This thesis has been submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for a postgraduate degree (e.g. PhD, MPhil, DClinPsychol) at the University of Edinburgh. Please note the following terms and conditions of use: This work is protected by copyright and other intellectual property rights, which are retained by the thesis author, unless otherwise stated. A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge. This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the author. The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the author. When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given. Developing music improvisation workshops for preschool children through Action Research Una M. MacGlone PhD Music University of Edinburgh 2020 Declaration I hereby declare that I am the sole author of this thesis; that this thesis is entirely my own work; and that no part of this thesis has been submitted for another degree or qualification. Signed............................................................................................................................. Una M. MacGlone, January 2020. ABSTRACT Improvisation in music is an important skill, which is increasingly valued, and an essential part of curricula at all educational levels. However, understandings of improvisation are conflicting and contradictory approaches exist within improvisation pedagogy. Creative and learning processes from free improvisation are used in Higher Education, and with Secondary and Primary children, but there is scarce research with young children. This is despite potential alignment with preschool curricula, which emphasise creativity and social skills. The aims of this PhD were to investigate and improve a novel method of delivering music education to preschool children through improvisation, emphasising personal creativity and socio-musical responsiveness. The research questions were as follows: How can children’s creativity and engagement in group improvisation be appreciated and evaluated? This question had two further sub questions: What are parents’ and teachers’ attitudes and beliefs about the children, creativity and music?, and, What are the children’s conceptualisations of the workshops? The second research question was: Do the workshop programme, teaching approaches and methods change through two cycles of Action Research? A Pragmatic theoretical stance supported Mixed Methods within an Action Research design, providing a suitable model for enquiry through action, analysis, and planned change. Workshop materials were designed for two 6-week cycles of Action Research for different groups of preschool children (seven in cycle I, six in Cycle II; aged 4-5) in 2016. Prior to the workshops, two original theoretical constructs were proposed and then refined through the process of analysis: Creative musical agency (CMA) and socio-musical aptitude (S-MA). CMA is instantiated when a child creates and executes novel musical material independently in a group improvisation. S-MA is instantiated when child creates a musical response in relation and with reference to, another child’s musical idea in a group improvisation. Video data of the children’s improvisations were sampled and analysed using multimodal video analysis, to gain a rich, nuanced picture of social and musical interactions and expressions of creativity during the children’s improvisations. This involved coding for instances of CMA and S-MA in different musical parameters. In-depth interviews with the children’s parents and teachers and children’s talk from the workshops were subjected to Thematic Analysis. Two experts rated 39 clips of the children’s improvisations as showing CMA, S-MA or neither and were interviewed to explore their views further. In parents’ and teachers’ interviews, the types of strategies they employed were shaped by whether or not they perceived a child as confident and able to share. Their conceptions of children’s creativity were through descriptions of their art activities as well as making up stories and role play. In contrast, music was not readily conceptualised as a creative activity and being musical was understood as possessing technical skill on an instrument. All of the adults identified as non-musical, even though they participated in musical activities with the children. In children’s talk, their understandings of improvising were mediated in distinct ways: previous musical experiences, expressive descriptions of their improvisations, and i combinations of these with musical terms. Video analysis indicated that for 10/13 children, the number of CMA and S-MA events increased over the workshop programme. The range of musical parameters for improvising increased through the workshop programme. Between the experts’ video clip ratings there was a slight agreement for CMA (Kappa 0.21 and moderate agreement for S-MA (Kappa 0.5). They accounted for this by proposing that the teacher mediated some children’s CMA events. Video analysis showed children looking at the teacher before 57% of CMA events. The workshop model changed from a linear succession of tasks with a talk section at the end to iterative cycle of playing and talking, as the original model was not effective in facilitating the children’s discourse. This study is the first to use improvisation with a group of this size and age. Two novel constructs of CMA and S-MA offer a promising means to apprehend and evaluate young children’s creativity and engagements in group improvisation. Children’s perspectives in creative tasks are under reported; the distinct understandings of improvisation that emerged here are important in appreciating conceptual as well as musical development at this age. Parents and teachers value music and creativity but their own musical identities may affect how they create music with children. The refined workshop model offers a flexible and responsive template; by capturing children’s understanding of their playing, informed pedagogical choices can be made. Recommendations for future research include creating more CMA and S-MA based activities, and investigating effective teacher training for future delivery. More qualitative studies could investigate children’s cognitive processes in group creativity. Music is a collection of skills, therefore, developing conceptualisations of music education as improving creativity, social skills and critical thinking, presents a powerful argument for teaching and appreciating music in these ways from the start of young children’s education. ii CONTENTS ABSTRACT i TABLE OF CONTENTS iii TABLE OF TABLES xi TABLE OF FIGURES xii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS xiii ABBREVIATIONS xv CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION TO THE THESIS 1 1.1 Overview 1 1.2 Research dilemma 2 1.3 Personal background to the investigation 5 1.3.1 My improvising self 5 1.3.2 My teaching self 7 1.3.3 My research self 8 1.4 Scottish educational context 10 1.4.1 Curriculum for Excellence 10 1.4.2 Music curriculum for Early Years 11 1.5 Defining terms and my position 14 1.5.1 Music education and music pedagogy 14 1.5.2 Improvisation lessons or workshops? 15 1.6 Structure of thesis 16 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 19 2.1 Introduction 19 2.2 Definitions and understandings of improvisation 20 2.2.1 Locating the field 20 2.2.2 What can mediate improvisation? 24 2.2.3 My definition 26 2.3 Improvisation in schools 28 2.3.1 Previous examples 28 2.3.2 Current curricular influences 33 2.4 Frames for preschool children’s improvising 37 iii 2.4.1 Power of definition 38 2.4.2 What can mediate preschool children’s improvisations? 40 2.5 Teaching improvisation 43 2.5.1 Pedagogical approaches 43 2.5.2 Educational purpose 46 2.5.3 Purpose: to encourage personal growth 47 2.5.4 Purpose: to develop musical skills 49 2.5.5 Purpose: to develop collaborative skills 52 2.5.6 Purpose: to develop creativity 54 2.5.7 Purpose: to develop reflective and critical skills 56 2.5.8 Role of the teacher 57 2.5.9 Summary 60 2.6 Conclusions 61 2.7 Constructs 63 2.8 Research questions 64 CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 65 3.1 Overview 65 3.2 Historical perspectives 65 3.3 How is music education viewed? 67 3.4 Pragmatism 69 3.4.1 Pragmatic views of knowledge 69 3.4.2 Summary 72 3.5 Action Research 73 3.5.1 Researcher position 75 3.6 Mixed methods 77 3.7 Methods for data gathering 79 3.7.1 Research question one 80 3.7.2 Sub questions 81 3.7.3 Research question two 83 3.7.4 MMR in the AR cycle 84 3.7.5 Pilot study 84 iv 3.8 Qualitative methods of analysis 84 3.9 Thematic Analysis 86 3.10 Multimodal video analysis 88 3.11 A tool for reflexivity: Activity Theory 89 3.12 Summary 93 CHAPTER 4: METHODS 95 4.1 Chapter overview 95 4.2 Research overview 95 4.3 Pilot workshop 96 4.3.1 Pilot workshop aims 96 4.3.2 Pilot workshop procedure 96 4.4 Study design 98 4.4.1 Action Research study design 98 4.4.2 Recruitment criteria for nurseries 99 4.4.3 Nursery recruitment procedure 100 4.4.4 Ethics 101 4.5 Workshop delivery 101 4.5.1 Participants 101 4.5.2 Workshop procedure 103 4.6 Video data 104 4.6.1 Video data collection 104 4.6.2 Method of analysis 104 4.7 Interview data 108 4.7.1 Interview participants 108 4.7.2 Interview design 109 4.7.3 Interview data collection 110 4.7.4 Method of analysis 110 4.8 Children’s talk data 115 4.8.1 Talk data collection 115 4.8.2 Talk data analysis 115 4.9 Experts’