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Leaving the Profession: �Exploring Experiences of Music Teachers who Depart the Profession During the First Five Years of Teaching

Charles Patterson, III

APSMER 2021

September 18, 2021

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Ph.D. Music Education Student (Year 2)

Tampa, Florida, United States

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Purpose

  • For the study, I sought to….
    • identify contributing factors in the lives of the music teachers who leave the profession.
    • highlight concerns in both their teaching and undergraduate experience.
    • use the factors to critique or highlight concerns for the Bachelor of Music Education and other relevant teacher training programs.

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Background

  • The literature suggests a decline of new teachers being admitted to the field.
    • In 2015-2016, 244, 851 bachelor’s degrees in education were awarded.
    • In 2008-2009, 289, 282 were awarded. (change of -15.4%) (GarcĂ­a & Weiss, 2019)
  • Studies within music education are more outdated.
    • In a 2002 study by Madsen and Hancock, they found that 34.4% surveyed music teachers had chosen not to teach K-college after a 6-year period (1995-2001).
    • Kloss (2012) found that the average of Arizona band directors that left their position increased from 11.46% to 19.79% from 2004 to 2007.

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Literature

Progressive undergraduate music education

(Kladder, 2020)

Lack of classroom management skills

Job satisfaction

(Gardner, 2010)

Attitude and motivation

(Qin & Tao, 2020)

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Methodology

    • Both taught music in a school for less than 5 years.

2 total participants

    • Preliminary interview
    • Focus group session
    • Final interview

Each participant completed:

    • “Values Coding” (Gable & Wolf (1993), LeCompte & Preissle (1993), and Saldaña (2016))
    • These represent the participant’s perspectives on their situations or the world (Saldaña, 2016).

Data production:

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Protection of the Participants and Others

  • Aliases for all involved:
    • Participants
    • Friends
    • Colleagues
    • Professors
    • Co-Workers

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Triangulation of the Data

INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPTS (CODED FOR THEMES)

FOCUS GROUP TRANSCRIPT (CODED)

PERSONAL, REFLECTIVE JOURNAL OF THE INTERVIEW AND CODING PROCESS.

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Participants

Hannah

  • Bachelor’s of Music Education.
  • 1 year of elementary teaching.
  • Taught during the 2019-2020 school year.
  • Now works at Chick-fil-a full time.

Benjamin

  • Bachelor’s of Music Education.
  • 4 years of high school band at two different schools.
  • 2018-2019 was last school year taught.
  • Now is in graduate school for clarinet performance.

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Highlights from Interview with Hannah

Issues in her work environment:

Respect

Performance Heavy (between 1 or 2 months to prepare)

865 Students (saw them one time a week)

Classroom Management

Issues in the BME:

Performance/Ensemble Focus

Lacked training on interpersonal skills

Applicable classes to teaching

Specific concerns Hannah highlighted:

Performance heavy expectation of both undergraduate music education as well as teaching elementary music. However, these did not correlate well for her.

The course load of music theory, history, aural skills, and piano leads to a delay of education in the teaching years.

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Highlights from Interview with Benjamin

No “Light Bulb” moment, gradual realization that teaching band was not for him.

    • Cites specifically: intrinsic, personal issues.
    • Conflicted with education versus performance passion.

Details on BME

    • Excited, felt prepared to teach.
    • Excellent student teaching experience.
    • Felt less excited about being an assistant band director for first job.
    • Very positive about BME.

Issues with BME

    • Needs more diverse repertoire.
    • Felt that professors should have more years of experience in the classroom.

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Focal Group Highlights

Mental Health

Time Commitments

    • Certification Practices
    • Respect and Pay

The Profession

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Highlights from Final Interview with Hannah

Teacher certification practices.

Teacher retention

Implications

General Education should support music education.

Theoretical and sugar-coated undergraduate.

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Highlights from Final Interview with Benjamin

Agreed with Hannah’s stance on issues.

Conversation of respect surprised him.

Education needs to be more desirable.

Fixing respect is beyond higher-education music.

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Discussion

Through evidence, significant factors were illustrated.

Issues were larger than the potential changes or impacts of the college music education experience.

The issues resolved around higher bodies of impact such as government and important figures in society.

Implications and suggestions for future research can be extrapolated from the data collected.

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Reflection

Both Hannah and Benjamin left the profession of music school teaching.

Different Experiences

During the focus group session, they were able to compare their experience.

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Reflection

Hannah had grievances with her undergraduate music education experience.

Benjamin had a different experience in which he felt very prepared to teach after his undergraduate experience.

Specific concerns that he highlighted included respect of the teaching profession, time commitment, and teacher pay.

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Takeaways

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Future Research Directions

Research in the field of teacher attrition and retention should continue to aid teachers during their foundational years in the profession.

Further research should continue to explore why teachers decide to stop being music teachers.

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Select References

  • Allsup, R. E. (2016). Remixing the classroom: Toward an open philosophy of music education. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. 
  • Emmons, S. E. (2004). Preparing teachers for popular music processes and practices. In C. Rodriguez (Ed.), Bridging the gap: Popular music and music education (pp. 159–174). Reston, VA: Music Educators National Conference.
  • Gable, R. K., & Wolf, M. B. (1993). Instrument development in the affective domain: Measuring attitudes and values in corporate and school settings (2nd ed.). Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
  • GarcĂ­a, E., & Weiss, E. (2019, April 16). U.S. schools struggle to hire and retain teachers. Economic Policy Review. https://www.epi.org/publication/u-s-schools-struggle-to-hire-and-retain-teachers-the-second-report-in-the-perfect-storm-in-the-teacher-labor-market-series/ 
  • Gardner, R. D. (2010). Should I stay or should I go: Factors that influence the retention, turnover, and attrition of K-12 music teachers in the United States. Arts Education Policy Review, 111, 112-121. http://doi.org/10.1080/10632910903458896
  • Kaschub, M., & Smith, J. (2014). Promising practices in twenty-first century music teacher education. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
  • Kladder, J. (2020). Re-envisioning music teacher education: An investigation into curricular change at two undergraduate music education programs in the U.S. Arts Education Policy Review, 121(4), 141-159. https://doi.org/10.1080/10632913.2019.1670311 
  • Kloss, T. E. (2012). Band teacher turnover and its relationship to Arizona marching band participation. Update: Applications of Research in Music Education, 30(2), 46-51. https://doi.org/10.1177/8755123312437048 
  • Kratus, J. (2007). Music education at the tipping point. Music Educators Journal, 94(2), 42–48. https://doi.org/10.1177/002743210709400209 
  • Madsen, C. K., & Hancock, C. B. (2002). Support for Music Education: A Case Study of Issues Concerning Teacher Retention and Attrition. Journal of Research in Music Education, 50(1), 6–19. https://doi.org/10.2307/3345689
  • Qin, M., & Tao, D. (2020). Understanding preservice music teachers’ intention to remain in the profession: An integrated model of the theory of planned behavior and motivation theory. International Journal of Music Education, 1-16. http://doi.org/10.1177/0255761420963149 
  • Saldaña, J. (2016). The coding manual for qualitative researchers (3rd ed.). London: SAGE Publications. 
  • Williams, D. A. (2007). What are music educators doing and how well are we doing it? Music Educators Journal, 94(1), 18–23. https://doi.org/10.1177/002743210709400105 
  • Williams, D. A. (2019). A different paradigm in music education: Re-examining the profession. New York, NY: Routledge.

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Questions?

Email: charles@charlespattersonmusic.com

Website: www.charlespattersonmusic.com