Perceptions of beginning teachers, their mentors, and administrators regarding preservice music teacher preparation

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the preservice music teacher preparation program at a large midwestern university(in this article called 'BTU' for "Big Ten University') through an examination of the perceptions of beginning teachers and their mentors and administrators. Primary research participants included seven first-year teachers from BTU's class of 1999 and seven first-year teachers from the class of 2000. Data from these participants included individual interviews, focus group interviews, teacher journals, classroom observations by the researcher, mentor interviews, administrator interviews, and responses on an open-ended 'End-of-Year Questionnaire'. In addition, secondary participants (n=11) completed the End-of-Year Questionnaire regarding their first-year experiences and the teacher preparation program. Results and discussion include descriptions of the perceptions regarding the most valuable parts of preparation and the least valuable parts of preparation, as well as suggestions for preservice teacher preparation made by teachers, mentors, administrators, and the researcher. Issues of validity of results and transferability of findings to other settings are discussed in addition to possible implications for teacher education and music education program evaluation research.