ASU Electronic Theses and Dissertations
This collection includes most of the ASU Theses and Dissertations from 2011 to present. ASU Theses and Dissertations are available in downloadable PDF format; however, a small percentage of items are under embargo. Information about the dissertations/theses includes degree information, committee members, an abstract, supporting data or media.
In addition to the electronic theses found in the ASU Digital Repository, ASU Theses and Dissertations can be found in the ASU Library Catalog.
Dissertations and Theses granted by Arizona State University are archived and made available through a joint effort of the ASU Graduate College and the ASU Libraries. For more information or questions about this collection contact or visit the Digital Repository ETD Library Guide or contact the ASU Graduate College at gradformat@asu.edu.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6
Filtering by
- All Subjects: Education
Description
This study investigates ways in which music teachers make personal sense of their professional selves and their perceptions of their places within the broader landscape of music education relative to other types of music teachers in school and community settings. A social phenomenological framework based on the writing of Alfred Schutz was used to examine how participants constructed a sense of self in their social worlds and how they both shaped and were shaped by their social worlds. Eight music teachers participated in this study and represented differing types of music teaching careers, including: public school general music teaching and ensemble directing; independent studio teaching and teaching artistry; studio lessons, classes, and ensembles at community music centers; church ensemble directing; and other combinations of music teaching jobs throughout school and community settings. Data were collected from in-depth interviews, observations of the music teachers in their various teaching roles, and artifacts related to their music teaching positions. Research questions included: Who do the participants conceive of themselves to be as music professionals and music teachers; How do they construct and enact their professional selves, including their teaching selves; How is their construction of professional self, including teaching self, supported and sustained by interactions in their social worlds; and, What implications does this have for the music profession as a whole? After developing a professional portrait of each participant, analysis revealed an overall sense of professional self and various degrees of three role-taking selves: performing, teaching, and musical. Analysis also considered sense of self in relation to social worlds, including consociates, contemporaries, predecessors, and successors, and the extent to which performing, teaching, and musical selves were balanced, harmonized, or reconciled for each participant. Social worlds proved influential in terms of participants' support for sense of self. Participants who enacted the most harmonized, reconciled senses of self appeared to have a professional self that was grounded in a strong sense of musical self, enabling them to think and act flexibly. Participants whose professional selves were dominated by a strong sense of teaching or performing self seemed confined by the structures of their social world particular to teaching or performing, lacked a sense of musical self, and were less able to think and act flexibly. Findings suggest that active construction of consociate relationships throughout varied social worlds can support a balanced, reconciled conception of self, which informs teaching practice and furthers the ability to act in entrepreneurial ways.
ContributorsBucura, Elizabeth (Author) / Stauffer, Sandra (Thesis advisor) / Landes, Heather (Committee member) / Tobias, Evan (Committee member) / Schmidt, Margaret (Committee member) / Sullivan, Jill (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
The purpose of this multiple case study was to investigate what students in three high school music groups perceived as most meaningful about their participation. I also examined the role that context played in shaping students' perceptions, and sought potential principles underlying meaning and value in instrumental ensembles. Over the course of six months I conducted a series of in-depth, semi-structured interviews with six student wind ensemble members, five student guitar class members, and six jazz band members at three high schools in Winnipeg, Canada. I interviewed the participants' music teachers and school principals, observed rehearsals and performances, and spoke informally with parents and peers. Drawing upon praxial and place philosophies, I examined students' experiences within the context of each music group, and looked for themes across the three groups. What students perceived to be meaningful about their participation was multifaceted and related to fundamental human concerns. Students valued opportunities to achieve, to form and strengthen relationships, to construct identities as individuals and group members, to express themselves and communicate with others, and to engage with and through music. Although these dimensions were common to students in all three groups, students experienced and made sense of them differently, and thus experienced meaningful participation in multiple, variegated ways. Context played a substantial role in shaping not only the dimensions of meanings most salient to participants but also the ways that music experiences became meaningful for those involved. What students value and find meaningful about their participation in instrumental music education has been neither well documented nor thoroughly explored. This study raises questions about the ways that meaningful musical engagement might extend beyond the boundaries of school, and contributes student perspectives sorely needed in ongoing conversations concerning the relevance of music education in students' lives.
ContributorsCape, Janet (Author) / Stauffer, Sandra L (Thesis advisor) / Bush, Jeffrey (Committee member) / Schmidt, Margaret (Committee member) / Sullivan, Jill (Committee member) / Tobias, Evan (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
The purpose of this study was to trouble existing conceptions of disability that ground music education literature and practice. I sought plausible insights into how disability is experienced in, through, and/or around music by participants who are disabled persons/persons with disabilities (DP/PwD). Insights gained might allow readers to complexify and trouble taken-for-granted assumptions about disability. Questions included: (a) How do participants experience disability in, through, and around music? (b) What plausible insights related to disability can be gained by attending to participants’ experiences of disability in, through, and around music? (c) What plausible insights related to inclusion can be gained by attending to participants’ experiences of disability in, through, and around music? The inquiry approach was grounded in Buberian relational ontology, phenomenology, interactional theories of disability, and narrative.
Seven DP/PwD participated in this study: (a) Erica, a 14-year-old diagnosed with a developmental disability of unknown etiology; (b) Duke, a drummer diagnosed with Williams syndrome; (c) Birdie, an abstract visual artist with epilepsy who used music to inform her art; (d) Daren, a b-boy/breakdancer diagnosed with Tourette syndrome, (e) Sienna, a legally blind social work college student who played banjo in a music therapy-based bluegrass band and participated in musical theatre; (f) Ice Queen, an undergraduate flute player recently diagnosed with Attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD); and (g) Culann, an adult counselor and music listener with ADHD and mood disorders. Data generation included conversational interviews, observations, artmaking, and serendipitous data.
Data co-generated with participants were crafted into narratives of their lifeworlds, including description of their experiences with disability in, through, and around music and in other aspects of their lives. An envisioned conversation among all participants demonstrates the shifts and complexities in the meanings of disability and unpacks different ways participants describe and understand disability and the myriad roles that music plays in their lifeworlds. The final chapter of the study offers discussions and suggestions regarding thinking about and approaching disability (i.e., interactional theories, intersectionality, and identity), inclusion (i.e., belonging, suggestions by participants, and anti-ableist pedagogy), and research/writing.
Seven DP/PwD participated in this study: (a) Erica, a 14-year-old diagnosed with a developmental disability of unknown etiology; (b) Duke, a drummer diagnosed with Williams syndrome; (c) Birdie, an abstract visual artist with epilepsy who used music to inform her art; (d) Daren, a b-boy/breakdancer diagnosed with Tourette syndrome, (e) Sienna, a legally blind social work college student who played banjo in a music therapy-based bluegrass band and participated in musical theatre; (f) Ice Queen, an undergraduate flute player recently diagnosed with Attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD); and (g) Culann, an adult counselor and music listener with ADHD and mood disorders. Data generation included conversational interviews, observations, artmaking, and serendipitous data.
Data co-generated with participants were crafted into narratives of their lifeworlds, including description of their experiences with disability in, through, and around music and in other aspects of their lives. An envisioned conversation among all participants demonstrates the shifts and complexities in the meanings of disability and unpacks different ways participants describe and understand disability and the myriad roles that music plays in their lifeworlds. The final chapter of the study offers discussions and suggestions regarding thinking about and approaching disability (i.e., interactional theories, intersectionality, and identity), inclusion (i.e., belonging, suggestions by participants, and anti-ableist pedagogy), and research/writing.
ContributorsRathgeber, Jesse (Author) / Stauffer, Sandra L (Thesis advisor) / Mantie, Roger (Committee member) / Schmidt, Margaret (Committee member) / Solís, Ted (Committee member) / Tobias, Evan S (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019
Description
This study examined discussion forum posts within a website dedicated to a medium and genre of music (chiptunes) with potential for music-centered making, a phrase I use to describe maker culture practices that revolve around music-related purposes. Three research questions guided this study: (1) What chiptune-related practices did members of chipmusic.org discuss between December 30th, 2009 and November 13th, 2017? (2) What do chipmusic.org discussion forum posts reveal about the multidisciplinary aspects of chiptunes? (3) What import might music-centered making evident within chipmusic.org discussion forum posts hold for music education? To address these research questions, I engaged in corpus-assisted discourse analysis tools and techniques to reveal and analyze patterns of discourse within 245,098 discussion forum posts within chipmusic.org. The analysis cycle consisted of (a) using corpus analysis techniques to reveal patterns of discourse across and within data consisting of 10,892,645 words, and (b) using discourse analysis techniques for a close reading of revealed patterns.
Findings revealed seven interconnected themes of chiptune-related practices: (a) composition practices, (b) performance practices, (c) maker practices, (d) coding practices, (e) entrepreneurial practices, (f), visual art practices, and (g) community practices. Members of chipmusic.org primarily discussed composing and performing chiptunes on a variety of instruments, as well as through retro computer and video game hardware. Members also discussed modifying and creating hardware and software for a multitude of electronic devices. Some members engaged in entrepreneurial practices to promote, sell, buy, and trade with other members. Throughout each of the revealed themes, members engaged in visual art practices, as well as community practices such as collective learning, collaborating, constructive criticism, competitive events, and collective efficacy.
Findings suggest the revealed themes incorporated practices from a multitude of academic disciplines or fields of study for music-related purposes. However, I argue that many of the music-related practices people discussed within chipmusic.org are not apparent within music education discourse, curricula, or standards. I call for an expansion of music education discourse and practices to include additional ways of being musical through practices that might borrow from multiple academic disciplines or fields of study for music-related purposes.
Findings revealed seven interconnected themes of chiptune-related practices: (a) composition practices, (b) performance practices, (c) maker practices, (d) coding practices, (e) entrepreneurial practices, (f), visual art practices, and (g) community practices. Members of chipmusic.org primarily discussed composing and performing chiptunes on a variety of instruments, as well as through retro computer and video game hardware. Members also discussed modifying and creating hardware and software for a multitude of electronic devices. Some members engaged in entrepreneurial practices to promote, sell, buy, and trade with other members. Throughout each of the revealed themes, members engaged in visual art practices, as well as community practices such as collective learning, collaborating, constructive criticism, competitive events, and collective efficacy.
Findings suggest the revealed themes incorporated practices from a multitude of academic disciplines or fields of study for music-related purposes. However, I argue that many of the music-related practices people discussed within chipmusic.org are not apparent within music education discourse, curricula, or standards. I call for an expansion of music education discourse and practices to include additional ways of being musical through practices that might borrow from multiple academic disciplines or fields of study for music-related purposes.
ContributorsO'Leary, Jared Duane (Author) / Mantie, Roger A (Thesis advisor) / Tobias, Evan S (Thesis advisor) / Schmidt, Margaret (Committee member) / Stauffer, Sandra (Committee member) / Thompson, Jason (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
Concert band classes have been part of the schooling landscape in Canada and the United States since the early 1900’s. Nevertheless, the context in which concert band classes have been offered recently has undergone a dramatic change. Typically, concert band classes have been offered as an elective course in schools, but more recently, concert band classes in some school settings have been required, especially at the beginning level. Because of the required band class context, it can no longer be assumed students in such band classes have the same music making goals exhibited by earlier generations of students. Persistence, resilience, engagement and musical self-efficacy have been affected when choice was no longer afforded. This study was conducted to examine how goal setting strategies influenced student persistence, resilience, engagement, and musical self-efficacy within a required beginning concert band class. Framed by Bandura’s Self-Efficacy Theory, Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory, and Tinto’s research on persistence, a goal setting intervention was devised and offered to students taking a required grade 6 beginning band classes at an independent school in Ontario. Using a concurrent mixed method framework, quantitative and qualitative data were collected. Results from the quantitative data indicated no changes in the outcome measures. By comparison, qualitative data indicated persistence, resilience, engagement, and musical self-efficacy were influenced when using the goal setting tools. From students’ perspectives, musical self-efficacy and personal self-efficacy were realized through grade attainment, music notation fluency, rhythmic accuracy goals established on students’ weekly goal charts, and goal setting mind maps. Persistence and resilience were influenced as students overcame physical challenges through scaffolding their practice efforts by creating individualized practice regimens. Engagement was influenced through the goal setting intervention as students set goals such as performing for others—be it peers, family, or their teachers. In terms of future research and practice, cycles of action research would include expanding the goal setting intervention to include creating differentiated music making experiences alongside the traditional concert band genre, based upon principles drawn from a community music making contexts—specifically those involving collaborative music making like those experienced in Samba band ensembles. Recommendations for such experiences were shared.
ContributorsMantie, Angela (Author) / Buss, Ray (Thesis advisor) / Schmidt, Margaret (Committee member) / Brewer, Wesley (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019
Description
Over a million children who attend American public schools experience homelessness every year. This study investigates the musical lives of children experiencing homelessness through the lens of the ecological systems theory (Bronfenbrenner, 1979). Children encounter music in a variety of ways and develop their own lexicon of meaning that depicts the relationships they have in, through, and around music. Relationship connections in this study were depicted through a system of relationship networks (Neal & Neal, 2013).
In this study I present and analyze the cases of nine participants who attended an after-school care program at a homeless shelter for families in the southwestern United States. Participants were 8 to 12 years old and represented diverse ethnicities and genders. Data were gathered over a period of two to eight months, depending on participant, via interviews, music and art making, and observations. Research questions in this study included: What are the relationships, as experienced in, through, and around music, in the lives of children experiencing homelessness; and, What do music experiences tell us about the lives of children experiencing homelessness?
Some children experienced fractured music relationships and could not continue to engage with music in comparison to their lives before homelessness. Some children continued to make music regularly before and during their shelter stay. A few children discovered new connections through music interactions at the shelter and hoped to engage with music in new ways in their new homes. Multiple children faced barriers to music making in their respective school music programs. Children preferred to engage in music consistent with current popular culture, accessed through the radio, smart phone, and computer. Use of hands-on activities that fostered active engagement engendered the most participation and connection to music.
Recommendations include examination of current procedures and practices to ensure alignment with the McKinney-Vento Homeless Act federal mandate, development of a supportive environment to foster social and emotional growth, facilitating communication with parents, and the inclusion of music from the child’s background in the classroom repertoire. Performance and interactive music opportunities can mitigate the effects of homelessness and restore a sense of dignity, relationship, and autonomy. All stakeholders in the wellbeing of children should include conversations about student experience of homelessness in current dialogue on educational policy and practice.
In this study I present and analyze the cases of nine participants who attended an after-school care program at a homeless shelter for families in the southwestern United States. Participants were 8 to 12 years old and represented diverse ethnicities and genders. Data were gathered over a period of two to eight months, depending on participant, via interviews, music and art making, and observations. Research questions in this study included: What are the relationships, as experienced in, through, and around music, in the lives of children experiencing homelessness; and, What do music experiences tell us about the lives of children experiencing homelessness?
Some children experienced fractured music relationships and could not continue to engage with music in comparison to their lives before homelessness. Some children continued to make music regularly before and during their shelter stay. A few children discovered new connections through music interactions at the shelter and hoped to engage with music in new ways in their new homes. Multiple children faced barriers to music making in their respective school music programs. Children preferred to engage in music consistent with current popular culture, accessed through the radio, smart phone, and computer. Use of hands-on activities that fostered active engagement engendered the most participation and connection to music.
Recommendations include examination of current procedures and practices to ensure alignment with the McKinney-Vento Homeless Act federal mandate, development of a supportive environment to foster social and emotional growth, facilitating communication with parents, and the inclusion of music from the child’s background in the classroom repertoire. Performance and interactive music opportunities can mitigate the effects of homelessness and restore a sense of dignity, relationship, and autonomy. All stakeholders in the wellbeing of children should include conversations about student experience of homelessness in current dialogue on educational policy and practice.
ContributorsBox Mitchell, Corrie (Author) / Stauffer, Sandra L (Thesis advisor) / Tobias, Evan (Committee member) / Schmidt, Margaret (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019