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The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between participants’ edTPA writing and edTPA portfolio scores. Specific questions included (a) Is there a relationship between overall word count and total score on the edTPA? (b) Are individual task commentary word counts associated with specific task scores and total edTPA scores? and (c) Is there a relationship between edTPA-specific vocabulary and total score on the edTPA? Written artifacts from 67 music education students who completed the K–12 Performing Arts edTPA Portfolio were collected over a 4-year period. Correlations between word counts and task and total scores were positive and of modest to moderate strength, as was the correlation between edTPA vocabulary word use and total scores. These findings are interpreted in relation to a national K–12 Performing Arts edTPA portfolio average score of 45 and existing edTPA policies affecting music teacher education programs.

I investigated how preservice instrumental music teachers understand and describe their teacher identity through the use of metaphor in a one-semester instrumental methods course emphasizing authentic context learning. Twenty-five third-year instrumental methods course music education students created a personal metaphor to explore their professional identity construction. Preservice teacher metaphors were revisited throughout the semester, while students participated in an authentic context learning experience in an urban instrumental music classroom. Data sources included student artifacts, informal interviews, and observation/field notes. The impact of teaching within an authentic learning context appears to enrich the ways in which preservice teachers are able to articulate details of their metaphor descriptions. Through their reflections across the semester, preservice teachers demonstrated how personal metaphors were used to restructure their understandings of teacher identity and capture some of the complexities of becoming teachers.

Music teachers may be tasked with documenting ways in which broader literacy skills have been embedded in music teaching. As a result, musical goals might seem to take a secondary role in support of broader language-literacy skills. Enhancing music literacy should be the goal of well-designed integration. The suggestions here provide music teachers with short, targeted integration to more complex, multimodal approaches that connect assignments with music-specific outcomes. Music teachers can add broader literacy goals to their pedagogical repertoire for the large-ensemble classroom.

The purpose of the study was to design an instrument to measure constructs of music teacher identity. The Music Teacher Identity Scale (MTIS), a researcher-constructed data gathering instrument, was developed to measure two constructs of music teacher identity: Music Teacher Self-Efficacy and Music Teacher Commitment. Participants in the study were selected using a stratified sampling technique, based on music teaching level, from the National Association for Music Education’s division membership roster. Descriptive statistics, Cronbach’s coefficient alpha, item-total corrected correlation, and inter-item correlation were used to evaluate the degree of reliability of the survey instrument. An exploratory factor analysis using a direct oblimin rotation was calculated to allow for correlated factors to be considered as subdimensions of the common theme of professional identity and provide evidence of construct validity for the measurement instrument. The MTIS had an overall reliability of α = .81, with the individual constructs of Music Teacher Self-Efficacy reliability of α = .87 and Music Teacher Commitment of α = .67. The two constructs were found to contribute 42.17% of the variance through the exploratory factor analysis. The MTIS has initially been found to be a reliable and valid instrument for measuring Music Teacher Self-Efficacy and Music Teacher Commitment, explaining nearly half of the total variance of contributors to music teacher identity construction. Recommendations are suggested for future research regarding music teacher identity construction utilizing the findings in this study.

The purpose of this study was to examine how well individuals were able to identify different music genres from very brief excerpts and whether musical training, gender and preference played a role in genre identification. Listeners were asked to identify genre from classical, jazz, country, metal, and rap/hip hop excerpts that were 125, 250, 500, or 1000 ms in length. Participants ( N = 347), students recruited from three college campuses in the southeast region of the USA, were found to be quite successful in identifying the genre of brief excerpts, even at 125 ms. Length of excerpt significantly affected participants’ ability to identify genre with longer time lengths leading to greater accuracy. Classical, metal, and rap/hip hop excerpts were correctly identified more often than were country or jazz excerpts. Further, there were many distinct interactions across lengths among genres. Musical training did not affect participants’ ability to identify excerpts overall or by length, but training was found to affect genre identification: those with training were better able to identify classical and jazz excerpts while those without training were better able to identify rap/hip hop excerpts. Gender did not affect participants’ ability to identify excerpts overall or by length, but gender was found to affect genre identification: males were better able to identify metal excerpts. Preference did affect participants’ ability to identify excerpts; most favorite genres were identified more accurately than all other genres and least favorite genres were identified less accurately than all other genres. In general, these findings support a primary conclusion that people are adept at identifying particular genres when presented with excerpts that are one second or less.