Methodology

An action research methodology was adopted, using interpretive methods of analysis. This approach can take account of feelings and emotions, which is an important aspect of this research (Shipman, Reference Shipman1997: 37). Interpretive research lends itself ideally to the ‘progressive focusing’ necessary in action research. Theory is derived from what is observed, and is therefore derived inductively. One particular feature of action research is that the change of action that is decided upon will be unique to each situation. The changes in teaching strategies during the course of the research process are those which appear appropriate for particular contexts. The physical spaces in which children engage in musical tasks, and the relationships between the children and teachers, are unique to a particular situation and time. One purpose of the present study is to reflect on and explore the ways in which children talk about their composing. Different teaching strategies lead to new groupings and organisations of learning, and their analysis enables the teacher to formulate the next course of action for improving the contexts for children to talk when creating music.

Action research for teachers represents a form of professional development, curriculum development and evaluation. Theory is generated in order to illuminate practical aspects of the findings; but theoretical understanding has a subordinate role to the empirical research and to the project as a whole. Change or innovation is sought as a pre-condition of the research (Elliott, Reference Elliott1991). Curriculum ideas are tested through action, as the continually developing product of invention and reflection (Stenhouse, Reference Stenhouse and Hammersley1993). Action research enables the teacher to restructure the teaching strategies as a result of findings in each previous stage or cycle, such that research is classroom based, producing changes which are beneficial to teaching and learning. Often action research is undertaken by groups of participants in order to effect collective understanding and change (Kemmis, Reference Kemmis and Hammersley1993). The present study follows Stenhouse's (1993) principle of the ‘teacher as researcher’, in which the teacher develops his or her ‘capacity for autonomous professional self-development’ through systematic self-study, through the work of other teachers, and through the testing of ideas by classroom research procedures (Stenhouse, Reference Stenhouse and Hammersley1993: 32).

The present study also adopts Elliott's (Reference Elliott1991) approach in which classroom practice is linked to a realisation of values which relate to its ends or objectives. These are continually defined or redefined in the process of reflection on the practice. One main purpose in this study is to reflect on and explore the ways in which talk is used by teachers and children to further their composing work, and thereby to improve practice and to inform professional judgement. Elliott's revised version of Lewin's model of action research sees the researcher identifying the initial idea and ‘fact finding’, which in turn leads to a plan of action steps (as seen in the different stages of each cycle in the plan below). These plans are then put into practice in the classroom, and their implementation and effects are monitored and analysed: any failures or unexpected outcomes give rise to new, revised plans for the next cycle of the research.

In the present study, data were collected in real lessons: when small groups were working and being video recorded, the rest of the class were also present in the lesson. The video camera was the only unnatural part of the lesson. The fieldwork was divided into three cycles. The first cycle involved the collection of data from two whole class lessons in which the teacher was interacting with the pupils, as follows:

1. (1) Video-recording and analysis of transcripts from a year 8 (aged 12–13 years) music lesson in the teacher/researcher's classroom.

2. (2) Video-recording and observation together with analysis of transcripts from a year 7 (aged 11–12 years) music lesson taught by a colleague in the same school.

The analysis of the transcripts resulted in outcomes which determined the second cycle of the research. Here three new forms of data were collected:

1. (1) Video-recordings of two groups from year 7 (aged 11–12) and one group from year 9 (aged 13–14) engaged in talking together while working on a group composition without the teacher present.

2. (2) Teacher interviews with members from two of the sub-groups while watching the video-recordings of their composing work and dialogue.

3. (3) Audio recordings of five one-to-one interviews with pupils from year 11 (aged 15–16) talking with the teacher about their folios of GCSE compositions.

Following this stage of the study, a ‘typology of talk’ was derived from the data. The third cycle of the research evolved as a result of the typology, and set out to test whether younger children were able to engage with the music in such a way that they made more mature evaluative comments about musical composing work. The third cycle therefore, sought to challenge the hierarchical nature of the typology so as to discover whether a task could be designed which allowed younger children to make evaluative types of talk. This cycle involved a single strategy; four year 7 sub-groups (two groups working together at any one time) were asked to demonstrate their music to each other and to talk to each other about their musical compositions without the teacher's direct intervention.

Overview of results

Cycle 2 – Talking individually and in small groups about composing

Cycle 1 revealed the need to vary the ways in which talk is ‘heard’ through the research. The variety of age groups taking part, and the different methods of observing talk, allowed a rich collection of data in this second cycle of the study. These findings are described by the formulation of a ‘typology of pupil talk about composing’, consisting of six main types, which were observed during this cycle of the research. Table 1 shows the characteristics of each of these types, along with a brief description of the musical knowledge and terminology demonstrated in each case, as well as pupils’ response in either musical outcomes or in the quality of the talk in each case.

Table 1

A typology of pupil talk about composing

Development of a typology of talk

Cycle 3 – evaluative responses: a new approach

The third cycle of the research arose from the findings of the earlier cycles. Younger children described and readily gave opinions about their work and about the work of others, but did not demonstrate evaluation or affective engagement with it. For this reason, in cycle 3, pupils were given a task which was designed to provide some engagement with the composition, as well as to elicit more evaluative responses. The topic was imaginative – to depict a ‘spookey house’ in sound. The method of talk and discussion in this cycle was for two composition groups to work together to demonstrate their work to each other and to ask each other questions about it. This could be described as a kind of ‘peer appraising’. A number of different types of question began to emerge. These included questions about technique, such as ‘Why did you use the triangle for the chimes?’ or ‘Did you actually know what notes you were going to play on that keyboard?’. There were also representational questions about the way the music represented the story. For example, one pupil described what was happening in the story merely from listening to the music. His representation of the music was as follows:

These representations of the music were a form of ‘annotated presentation’. These were largely descriptive, with affective engagement with the story resulting in imaginative relationships between the music and what it represents. One of the reasons that this task was chosen was to enable pupils to relate symbolically to the story and the sounds. Affective engagement with the story and how it was represented in the music was strong, but talk about the music itself produced less emotional engagement. One group, however, turned their session into a kind of ‘game’, and asked their paired group to guess what their story was about as they performed it. Because of this, their resulting talk became evaluative. Close engagement with the music as audience members was evident as they were forced to analyse what was going on. Their talk demonstrated problem solving, and became much more analytical as they sought to explain what was happening in the music.

Using an imaginative task to allow pupils to guess what is happening allowed pupils to engage more affectively with the subject and the music, and to be more analytical in their responses. Evaluative responses were typically provided by children in the 11–12 years group.

Discussion of the findings and their implications for classroom teaching

An interesting but maybe not surprising outcome of this study is the suggestion that children's capacity to talk about what they understand is far more limited than the understandings which are demonstrated in their music. One of the problems of researching talk is that it has a ‘thinking’ element which can only be evaluated by the evidence of spoken or written word, through musical demonstration or through other art forms, such as drawings or poems. When pupils talk about their own or others’ work in a whole class setting, there are many factors which might affect what they say. Whole class talk, for the purposes of monitoring and feedback, is extensively used in current good practice. However, talk for the purposes of developing critical appraisal skills needs a sensitive context, and the lack of ability to articulate in whole class settings cannot be used as the sole indicator of the level of maturity of thinking or conceptual understanding. It has been suggested in this study that classroom dialogue can contribute to the development of conceptual understanding when pupils are engaged in practical tasks, and helps them to make sense of what they are doing. The results confirm the idea that children's understanding is greater than their talk may suggest.

Talk can clearly promote the collective progress of the work and the teacher, and in Vygotskian terms can bridge the ‘zone of proximal development’ (Vygotsky, Reference Vygotsky1978) in bringing about significant learning experiences through discussion with a pupil. Clearly the value of this kind of talk is useful in helping pupils to develop conceptual understandings through practical exploration and clarification of that understanding through discussion. In this sense, talk is viewed as an explicit form of thinking. The results of this study suggest that talk can be progressive in quality if nurtured and focused upon in composing lessons. Teachers can encourage the development of appraising skills through written self evaluations or through questions posed in collective peer evaluations.

The typology of talk in Table 1 implicitly suggests that children develop in their thinking and talk by moving from descriptive evaluations to providing opinions, although it may be that these modes of thinking occur simultaneously. The higher level skills involve pupil ownership and engagement with their work, where opinions are given with reasons and justification, and where evaluative comments are backed with a good command of musical vocabulary and conceptual understanding. It is this affective and evaluative progress that teachers might try to develop in pupils in order to develop their skills of musical thinking further. Cycle 3 in this study suggested that one way of encouraging higher level evaluative appraising skills is to involve pupils in peer evaluation by using an imaginative task. Further research might explore written evaluations of work: joint appraisal of finished compositions, and of the talk between a teacher and a pupil, might also be usefully explored to assess the use of terminology and evaluative appraising skills. The ‘typology of talk’ is not intended to be hierarchical but rather that children build on previous skills to reach more mature ways of thinking and talking.

Since talk is one of the means by which critical thinking is outwardly expressed, the development of talk is important. While this can be developed in responses to recorded music, it would seem appropriate, with younger pupils, that appraising could be developed most usefully through their own work, in which relevance and ownership is likely to be found. The idea of evaluating pupils’ own work has recently been adopted by examination boards, requiring candidates to appraise performances of their own compositions as part of their assessment (AQA, 2005).

This study has considered the talk surrounding composing tasks, but has not dealt with the compositions themselves. Further research might explore the relationship between the dialogue and musical progress in a composing task. This would involve looking more closely at the musical changes and not just the verbal development. Dialogue can link together the performing, composing, and listening components of the curriculum when children are encouraged to make sense of what they learn. Further research might also explore the links between talk about pupils’ own composing work, and that about the recorded music of established composers, and thereby throw some light on the extent to which appraising skills can be developed through critical, reflective thinking. The typology of talk presented in this paper represents a first attempt, and deserves further testing and development on larger and more varied samples, engaged in a wider variety of activities.