In keeping with the nature of this special issue, CA1 here presents revie\vs 
of doctoral dissertations in music education. Four of the five reviews deal 
\\·ith the concepts, realities, and ideals of music education in America; these 
differ considerably in both aim and achievement. The dissertations discussed 
will give the reader some idea of the variety in scope and quality of doctoral 
work in the field today. One contains a comprehensive plan for an integrated 
music curriculum; another proposes a new definition of musical understand-
ing to provide a philosophic basis for the curriculum; a third uses the polling 
technique in an attempt to discover the present philosophic basis of music 
education; a fourth attempts an evaluation of the effectiveness of the music 
curriculum of a specific teacher's college. These dissertations clearly evidence 
the gap now separating musicology from music education, as does the dearth 
of musicological theses having relevance to music education. 

For further information about dissertations written in music education, 
the reader will find reviews in the Councilfor Research in lvlusic Education, which 
has published four bulletins to date. These may be had by writing to the 
Editorial Office, Richard J. Colwell, College of Education, University of 
Illinois, Urbana, Illinois. 

Marlin Orville Johnson 
The Philosophies and Attitudes of Selected 
Music Teachers toward Music Education 
(Research Study No.1) 

Ann Arbor: University Microfilms (UM order no. 61-6898), 1961. 
(229p., pos. film, Colorado State College, Greely, Ed.D.) 

Arthur Daniels 

Public school administrators, prodded by such cntIcs of the American 
educational scene as Hyman Rickover and James Conant and spurred by 
the achievements of the Soviet schools, have in recent years re-evaluated and 
revamped many areas of our primary and secondary educational systems. 
Advances are most noticeable in the study of languages, mathematics, and 
the sciences, but general progress is such that more and more colleges are 
now able to offer advanced credit courses designed to move the student 

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through his undergraduate curriculum in three years. Nevertheless, the area 
of public school music has thus far escaped reform; any college instructor of 
music can testify that incoming students, even prospective music majors, are 
for the most part poorly, if at all, trained for advanced music study. Martin 
Johnson, in his 1961 Ed.D. dissertation, has tried "to determine the current 
philosophies and attitudes toward music education in the public schools held 
by representative music educators," with the aim, presumably, of uncovering 
some of the reasons for the present appallingly low stature of his profession. 

Mr. Johnson, currently Director of Music Education in the Independence, 
Missouri, school system, used two questionnaires: a form requesting data on 
the respondent's training and experience; and a "Q-sort (question-sort) in-
strument," that required the respondent to evaluate forty "philosophy state-
ments" and forty "attitude statements" and to arrange them in order of 
relative importancc. The forty philosophy statements were to be distributed 
among seven groups, so that the single "most important" statement be as-
signed to Group VII, the four statements next in importance to Group VI, 
the next nine to Group V, the next twelve to Group IV, the next nine to 
Group III, the next four to Group II, and the "least important" statement 
of the forty to Group 1. The forty attitude statements were to be similarly 
ordered (p. 40). 

Beforemailinghisquestionnaires.Mr. Johnson ran a pilot study designed 
to weed out those statements which "were not clear, not concise, poorly 
worded, or of little or no value." Although he received 100 percent coopera-
tion from the fifteen people involved in the pilot study, Johnson obtained 
only 39.2 percent return from the 362 questionnaires, and this despite re-
peated dunning. (An appendix to the dissertation contains samples of the 
letters which were mailed at various stages of the study.) Of those who did 
respond, 50 percent were high school music teachers, 22.5 percent were 
supervisors of music education, and 27.4 percent were college-university 
teachers of music education subjects. The respondents hailed from the sixteen 
states comprising the Southwestern, Western, and Northwest Music Educa-
tors Conferences. 

Johnson differentiates between his two categories of statements as follows: 
philosophy statements refer to music education as "the study of a particular 
branch or subject of knowledge," and attitude statements imply "a position, 
disposition, or method with regard to" music education (p. 15). Later he 
informs us that the philosophy cards contained statements about: "aesthetics; 
class methods; communication in music; diversity of the music program; 
evaluation concerning (a) the performance of music, (b) the success of a music 
program, (c) the testing program; goals of education in general; music edu-
cation [!]; the mind and knowledge; the social aspects of music; teacher 
training" (p. 42) and that the attitude statements concerned: "administra-
tion; aesthetics; amateurism; analysis; basic aims of music education; books 
(contents); performance in music; note reading; social aspects of music edu-
cation; success and its relationship to music; symbols" (p. 70). 

Repeated readings of these and similar passages left me confused as to the 
distinction intended between the two classes of cards, and a reading of the 
statements themselves only deepened my confusion. For example, the first 
philosophy statement: "The experimentalist places great stress on freedom 

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and socialization in the rehearsal room. Discipline develops from within the 
student rather than from without, hence, causes more individual growth" 
(p. 44) appears to be less "philosophical" than the first attitude statement: "If 
moral and spiritual values arc to be found in music education, they must be 
found in the character, personality, and the life of the music educator" (p. 71). 

Not until his concluding summary does Mr. Johnson concede that he has 
not distinguished satisfactorily between the two classes of statements: 

Originally the writer had hoped that definite statements of philosophy and 
attitude could be found. In the development of this study, the writer became in-
creasingly aware of the difficulty in delineating between philosophy and attitude 
statements of music educators. It could well be that the results of this study repre-
sent responses to general statements concerning music education rather than to 
specific statements of philosophies or attitudes (pp. 176-77). 

It is evident that he failed in the critical phase of his study; one can only 
wonder that his committee allowed him to advance beyond this point. 

Perhaps the few who did respond to Mr. Johnson's pleas for cooperation 
did so because they share his love for the arcane. Of the forty philosophy 
statements, No. 23 ("We should be more concerned with what music can do 
for the child than what the child can do for music") drew more first place 
votes than any other (although only 13.3 percent). I sense noble intimations 
in this remark, but its precise meaning eludes me. The author begins his 
discussion of the responses to this statement with these words: 

In the desire to make music sound beautiful, to create good stage appearances, 
and to use music for both public relations and school aggrandizement, "we have 
often been negligent in our concern with what music can do for the child as over 
and against what the child can do for music" (p. 56). 

The portion of this sentence within quotes differs substantially from the 
original statement, but at least the interests of clarity are served by the phrases 
which precede it. If this sentence says what the author intended to say, then 
the entire, amplified remark should have been presented as the original 
statement. 

Mr. Johnson's interpretations of the responses are less than revealing. On 
discovering that many respondents favored the notion that "a child's attain-
ment should not be limited by the capacity of his teacher," he concludes that 
this "should give strength and comfort to teacher training institutions that 
better teachers are desired by those already in the profession" (p. 59). 

The least popular philosophy and attitude statements, not surprisingly, 
were those which threaten the interest of the music education profession: 
"The contribution of the arts in public education, is not as essential in our 
day of science and automation as in earlier societies." "Music education has 
been over-emphasized. The development of an art-conscious society could 
well be attended to through other means than music." The author finds the 
response to the former statement "an interesting and important develop-
ment" (p. 68); he believes that the response to the latter statement serves to 
"emphasize, that while this statement was considered unimportant, this 
aspect of music education should not be neglected. Materialism needs the 
spiritual reflection that music can provide" (p. 94). 

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Occasionally the illogic of Mr. Johnson's analyses is numbing. He casti-
gatcs the supervisors for having little faith in tests of musical capacity as aids 
in the screening process, although his question specifies the use of tests as the 
sole determinant in screening students (p. 134). 

While earning his degree Mr. Johnson apparently suffered at the hands 
of his instructors. In the course of his dissertation he directs several peevish 
remarks at one of his three groups of respondents: the college-university 
teachers of music education subjects. He notes early that "much of the criti-
cism directed toward music education has come from college and university 
music leaders" (p. 3) and concludes much later that this is "due, no doubt, 
to the fact that the college-university teachers contribute more articles to 
magazines for publication than do high school music teachers or supervisors" 
(p. 184). This notion may go down in educational history as the "publish 
or cherish" doctrine. 

Having found that "the consistency of the three groups of respondents, to 
almost all statements, was relatively low except to a few of the statements ... 
which were unimportant," he assigns the responsibility for his own failure 
to achieve definitive results to the college-university group: "It could be 
assumed, however, that if more consistency toward basic philosophies is to 
be achieved, it will necessarily come from those who prepare teachers" 
(pp. 179-80). 

He commits a gross error of fact in accusing college teachers of voting 
heavily in favor of the statement, "Music education could well be supplanted 
by other means in the development of an art-conscious society." The heavy 
vote (according to his Table 26, p. 131) actually was for the statement, 
"Teachers must possess musical insights in order to select proper music for 
performance. This depth or insight usually signifies the musical stature of 
the teacher." He compounds his error by asking, rhetorically, "Should we 
be concerned that college-university teachers of music really think that their 
subject matter is so unimportant as to do away with this part of a college 
curricula [sic]?" 

Although the bulk of this dissertation consists of pseudo-statistical opera-
tions of the type illustrated above, the second chapter, a "Review of Related 
Literature," shows how tightly drawn the music education horizon can be. 
It begins: 

The area of philosophy related to music education has little or no material from 
which to draw and only from these in related areas was it possible to make specific 
references regarding some aspects of music education, its criticisms, its weak-
nesses, and its strength. 

It would take a lifetime of reading to absorb even a small part of the literature 
from Plato onward which touches upon Mr. Johnson's chosen area, but his 
bibliography lists only seven books, a handful of master's and doctoral theses, 
and a few articles, all in English. 

Despite his failure to discriminate between his two classes of statement, 
Mr. Johnson hopes that the study could be refined by choosing fewer state-
ments, more correspondents, and by concentrating on "the basic objectives" 
of music education. His complete misunderstanding of the purpose and 
technique of statistics is summed up in the final horrifying suggestion that 

185 



all 38,000 music educators of the MENC be questioned on "what basic 
philosophies and attitudes music educators should hold." Before marching 
over the precipice of that objective, Mr. Johnson should learn that sampling 
procedures are designed expressly to avoid having to deal with entire popu-
lations and that you can't discover what music edu-:ators should believe by 
finding out what they do believe. One can only hope that this dissertation is 
not typical of music education doctoral studies. 

ARTHUR DANIELS is assistant professor of music at Oakland University. 

Josiah Darnell 
An Evaluation of the Bachelor of Music 
Education Curriculum at Murray State 
College through an Analysis of the Opinions 
of its Teaching Graduates 

Ann Arbor: University Microfilms (UM order no. 64-2257), 1963. 
(Indiana University, Ed.D.) 

James McKinnon 

This dissertation is an evaluation of a particular curriculum, and logically 
enough the author begins by explaining why one undertakes an educational 
evaluation. He does so by quoting what various authorities have to say on 
the subject. For example, Troyer and Pace write: 

\Vhat are some of the purposes and values of evaluation? Why do we evaluate? 
One very clear reason is in order to judge the effectiveness of an educational 
program.l 

And Leonhard informs us that: 
Evaluation enables the teacher to ascertain the effect of the learning experiences 
of his students and the validity of his teaching methods. 2 

Thus we learn that the purpose of evaluation is evaluation, and in case the 
lesson is not grasped it is repeated later in a paragraph which defines educa-
tional evaluation: 

... the process of judging the effectiveness of educational experience. It includes 
gathering and summarizing evidence on the extent to which educational values 

lMaurice E. Troyer and C. Robert Pace, Evaluation in Teacher Education, Washington, 
D.C. 1944, p. 2. 

2Charles Leonhard, "Evaluation in Music Education," Basic Concepts in Music 
Education, Fifty-seventh Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education, 
Part I, Chicago 1958, p. 313. 

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