions for these being outlined.
[Copyright of Music Education Research is the property of Routledge.]

This study examined 44 students’ engagement in the composition of popular and classical music in a computer-mediated environment. The study took place over the course of one school year at a government-funded secondary school in Hong Kong that had 30 iMac music workstations. Participants were 22 Form 3 students (aged 14–15) and 22 Form 4 students (aged 15–16) who composed in different genres consisting of popular music styles and classical music styles (i.e. baroque, classical and romantic period music), respectively, on the computer as part of the school’s music curriculum. At the end of the study, participants completed a retrospective assessment to examine the correlation between engagement in music learning and computer-mediated composition. The results indicated three areas that should be considered in music curriculum development: 1) sustainable engagement in learning both classical and popular music; and 2) the idea of ‘de-composing’ and ‘re-composing’ pedagogy in both classical and popular music styles. The findings suggest that ‘de-composing’ and ‘re-composing’ pedagogy in computer-mediated composition may engage students in ways that promote deeper learning by combining ‘old’ and ‘new’ musical styles through an engagement cycle that enhances an understanding of both classical and popular music. Copyright © 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

It has been a decade since the implementation of Hong Kong's policy of inclusion, that mainstream schools should admit students with special educational needs (SEN). This study reports on music teachers' experiences of teaching SEN students in inclusive music classrooms. Data were derived from a qualitative multiple case study comprising10 government-funded primary school music teachers. These music teachers lack knowledge of ways to support the musical development of pupils with SEN and reported learned helplessness and effective exclusion of SEN students. The major barrier to effective inclusive music teaching evidenced is the absence of in-service training in inclusive music education.
[Copyright of Music Education Research is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14613808.2015.1044509]

Seeking to address a gap in the literature, this article reports the development of an instrument to measure Hong Kong primary school music teachers' concerns about inclusive music education. To do so, a 25-item music teachers' Concern of Inclusive Music Teaching (CIMT) scale was constructed and administered to 317 primary schools music teachers in Hong Kong, data from whom indicate that the CIMT scale comprises six concern factors ? 'learning support', 'learning difficulties', 'learning needs', 'resource', 'training' and 'curriculum design and assessment'. Although these data results do not support either Parsons and Fuller's (1974) three-factor model or hierarchical three-factor-related model, they do support a discrepancy noted elsewhere (Kazelskis and Reeves 1987; Schipull, Reeves, and Kazelskis 1995; Boz 2008; Borich 2013) that may reflect the impact of teaching context.
[Copyright of Music Education Research is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14613808.2015.1049259]

Why should bringing the power of music into student learning be a challenge - even more so when the class comprises students deemed in need of 'special education'? To address this question, three case studies are presented of Hong Kong special schools music teachers experienced in teaching students with intellectual disabilities at senior secondary level. Findings suggest that behind individual teacher variations to the standardised music curriculum lie not only rigid pedagogies, but also limited implementation strategies and hence mindsets of low expectations of 'special education' students' music learning. This predictive and prescriptive approach to student learning is here challenged by an alternative view that, to successfully aid 'special education' students, it is helpful if teachers reflect first on what learning is like for these students.
[Copyright of Music Education Research is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14613808.2014.906396]