An investigation of the teaching practices of music teaching artists participating in four selected elementary school arts integration projects

This mixed methodology study investigated the arts integration practices of music
teaching artists participating in four selected elementary school arts integration projects
in the United States. This study also explored the possibility that music teaching artists’
formal education, arts integration training and professional development, and their own
attitudes as well as different stakeholders’ attitudes about arts integration and music
education impacted their arts integration practices. The explanatory two-phase design of
this study began with the collection and analysis of quantitative data and was followed by
the collection and analysis of qualitative data, thus connecting the results from the former
to those from the latter. The quantitative data provided information for purposefully
selecting the interview participants who provided the qualitative data collection in phase
two. The data gathered in this study indicate that the music teaching artists shared similar beliefs about arts integration but that they believed their school leaders’ goals and objectives differed from their own. The data also provided evidence for concluding that the music teaching artists believe that the most successful arts integration projects are those that are collaborative partnerships between an arts specialist or classroom teacher and a teaching artist. A unexpected finding in this study was the teaching and exploration of sound in arts integration projects team taught between a sound teaching artist,–some without musical backgrounds or formal training–a music teaching artist, and a classroom teacher. The statistical analysis in this study regarding the degree to which formal education, arts integration professional development and training, music teaching artists’ attitudes about arts integration, and the beliefs held by music teaching artists regarding school leaders’ and their arts organization’s administrators’ attitudes about arts integration were predictors of the arts integration practices as self-reported by music
teaching artists produced results that were non-significant. The content analysis of curriculum documents and student products submitted by the study participants revealed information to support the findings from the interview and survey data