


















































Journal of Green Learning


Journal of Green Learning, e-ISSN 2807-890X 

Vol. 2, No. 2, 2022, pp. 106-120.  
DOI: 10.53889/jgl.v2i2.128 

-------------------------------------------------------- 

 

The Aspect of Shenyang Normal University's Undergraduate: 

Thesis on Music Performance Study 
 

Wang Xu
1, 

Pramote Danpradit
1
  

 
1
Department of Music, Faculty of Music, Bangkokthonburi University, Thailand 

 

Article Info  ABSTRACT 

Article history: 

Received June 26, 2022 

Revised  November 20, 2022  

Accepted December 5, 2022  

 

 This paper employed document analysis of specific thesis 

studies in musical instrument performance majors at Shenyang 

Normal University.The aim of this study was to study 

perspectives on topic selection, diversity, literature review, 

presentation ability, and thesis format.Thesis scope studies 

were chosen between 2016 and 2021.The thesis comprehensive 

bachelor's and master's thesis 116 as an analysis object, 

forming undergraduate students of 163 and 26 postgraduate 

students, totalling 189. On the basis of this research, it was 
found that the title and content were in a narrow group 

focusing on music practice studies, an initial analysis of music 

after developing knowledge integration and innovation, 

research literacy skills, and a thesis, which directly affected the 

title to the format of the thesis book, with factors affecting in 

terms of choosing a major, the level of understanding of the 

advisors, the importance of educational institutions, lack of 

relevant courses, students' educational level, students' writing 

attitude, and various observations were requested to be 

developed into criteria for evaluating music thesis and 

curriculum reform and music thesis experiment in order to be a 

manual for writing science in the future and contribute to the 

problems found as well as additional research by the authors 

and other experts.  

 

Keywords: 

Music performance  

Visual analysis 

Undergraduate thesis 

 

This is an open access article under the CC BY-SA license. 

 
Corresponding Author: 
Pramote Danpradit 

Department of Music, 

Faculty of Music 

Bangkokthonburi University  

Thailand 

Email: pramote.dan@bkkthon.ac.th 

 

1. INTRODUCTION  

 The most essential element, the graduation thesis, has finally been handed in at the 

university's personnel training. It is one of the complete summaries that the students or 

graduates create, and it helps to expand the students' professional knowledge as well as their 

professional theory (Duxing, 2019). The most important thing is to challenge and strengthen 

students' comprehensive abilities to use theoretical knowledge and professional competence, as 

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


107 

 

well as their capacity to solve practical problems. This should be done through exercises and 

activities (Everly, 2013). In order to be considered for a degree, candidates are required to 

demonstrate that they have the fundamental research skills (Linlin, 2019). 

 The National Standard of Undergraduate Teaching Quality was published by the 

Chinese Ministry of Education in January 2018, and the Undergraduate Thesis (Design) was 

published by the same ministry in January 2021. These standards were published with the 

intention of enhancing the quality of graduation theses and fostering good graduation export. 

The final graduation design for professional music colleges in China typically takes the form 

of a concert and a graduation summary at this time. However, the requirements for writing a 

graduation thesis at comprehensive universities for music majors are the same as those for 

other liberal arts majors. Some educational institutions use a hybrid graduation format, with 

some students presenting their theses and others giving graduation concerts (Higher 

Education Steering Committee of the Ministry of Education, 2018).  

 The degree of thesis writing is an important benchmark that is used to judge the 

overall quality of students' work. This is the most crucial point when it comes time for them to 

graduate, undergraduate and graduate students in music programs at colleges and universities 

are required to take the dissertation examination (Jizhou, 2002; Jizhou, 2004a). The 

construction level of the music discipline and specialization is directly tied to the quality of 

the writing in a music thesis. It is also an important foundation for determining the pupils' 

theoretical levels and their capacity for invention (Jizhou, 2004b; Jizhou, 2005). 

 The enhancement of students' writing skills as part of their music degree programs 

has emerged as a critical component in the development of a high-quality undergraduate 

music education. There has been some research conducted on how the composition of music 

graduation theses, the majority of which are centered in top professional music colleges and 

universities, can be standardized and improved (Roberts & Roberts, 2008; Ting, 2013). The 

research that has been done on graduation theses and evaluation criteria at the majority of 

general music schools and comprehensive universities still has some holes in it (Xiaodong, 

2014).  

 The music major has its own distinct concentration. Students who major in music 

have their own unique features that set them apart from their peers in other disciplines. 

Researchers at comprehensive universities have observed over the course of many years of 

working on the thesis guidance and defense processes that the following issues frequently 

arise in the field of music graduation (Linlin, 2019; Yanzhang & Yanling, 2021). 

 1. The overall level of music graduation thesis is not high; writing is not standard, 

such as single topic selection, incorrect topic selection, insufficient demonstration, insufficient 

literature review, insufficient research depth, writing format is not standard, writing attitude is 

not serious, etc. 

 2. The music graduation thesis evaluation standard is not complete and unified.   

 3. The theoretical level of the music performance thesis supervisor is not high.  

 4. The music thesis writing curriculum is not perfect.   
 However, it will also combine the different professional thesis evaluation standards 

used in various countries with the suggestions made by experts in order to investigate the 

possibility of establishing scientific and reasonable evaluation standards for music 

professional graduation theses and the corresponding music thesis writing courses in order to 

raise the quality of music graduation theses (Jizhou & Lu, 2011). This will be done in order to 

improve the level of music graduation theses. As a result, the purpose of this essay is to 

examine and think critically about the thesis that emerged from this study. The 116 volumes 

of Shenyang Normal University's Music Major Performance were published between 2016 

and 2021 as a result of research into a variety of aspects of music major performance research, 

including subject selection, thesis format, literature review, presentation ability, and others.  



108 

 

 This research was conducted between 2016 and 2021. Studying the data by 

quantitative counting, music visual performance, and quality representation of the graduation 

thesis, in order to confirm results and further search for problems, confirmed the data. This 

was done in order to confirm results and further search for problems. This study aims to 
explore the thesis in the field of Chinese musical instrument performance majors at Shenyang 

Normal University, focusing on subject selection, literature review, presentation ability, and 

thesis format. 

 

2. METHODOLOGY  
 Document research or quantitative text research, thesis paper analysis, and particular 

thesis studies were conducted on students majoring in Chinese musical instrument 

performance at Shenyang Normal University for the purpose of this study. The perspectives 

on subject matter choices, variety, technological advancement, and literary canons The years 

2016 through 2021 have been selected for the thesis scope studies. A total of 189 students, 

163 of whom were undergraduates and 26 of whom were postgraduates, collaborated to 

produce a book-length version of the thesis. The remaining students all graduated through the 

completion of a thesis, with the exception of 73 students who completed their degrees through 

concert and performance experience. As a result, the thesis was representative of 116 (61%) 

of the analysis's target group based on the selection of three music professors (Figure 1). The 

researcher applies Krippendorff (2004) concept of content analysis. 

   

 
 

  

Figure 1 Number of theses music performances at Shenyang Normal University 

 

No more than 30%  of the total number of students should be selected in the form of a 

graduation concert, and two conditions must be met: ranking in the top ten on the graduation 

examination, and students' willingness to participate. Since it was approved as the provincial 

first-class major in 2019, the number of concerts and dissertations is limited to a certain 

proportion according to the requirements of major construction: no more than thirty percent of 

the total number of students should participate. In the past two years, there has been an 

increase in the number of students who graduate with the help of a thesis. This rise can be 

attributed to the COVID-19 epidemic elements. 

 In Figure 1, the blue line represents the total number of undergraduate graduates from 

2016 through 2021, which has stayed consistent at an annual average of 27. The number of 

undergraduate dissertations, excluding graduation concerts, is depicted by the orange line 



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from 2016 to 2021. The number of undergraduate dissertations has dramatically increased 

during the previous 2 years. The total number of master's dissertations from 2016 through 

2021 is represented by the gray line. It is clear that the minimum number of graduates in 2019 

is one, while the maximum number of graduates in 2020 is 10. This means that the minimum 

number of graduates in 2019 is one. Master's enrollment is inconsistent, research process can 

be provided.  

  1. The management received a policy to enhance the development of research 

teaching for final-year students, which is a requirement for graduation. 

  2. A review of previous thesis work completed between 2016-2021. 

  3. Call a faculty meeting to determine the thesis framework qualification that the 

music industry requires. 

  4. Choose a thesis that has or has similar qualifications to the qualifications 

specified by the music field. 

  5. Evaluation of content. 

  6. To publish the findings of the analysis as articles. 

 

3. RESULT 
 The findings of the investigation are intended to provide a detailed summary of 

previous thesis compositions in terms of the titles, consistency, and quality of the work. The 

results will be adjusted in accordance with the operations in the next teaching to start from the 

National Standard for Teaching Quality of Music Performance Major and the requirements of 

Shenyang Normal University for graduation thesis writing. These adjustments will be made in 

accordance with the National Standard for Teaching Quality of Music Performance Major. 

The text quantization analysis is employed in order to mechanically categorize the word 

frequency within the text as the object of the investigation. All of them demonstrate the kids' 

strong academic breadth as well as their broad thinking breadth. The visualization data were 

used to compile a summary of the characteristics of the graduation theses written by music 

majors. The results were shown, evaluated, and explained using a word frequency table and a 

word frequency distribution map. 

 3.1 The subject selection: "title" 
 The researcher extracted and summarized the "titles" of all undergraduate and 

master's graduation theses in the sample of music performance majors, and independently 

became a pure text. Because the software has a slight error in the recognition of Chinese 

words, it is necessary to sort out the text data of the title: delete adverbs, conjunctions, 

auxiliary words, prepositions, function words, pronouns, and other words that do not affect 

the theme; retain the main words with practical significance; and then conduct analysis and 

data statistics.   

 The degree of match between topic selection and major After the software is run and 

processed, the title word, meaning “cirrus,” is obtained. As shown in the figure (portrayals), 

subject words form different distributions of thickness and size according to their importance 

and frequency of occurrence to form word meaning relations. This thesis topic corpus has 

1,131 total words and 358 unique word forms. Vocabulary Density: 0.317, Readability Index: 

16.797. Average Words Per Sentence: 9.6. Most frequent words in the corpus: work (56), 

music (32), erhu (23), analysis (19), performance (19), artistic (18), characteristics (14), 

guzheng (14), playing (14), art (13), development (13), dulcimer (13), study (13), style (12), 

skills (11), application (9), creation (9), bamboo (8), Chinese (8), flute (8), techniques (8), 

example (7), folk (7), modern (7), and education (6). More details can be shown in Figure 2. 

 

 

 



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Figure 2 Cirrus of title words 

 

 The core words of the titles of these graduation theses are music, work, analysis, 

performance, skills, art, style, and other theme words. The theme words of the word cloud 

map can reflect the main thesis title content of the direction of Chinese musical instrument 

performance in the major of music performance, and it can be seen that the topic selection of 

the graduation thesis is very consistent with the degree of match with the major, in line with 

the requirements of the national standard of music performance as shown in the portrayals.  

  

 
 

Figure 3 Links to title words 

 

 Due to the limitations of software design, the researcher translated the above title text 

samples into English. After processing the data, the Figure 3 links of title words were 

obtained. It can be seen that: folk/national, Chinese, style, artistic, analysis, characteristics, 

skills/techniques, instrument, performance/playing, music, application, study, work, 



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development, and other words constitute the theme of this picture. All the graduation theses 

are mainly around these themes to choose the topic, such as  

In the autumn, modern dulcimer works well. 

Manjianghong's works on ZhongRuan playing skills and techniques   

Research on the development and construction of Erhu etudes 

On the importance of Timbre in Guzheng performance 

etc. 

 

 These topics are closely related to Chinese musical instrument performance and meet 

the requirements of the major. The relationships of 19 high frequency words are shown. The 

first high-frequency word: Work has the highest degree of association with Music, Analysis, 

Performance, Technology, playing, and Characteristics. The second high-frequency word: 

Music has a high degree of association with Works, Different Instruments, Characteristics and 

Styles. The third high-frequency word: Erhu has a high degree of association with 

Performance, Technology, Style, Music, Works, Playing and Study. Fourth high-frequency 

word: Analysis has a high degree of association with Music, Works, Different Instruments, 

Playing and Techniques. Fifth high-frequency word: Performance is highly associated with 

Various Instruments, Works, Performance Techniques and Music Styles. 

 3.2 Diversity of topics 

 An academic perspective, the classification method of the research field is primarily 

divided into the categories of music forms and music study; instrumental music; vocal music 

study; music education problems in the research; school music education problems in the 

research; music teaching methods in the research; the study of music aesthetics; music 

communication; music history; music archaeology; studies on local folk songs, local other art 

forms, music creation, music therapy, pop songs and pop musicians (teams), film music, etc. 

 According to the quantity of each classification in the thesis, according to the 

quantity of each classification as shown in Fig.4, the first tier for the first three areas of topics 

accounted for the largest technology research, 83, accounted for 71.5%, the study of 47 

instrumental music works, accounted for 40.5%, and involved in music education research, 

20, accounted for 17.2%. These three research areas have the largest number of topics, and 

most of the topics are overlapping. For example, 

 

 Analysis of Music Conception and Performance of Jinling Si's Thoughts on 

Manxiang  

 Preliminary Exploration of Playing Skills in the Teaching Practice of Double Bass  

 in Middle School, and so on.  

 

 Research on playing technologies for instruments and research on teaching methods 

are both in accord with the goals of the professional direction's teaching objectives. Teachers 

place a primary emphasis on performance technology, music analysis, and teaching methods 

in professional teaching and practice. This is because the employment of students majoring in 

music performance in normal colleges and universities is primarily composed of folk music 

performers, music teachers in primary and secondary schools, and cultural workers. Since the 

training characteristics of these students are professional and teacher-oriented, their training is 

characterized by the fact that their training is professional. 



112 

 

 

 

Figure 4 Statistical chart of the number of research subjects 

 

 The second echelon of topics includes research on creative issues; comparative 

research between China and the West; historical research; regional music research; band 

research; pop music; film and television games; short videos; etc. This echelon of topics is 5-

10, accounting for about 1/3 of the total.  

 

 The foreign cello in China’s ancient fusion of music and creativity  

 Describe the differences between ethnic percussion and western percussion and 

fusion. 

 From Han to Tang dynasty music on the central plains, the influence of music 

 Sheng in Jiangsu drum music use and development 

 The role of ethnic musical instruments in the band is unclear. 

 Chinese national musica linstruments in a music game application, etc. 

 

 These are based on students' own majors, in-depth thinking on different research 

perspectives, and reflect the trend of music from research with the times. The third echelon of 

topic selection includes character research, opera research, psychology research, musical 

instrument research, innovation and entrepreneurship research, art group research, etc. This 

section contains a small number of theses that require students to broaden their knowledge, 

and there are some excellent theses and works. 

 
 Discuss the father of little Pipa, Mr. Wang Huiran’s artistic achievement. 

 The evolution of Pipa art and opera music is investigated. 

 Influence of Chinese national instrumental music on autistic children’s psychology  

 Students' ability to innovate and practice entrepreneurship in the arts will be 

enhanced. 

 This article analyzes the current state of the elderly's art learning and development 

opportunities. 

 Erhu performance indicator "Sound" preliminary wood shadow 

 Investigation of Domestic Art Performance Groups, and so on. 

 



113 

 

 The researcher translated the above-mentioned title text samples into English. After 

processing the data, the title words were obtained. It can be seen that folk, national, Chinese, 

style, artistic analysis, characteristics, skills, techniques, instruments, performance, playing, 

music, application, study, work, development, and other words constitute the theme of this 

picture. All the graduation theses are mainly around these themes to choose the topic such as, 

 

  In the autumn, modern dulcimer works well. 

  Manjianghong's Works on ZhongRuan Playing Skills and Techniques    

  Research on the Development and Construction of Erhu Etudes 

  On the Importance of Timbre in Guzheng Performance, etc. 

 

 3.3 Thesis quality evaluation  

 This part will carry out data analysis from the aspects of thesis content, evaluation 

score, plagiarism rate, knowledge integration and innovation, literature reading amount, topic 

repetition rate, and so on. 

   1. Analysis of thesis content  

  The body part of the sample thesis was selected for analysis as the analysis data. 

Firstly, the thesis is translated into English, and the cirrus diagram of text meaning is 

generated in images through Voyant-Tools software analysis. It can be seen that the content of 

the thesis mainly focuses on music, performance, instrument, performance, melody, 

nationality, ensemble, technology, timbre, development, rhythm, style, etc., which fully meets 

the requirements of national standards for music. Attract attention according to the number 

analyzed, as shown in Figure 5. 

 

 

Figure 5 Thesis body cirrus 

 

 This corpus has 116 documents with 65,205 total words and 6,727 unique word 

forms. Vocabulary Density: 0.103. Readability Index: 13.098, Average Words Per Sentence: 

74.9. Most frequent words in the corpus: music (860), musical (258), performance (256), 

national (223), playing (223), chinese (195), melody (190), sound (184), instruments (183), 

string (178), development (175), guzheng (173), flute (170), bamboo (168), dulcimer (161), 

students (161), ruan (158), instrument (157), time (152), different (149), folk (139), erhu 

(138), rhythm (138); pipa (136), orchestra (135), people (135), play (135), traditional (134), 

training (132), hand (131), tone (131), band (129), western (128), section (115) and new 

(112). 

  2. Performance evaluation  

  Through the analysis of the score distribution of undergraduate graduation theses, 

it is possible that the overall score distribution meets the requirement of normal distribution 



114 

 

and there is no unqualified undergraduate graduation thesis. The quality analysis data, as 

shown in the table, was categorized between 2020 and 2021. 

 

Table 1: SY Normal University undergraduate thesis music statistics, 2016-2021   

 

 

 The thesis was completed in book form by undergraduate students (163) and 

postgraduate students (26), totalling 189. Among them, 73 students (39%) graduated in the 

form of concert and performance experience, while the rest graduated in the form of a thesis. 

Therefore, from the selection of 3 music professors, the thesis presented 116 (61%) of the 

analysis target group. From the table, the percentage of excellent theses in 2020 and 2021 is 

lower than that in the previous two years, as the percentage of excellent theses has been set at 

a maximum limit of no more than 20% after 2019, and stricter and standardized evaluation 

criteria for theses have been re-established. The good rate above 80 is gradually increasing, 

while the pass rate between 60 and 70 is decreasing year by year, indicating that the overall 

thesis level is improving. 

  3. Certification for knowledge integration and innovation 

  The researcher chooses five core words as a group of data: Erhu, works, 

performance, art, and music to generate the relative trend chart of core words in Figure 6. 

Music, sound, performance, and art frequently cross paths, indicating a high level of 

integration between these various forms of content. The intersection of Erhu and performance 

shows that performance technology is the key research direction of Erhu’s thesis. 

 

 

 
 

Figure 6 Trends in core words 

 

 Data item 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 total 

1 Total number of graduates 28 29 23 27 26 30 163 

2 Number of thesis defense  12 15 11 13 17 22 90 

3 Excellent rate (4.0%) 16.6 17.7 24.2 24.1 16.6 13.1  

4 Good rate (3.0%) 36.6 41.2 42.4 41.4 33.3 65.2  

5 Moderate rate (2.0%) 36.6 26.5 21.3 20.7 43.3 21.7  

6 Pass rate (1.0 %) 10.2 14.6 12.1 13.8 6.8 0.0  

 Average plagiarism rate 5.42 4.37 7.76 6.40 9.7 16.5 50.15 



115 

 

 The answer to thesis diversity and innovation can be found in the Bubblelines of 

word frequency in Figure 7. There are not many studies involving "traditional," indicating that 

due to a large number of research works of literature and fewer research blank points in this 

field, it is difficult to avoid the repetition rate, so students have fewer choices. "Development" 

and "Chinese and Western" studies are evenly distributed in each position, which shows that 

there are many studies on the development of folk music and a comparison between Chinese 

and Western studies in the graduation thesis, which meet the requirements of professional 

development in the new era. There are also fewer parts involving "innovation", indicating that 

there is insufficient innovative research in students' theses.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 7 Bubblelines of word frequency 

 

 More emphasis and teaching efforts should be directed toward innovation research. 
In the Bubblelines of Word Frequency of Figure 8, by comparing the proportion of word 

frequency in different musical instruments, it can be seen that there are more theses on 

Guzheng, Erhu, Pipa, dulcqin, bamboo flute, and Ruan, while there are relatively fewer theses 

on Suona, Sheng, and percussion. This is caused by the number of musical instrument 

students: Guzheng, Bamboo flute, Erhu, Pipa, dulcimer, and other directions of undergraduate 

students. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 8 Bubblelines of word frequency 

 

 3.4 The amount of literature  
 The researchers presented the average number of references, the mean repetition rate, 

the number of topic repeats, and the mean number of article words in the graduation thesis of 

each academic year in Figure. 9. The average number of references increased gradually from 

7.5 to 13.1. It shows that the literature reading percentage of students' graduation thesis is 

increasing year by year, which is caused by the improvement of the literature requirements of 

the college and the guidance teachers’s being more rigorous and responsible to broaden 

students' research horizons. 

  The repetition rate increased but was lower than 20%, in line with the national 

standard. This is because the graduation theses of Shenyang Normal University uniformly 



116 

 

adopt a data similarity analysis system. The comparative resources include about 2.8 million 

books, nearly 50 million journals, and more than 2 million dissertations. Before 2019, the 

super Star database had a large number of electronic books and kinds of literature, and the 

number of periodicals was not perfect enough, so the repetition check rate was generally low, 

around 5%. In the past two years, the database has been updated quickly and the data has 

become more perfect, so the repetition rate of the thesis has also increased. But overall, keep 

within the scope of the national standard requirements. 

  The number of topics repeated meets the requirements. The statistical data in this 
study are the number of theses with repeated topics compared with those in the previous three 

years. Basically, in line with the National Standard (2018) encouraging innovation, the school 

in the past three years could not show substantive repeat requirements. Occasionally, the topic 

selection of undergraduate and master’s theses is repeated, mostly among different students of 

the same advisor, which indicates that some advisors have problems with new academic 

knowledge and the slow update of professional frontier information. Musical instrument 

intonation control, similar works, and so on are examples of related topics. 

  The average number of words in the thesis is 6-7 thousand, which is generally 

higher than the national standard of 3 thousand words. This indicates that the music 

performance major at Shenyang Normal University has high requirements on the writing 

ability of the thesis and attaches great importance to the quality of the thesis and the writing 

ability. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 9 Other relevant data of the Thesis 

 

 In summary, it can be seen from the above quantified and visualized data that the 

quality of the graduation thesis of Shenyang Normal University's music performance major 

meets the requirements of the National Standards (2018). The topic selection meets the 

requirements of training objectives; can achieve the purpose of comprehensive training; can 

be closely combined with research, art, and teaching practice; can be based on the forefront of 

academic research in the field of Chinese musical instrument performance; has a certain 

degree of professionalism, academic and novelty; and it not only conforms to the actual 

situation of academic learning but also enables students to improve their original level and 

ability to achieve comprehensive innovation. The thesis meets academic standards, and the 

entire proposal, guidance, writing, and defense process is thorough and rigorous. The thesis 



117 

 

can reflect the students' grasp of the basic knowledge and skills of the major, have a certain 

ability in literature collection, and can use the basic discipline methodology to carry out 

research; accurate language, clear hierarchy, accurate point of view, rigorous argumentation. 

It can reflect the good teaching effect of a music performance major. 

  3.5  Influencing factors of thesis quality 
  The above data, combined with many years of teaching experience and through 

the thesis guidance teachers’ and students’ interviews, summarizes the adverse factors 

affecting the quality of music graduation thesis mainly have the following points: 

  Special attributes of the major: A music performance major has a long training 

cycle of practical skills, heavy time arranging, high practical requirements, and less in-depth 

connection with theoretical disciplines, which to some extent affects the depth of relevant 

research and the breadth of knowledge horizon. 

  The teacher’s level: with the expansion of education and scientific research tasks 

is aggravating, time spent on the teaching of teachers gradually reduces. Despite professional 

teachers with higher performance standards, academic quality varies. Part of the teachers' 

theoretical knowledge updates slower. The inquiry learning of students produces a certain 

adverse effect. 

  The importance of the school: the music graduation thesis has not been promoted 

to the key work, there is no systematic thesis writing course, and there is no thesis evaluation 

standard in line with professional characteristics and corresponding process management 

rules. In particular, undergraduate education does not place the same importance on 

graduation thesis work as on graduation concerts. 

  Lack of relevant courses: most music colleges and universities (departments) do 

not offer systematic music thesis writing courses according to the characteristics of the music 

major and only introduce them simply in the form of lectures, lacking systematicity, 

pertinence, and depth. Students have only a superficial knowledge of the thesis. 

  The educational level of students in music colleges (departments) is generally 

lower than that of science, engineering, and liberal arts students, especially in the past few 

years due to the expansion of art enrollment in colleges and universities across the country, 

which makes the cultural course foundation and writing ability of music students generally 

low. The knowledge gained outside the major is relatively simple, and the poor scientific 

research ability to observe, analyse and summarise things is the factor that affects the thinking 

of thesis writing. 

  Students' writing attitude: they do not realize the importance of music theses, 

especially undergraduates, who often start to write in their senior year, facing the pressure of 

employment and postgraduate entrance examinations at the same time. The thesis is 

frequently addressed; writing time is limited; and eastern and western criticism collide.  

  

4. DISCUSSION  

 Based on the above quantitative analysis of a number of data points of the graduation 

thesis of music performance major and existing problems, the author puts forward the 

following suggestions in combination with years of thesis guidance work experience and 

teaching experience of music thesis writing course. The importance to the quality of the 

graduation thesis for the music major. Colleges and universities with music majors should 

attach great importance to graduation thesis work, formulate relevant rules, and perfect and 

standardize the graduation thesis writing work plan (Fan, 2021). The school, teachers, and 
students should pay attention to the three aspects through necessary measures to improve the 

quality of students' thesis topic selection. 

 Develop standardized evaluation criteria for music graduation theses. The reference 

to different regions, different majors, and different experts on the music graduation thesis 



118 

 

evaluation standards of the provisions and suggestions is combined with the characteristics of 

each school to develop a scientific and reasonable music graduation thesis evaluation standard 

(Fuxiao, 2012; Fuxiao, 2016; Fuxiao, 2018; Fuxiao, 2020a; Fuxiao, 2020b). Give quantitative 

assigned points for each evaluation point of view sub-item refinement and change the 

impressionism score of the overall total score. And according to the evaluation standard’s 

reverse derivation, develop the corresponding music essay writing curriculum content. 

 Some colleges only offer writing lectures or elective thesis writing courses for a few 

weeks and are unable to teach the content of music thesis writing systematically. There should 

be a full academic year (2 semesters) of music thesis writing courses, whether or not you 

graduate as a thesis. It can be set in the 6-7 semesters for undergraduate students and the 2-3 

semesters for graduate students. According to the evaluation criteria of the thesis and the 

concept of outcomes-based education, the goal-oriented design of teaching course content can 

effectively train students' thinking logic and academic research ability. 

 Explore the "dual tutor" system of major + theory. In music colleges and universities, 

music performance teachers mostly focus on practice and skilled stage performance, while 

music theory teachers mostly focus on academic theoretical research. can carry out a 

professional + theory "dual supervisor" thesis guidance system. In this way, the optimal 

allocation of teaching resources can be realized, and the students' professional knowledge and 

theoretical knowledge can be fully guided (Goold et.al., 2010). 
 Thesis supervisors should constantly improve their own academic accumulation and 

broaden their academic horizons, not limited to the performance and singing itself, but also 

the need to strengthen theoretical learning and academic renewal (Yuan, 2014; Liang, 2020). 
The individual guidance teacher's own field of vision is limited, and just appears to guide 

topic selection to repeat, topic selection obsolete, and so on. Research advisors should also 

give more research to other types of research and writing, which can not only guide work 

analysis and technical analysis research but also review and comment on research, data 

analysis research, teaching experiments, empirical speculation, investigation reports, and 

other research (Limin, 2014). 
 This improves students' research abilities and broadens their academic horizons. 

There is still a certain gap between Chinese universities and American universities in terms of 

classroom challenges, autonomy, and in-depth research. Baosheng (2018)According to the 

requirements of the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China on "Taking the 

Foundation as the Foundation and Returning to the Fou", it is necessary to reasonably 

"increase the burden" on college students, improve the degree of academic challenge of 

college students, reasonably increase the difficulty of courses, expand the depth of courses, 

and strictly control the exit, so as to truly reflect the connotation construction and quality 

improvement in the learning results of each student (Kewen & Sha, 2006).  

 Music major students should pay attention to the reading and accumulation of music 

literature in the daily learning process, broaden their academic horizons, take the initiative to 

conduct in-depth research, actively participate in academic lectures, be good at discovering 

problems, and solving problems through different research methods (Yao & Jizhou, 2021; 

Junrui & Suyang, 2022). Students should not only pay attention to the innovation of topic 

selection but also pay attention to the development of discipline and social progress. They 

should find a suitable topic through practice and study, and write high-quality theses that meet 

the requirements. 

 Strengthened subject selection guidance and improved process supervision. It can 

establish the thesis database of the school and the speciality over the years. The organizing 

teachers have to carry out quantitative analysis of previous topics and make statistics of the 

distribution map (Zhaojin & Yongan, 2022). The study on quantity, and trend of topics in 

various fields, it can guide students to expand their horizons, avoid the repetition of topics, 



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and conduct research in blank fields, cross fields, and emerging fields. It is a perfect the whole 
process of topic selection, writing, guidance, modification, and defense, and strengthen the 

supervision and management of the process (Li et.al., 2021). 
 However, the benefit of this study lies in that we can master the quality of music 

students and the status of graduation thesis, get the factors that affect the quality of the thesis, 

and stablish a thesis evaluation criterion suitable for music performance majors that can 

provide reference and guidance for music undergraduate graduation thesis. It can put forward 

beneficial suggestions on teaching reform and, finally, effectively improve the level of the 

graduation thesis of a music performance major (Qinru, 2016; Panchao, 2018).   

 

5. CONCLUSION 

 This study conducted quantitative research on bachelor's and master's theses in music 

performance. The author analyzes the structure, content, quality, and existing problems in the 

thesis. Through information and recommendations that play a role in the establishment of 

music thesis assessment standards, reform of music thesis curricula, and supervision of 

students in the completion of the music thesis writing process, it continues to specialize in 

music and also hopes to provide references for music performance tutors. On the basis of this 

research, it was found that the title and content were in a narrow group focusing on music 

practice studies, an initial analysis of music after developing knowledge integration and 

innovation, research and literacy skills, and a thesis, which directly affected the title to the 

format of the thesis book, with factors affecting In terms of choosing a major, the level of 

understanding of the advisors, the importance of educational institutions, lack of relevant 

courses, students’ educational level, and students' writing attitude all play a role. It was 

requested that the various observations be developed into criteria for evaluating music theses, 

curriculum reform, and music thesis experiments. This is in order to be a manual for writing 

science in the future and contribute to the problems found, as well as additional research by 

the authors and other experts. 

 

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