The perceptions of non music staff and senior management of the impact of the implementation of the Musical Futures approach on the whole school

This research aimed to provide an account of the impact of the Musical Futures approach on the wider school community in Musical Futures ‘Champion Schools’. Questionnaires were completed by 344 non-music teachers. Interviews were undertaken with members of senior management teams. The majority of staff indicated that Musical Futures had had a positive impact on student motivation, well-being, self-esteem and confidence and had encouraged students to work together. There was less agreement that it had improved student concentration, organisation and students’ attitudes towards learning and academic progression. The interviews provided deeper insights into the issues relating to implementation

What impact does teaching music informally in the classroom have on teachers, and their pedagogy?

The aim of this research was to explore the impact of the adoption of the Musical Futures (MF) approach on secondary school music teachers working in MF Champion schools. The research took place over 3 years in 3 phases with 28 teachers completing questionnaires exploring the impact on their confidence, skills and pedagogy and 30 being interviewed individually. Data from the interviews provided greater insights into the questionnaire responses. Most teachers reported that MF had helped them to become a more effective teacher, more confident in teaching music and had increased their enjoyment. MF changed the nature of teaching and learning with a more student-led approach being adopted. Managing this workshop approach on a daily basis, for some teachers, was exhausting and stressful. Overall, the adoption of the MF approach had a wide range of benefits for teachers but there were issues relating to the logistics of managing small group work

Can the adoption of informal approaches to learning music in school music lessons promote musical progression?

The aim of this research was to explore the impact of the adoption of the Musical Futures approach on the musical progression of students in Musical Futures’ Champion schools. The research took place over three years in three phases with 733 students and 28 music teachers completing questionnaires. Data from the interviews with 39 staff and focus groups of 325 students provided greater insights into the questionnaire responses. Overall, teachers reported that Musical Futures had enhanced the musical progression of their students and increased take up at Key Stage 4. In some cases this had led to changes in the qualifications on offer with an emphasis on those which were vocational rather than academic. This created some tensions in catering for the needs of different groups of students who had a range of different musical skills

Teachers’ perceptions of the impact on students of the Musical Futures approach

Music education has faced considerable challenges in trying to bridge the gap between music in young people's lives and that taking place in the classroom. The ‘Musical Futures’ (MF) initiative aimed to devise new and imaginative ways of engaging young people, aged 11–19, in music activities through a process of informal learning based on popular music. This research aimed to explore teachers’ perceptions of the impact of adopting the MF approach on students’ learning and attainment. Twenty-eight music teachers completed questionnaires and 30 were interviewed. The majority of music staff agreed that since doing MF, students demonstrated higher levels of attainment, greater enjoyment of and positive attitudes towards music lessons, enhanced musical and performance skills, team working, concentration, confidence, listening skills, musical understanding and independent learning

Gender differences in musical motivation at different levels of expertise

Recently, models have been developed that recognise the complexity of motivation. These set out the interactions that occur between environmental (cultural, institutional, familial, educational) and internal factors (cognition and affect) enhancing or reducing motivation. Despite this we know very little about gender differences in motivation in relation to playing an instrument. The current study aimed to address this issue, exploring gender differences in motivation and whether these changed as expertise developed. A total of 3325 children ranging in level of expertise from beginner through to Grade 8 level in independent instrumental music examinations completed a questionnaire that included a seven-point Likert scale with statements exploring different aspects of motivation. A principal components analysis was undertaken and six factors emerged: support and social affirmation; social life and enjoyment of musical activities; enjoyment of performing; self-beliefs; enjoyment of lessons, playing and practise; and disliking practise. The only statistically significant gender difference was in relation to self-beliefs with the boys consistently scoring higher. Further research is needed to establish why this is the case. The findings have major implications for education

Relationships between practice, motivation, and examination outcomes

While there has been a great deal of research on instrumental practice and the nature of motivation to engage with music making, there has been relatively little that has considered the relationship of these with instrumental examination outcomes. This research aimed to address this issue. A total of 2,131 young musicians, aged 6–19, across a wide range of expertise, with a range of examination outcomes responded to a series of statements on a 7-point Likert scale relating to practice and motivation. Those merely awarded a pass grade in their examinations tended to undertake the least practice. Factor analysis revealed seven factors relating to practice and six to motivation. Multivariate analysis of variance showed that there were statistically significant differences between those with different examination outcomes in relation to the organization of practice, the use of recordings and the metronome, the adoption of analytic strategies, social life, and self-belief in musical ability. Students who received merely a pass grade in their examination responded least positively to these statements. Those who had failed were most likely to adopt ineffective practice strategies and were less likely to enjoy performing, playing, lessons, and practice. The findings are discussed in relation to earlier research

Are there differences in practice depending on the instrument played?

There has been little research on instrument differences in the length and nature of instrumental practice or how these may interact with level of expertise. This paper aimed to address this issue. A total of 3,325 young people ranging in level of expertise from beginner to the level required for entry to higher education conservatoire completed a questionnaire which consisted of a number of statements relating to time spent practicing, practicing strategies, organization of practice, and motivation to practice with a seven-point rating scale. Data were analyzed in relation to nine levels of expertise. Factor analysis revealed seven factors which were used to make comparisons between those playing different classical instruments. The findings showed that those playing keyboard instruments practiced the most, followed by strings, brass, and woodwind. There were relatively few statistically significant instrument differences in practice strategies. Where there were differences it was the woodwind players who tended to adopt less effective strategies. There were some interactions between level of expertise and practice which generally showed no clear patterns suggesting complexity in the development of musical expertise in relation to different instruments. The findings are discussed in terms of possible reasons for these differences

Comparison of System Call Representations for Intrusion Detection

Over the years, artificial neural networks have been applied successfully in many areas including IT security. Yet, neural networks can only process continuous input data. This is particularly challenging for security-related non-continuous data like system calls. This work focuses on four different options to preprocess sequences of system calls so that they can be processed by neural networks. These input options are based on one-hot encoding and learning word2vec or GloVe representations of system calls. As an additional option, we analyze if the mapping of system calls to their respective kernel modules is an adequate generalization step for (a) replacing system calls or (b) enhancing system call data with additional information regarding their context. However, when performing such preprocessing steps it is important to ensure that no relevant information is lost during the process. The overall objective of system call based intrusion detection is to categorize sequences of system calls as benign or malicious behavior. Therefore, this scenario is used to evaluate the different input options as a classification task. The results show, that each of the four different methods is a valid option when preprocessing input data, but the use of kernel modules only is not recommended because too much information is being lost during the mapping process.Comment: 12 pages, 1 figure, submitted to CISIS 201