ASSESSMENT OF PARTICIPATION OR MUSICALITY: PILOT STUDY AMONG ESTONIAN MUSIC TEACHERS

The purpose of this study was to analyse what Estonian music teachers assess in music lesson and to what extent is it connected with their notion of musicality. A questionnaire was used to collect the data, which was compiled by the authors of the current study, the results of which were quantitatively analysed. Altogether 61 music teachers from all over Estonia participated in the study. It was found that music teachers primarily consider characteristics of musicality: sense of rhythm, ability to sing, and other traditional musical skills and their development. In addition, creativity is highly appreciated, but treated more like a slogan and in fact teachers do not know what they are assessing under the banner of creativity. It is also important to notice that music teachers assess visible musical activities as output giving evidence of musicality (“I assess what I see”). That means that receptive musical activities (i.e. listening to music) and general responsiveness to music are left aside when assessing pupils' musicality. The current study proved the necessity to understand musicality more widely in socio-cultural context than solely musical skills and highlighted the need for harmonising the assessment criteria and notions among teachers.