Student teachers’ conceptions of creativity in the secondary music classroom

Thinking Skills and Creativity 6 (2011) 100–113

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Student teachers’ conceptions of creativity in the secondary music classroom Dimitra Kokotsaki ∗ School of Education, University of Durham, Leazes Road, Durham DH1 1TA, United Kingdom

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history: Received 21 April 2010 Received in revised form 14 February 2011 Accepted 19 April 2011 Available online 13 May 2011 Keywords: Creativity Conceptions Student teachers Music education Secondary education

a b s t r a c t This study aims to explore the meaning of the concept of creativity from the perspective of student teachers pursuing a one year teacher training course following their first degree. Seventeen student teachers following a specialist music teaching route in secondary education were selected as the sample for this study to offer their understanding on creativity in the secondary music classroom. Data were collected through questionnaires and semi-structured interviews and were subject to in-depth qualitative analysis using Atlas.ti software. All student teachers seemed eager to teach for creativity as they thought it was a vital component of their pupils’ musical engagement and development. However, some held richer conceptions than others or tended to overlook significant areas of musical involvement, such as improvisation, group work and engagement in evaluating and refining the creative musical product. Creativity was generally expected but it would emerge on an intuitive level as a by-product of a learning objective rather than being explicitly considered in the planning process. These narrow conceptions of the meaning of creativity in the music classroom need to be taken seriously and explicitly addressed in music education programs in order to maximize the expression of pupils’ creative potential in the music classroom and beyond. © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction ‘Creative adults develop from creative children. Creative people change the world’ (Balkin, 1990) Creativity has been described as a ‘slippery’ concept (Philpott, 2001) and even though it is valued as a fundamental human capacity, its underlying structures and perceived impact remain vague and ‘elusive’ (Burnard, 2006). Promoting creativity in education is recognized as important (consider, for instance, its central role within the new music National Curriculum: QCDA, 2007), yet relatively little research has been conducted on creative processes in music (Hallam, 2006). Boden (1990) has argued that young people’s creative endeavours can be differentiated into ‘p-creative’ and ‘h-creative’ acts, having psychological and historical connotations respectively. The latter is associated with the ‘traditional’ concept of creativity (Odena, 2001) or Craft’s (2001) ‘big C’ creativity, where creative products have been widely recognized and accepted as being of exceptional quality. The psychological aspects of creativity may not have historical significance but are new and personal to the child and are frequent occurrences in the music classroom. According to Odena and Welch (2009), creativity, in this case, can be defined as ‘imagination successfully manifested in any valued pursuit’ (p. 417).

∗ Tel.: +44 0191 334 8410/4219. E-mail address: [email protected] 1871-1871/$ – see front matter © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.tsc.2011.04.001

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Musical creativity can be demonstrated through composition and improvisation which are regarded as the main activities for generating new ideas in music; however, music listening and performance have been considered in more recent research as additional forms of creative behaviour (Dunn, 1997; Koutsoupidou & Hargreaves, 2009; Reimer, 1989). Composition and improvisation both refer to the act of creating new music, however, their essential distinction lies in the intent or lack of intent to revise the created music. In composition, in particular, the musical product is revised to suit the composer’s intentions, whereas the improvised piece is the spontaneous creation of music which does not involve the intent to revise (Brophy, 2001). In other words, ‘musical sounds made during improvising form the resultant musical product, and it is not possible to go back and revise the product, as can be done while composing’ (Kratus, 1995, p. 27). In his seven-stage theory of improvisational development, Kratus (1995) described the process of moving from the first stage of exploration where there is little control over the performing medium or the musical materials towards subsequent stages where sounds are used in a more tightly structured context and where stylistic and personal approaches to improvising can be developed. Improvisations of some twelve-year-olds have shown evidence of the beginning of the fifth stage of ‘structural improvisation’ (Moore, 1989, cited in Brophy, 2001). This echoes Swanwick’s (1988) stage of imaginative play in children’s development and, in particular, the speculative and idiomatic developmental modes which, judging from the compositions of 9–14 year old children, involve imaginative deviation and considerable experimentation as there is an apparent desire to explore structural possibilities and contrast or vary established musical ideas. In recent years, the perception of creativity as being achievable only by a limited number of talented people has shifted towards a more democratic definition according to which everyone can be creative in some area given the right conditions and support (NACCCE, 1999). Creativity, in general, and more specifically improvisation, as a certain form of creative behaviour, has been defined as a learnable and teachable high-level skill (Balkin, 1990) that can develop with learning, practice and experience (Koutsoupidou & Hargreaves, 2009). Fautley (2005) developed a model of composing in the lower secondary school focusing on the group dimension of composing. The creative process can generally be described as the thinking that takes place as a person is planning to construct a creative product. This is defined as an active, constructed (Webster, 2002) and dynamic mental process which swings between convergent (factual) and divergent (imaginative) thinking (Webster, 1990) with creativity closely related to the latter. Divergent thinking, in particular, includes qualities such as musical extensiveness which refers to the number of ideas generated through open-ended questions, flexibility and originality (Swanwick & Tillman, 1986). Originality was the most commonly mentioned criterion for assessing creativity in Zbainos and Anastasopoulou (2008) study followed by eagerness, co-operation and pupils’ effort which describe social skills rather than creative behaviours. In addition, a significant component of creative growth is the development of the decision-making process which helps connections to be made ‘where connections were not previously apparent’ – the heart of creativity is about ‘connections, connections, and connections’ (Balkin, 1990, p. 30). Balkin (1990) and Kratus (1990) defined creativity in music and creative learning by focusing on its components, the ‘three Ps of the creativity equation’ (Balkin, 1990), the person, the process and the product, in an attempt to help educationalists to generate specific goals and objectives for creative learning. Jeffrey and Woods (2009) added a physical component referring to the place (the fourth P) where creative learning is situated and which can promote a sense of ownership and belonging. Kratus (1990) believes that a creative person can bring forth personal traits such as originality (producing unusual or uncommon responses), fluency (producing a number of responses to a problem) and flexibility (producing responses that are different from each other) to enable engagement in the activities of composing, improvising and performing music. Fluency, flexibility and originality are three of the four scales (the fourth one is elaboration, i.e. the amount of detail in the responses) that form part of Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking as they were first developed in 1966 (in Kyung, 2006). These personal qualities echo Webster’s (1990) ‘enabling skills’ which include musical aptitudes, conceptual understanding, craftsmanship and aesthetic sensitivity, in short, any personal characteristics, musical background and knowledge which facilitate the creative process. The creative process starts with an idea or intention and finishes with a creative product. The four stages of Wallas’ (1926) creative thinking – preparation, incubation, illumination and verification – have often been used to talk about engagement in the creative process and show how an initial idea or intention can develop and lead to a creative product. The creative process becomes functional, however, within an enabling, ‘scaffolding’ environment (Sawyer, 2006), where the teacher, for instance, might set up initial boundaries and provide certain material for pupils to use during the creative activity (Wilson, 2001), or decide that a balanced interdependence of constraints and freedom (Burnard & Younker, 2002) might work better in some cases in helping pupils think more imaginatively and make the most appropriate aesthetic choices. Exploration, improvisation, composition and creative performance are the four types of creative activity that pupils are expected to engage in as part of the process objectives, according to Kratus (1990). Finally, musical products could be analysed on the basis of how musical elements or musical principles such as repetition, development and contrast, are used in an original way (Kratus, 1990). A key element of the creative product is that it cannot be predetermined by the teacher and, therefore, its exact nature can be largely unpredictable. This seems to contribute to the difficulty in assessing originality when referring to pupils’ music making (NACCCE, 1999). A vital stage, however, after the completion of the musical product is the evaluation or reflection phase where the musical product is verified and assessed by both the teacher and the pupil that created the piece of work. The aim is that by reflecting on and evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of the musical product against the initial objectives, pupils can move to the next cycle of creating music with renewed knowledge and understanding, and make effective musical progress as a result. Balkin (1990) has emphasised

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this talking about the ‘re’ factor: ‘The creative person must continually rethink, reconsider, replace, refine, redo, reaffirm, reprocess, rewrite, and reconceptualise’ (p. 32). 1.1. Rationale for the present study The meaning ascribed to creativity by classroom teachers is vital in its effective implementation as the way creativity is taught will be highly dependent on teachers’ ability to recognize, understand and support pupils’ creativity (Cropley, 2001). Recognizing the powerful impact conceptions of creativity can have on the way it is actually manifested in the classroom, recent research studies have explored student teachers’ conceptions of creativity in different school subjects. These studies revealed that even though student teachers held some promising concepts of creativity overall, the evidence also showed some narrow and inadequate conceptions. In primary school science, for example, student teachers are likely to overlook the construction of explanations in favour of a narrow focus on fact-finding investigations, practical activity and technological design (Newton & Newton, 2009) and these conceptions are shared to some extent by qualified science teachers (Newton & Newton, 2010). In maths, student teachers often have a narrow view of creativity associating it primarily with the use of resources and new technology in an attempt to create a ‘fun’ environment (Bolden, Harries, & Newton, 2010) whereas in English, student teachers were found to neglect areas rich in creative potential such as analytical thinking, critical questioning, reflection and problem solving (Howell, 2008). In music, some recent studies have attempted to address the scarcity of research on what creativity means and how it might be perceived by music teachers (Crow, 2008; Odena, 2001; Odena & Welch, 2009; Zbainos & Anastasopoulou, 2008). Odena and Welch (2009) developed a generative model of teachers’ thinking on musical creativity arguing that teachers’ perceptions of musical creativity are influenced by their prior in-school and out-of-school experiences and can be modified through their constant interaction within the teaching environment. Zbainos and Anastasopoulou (2008) found that composition was the least implemented creative activity in the secondary music classroom. In addition, singing and performing were often replaced by music theory and history, particularly by more experienced teachers. In contrast, teachers with less professional experience tended to engage pupils in more creative-oriented activities. In the same study, teachers were found to approach creative activities rather vaguely through their instinct and common sense resulting in music creativity being perceived as an ambiguous, subjective and inherent skill which cannot be taught to all children. Creativity, therefore, was perceived in an implicit, intuitive way rather than being explicitly linked to teachers’ knowledge and experience. Crow (2008) was interested to find out what student teachers, in particular, value in a discourse that involves musical creativity. The study’s participants described the bulk of their creative work in the music classroom as being related to composition or performance with a few respondents valuing ‘analysing’ or ‘aural’ activities as being creative. Improvisation was mentioned by a surprisingly small number of respondents. Engagement in musical creativity was mainly appreciated for the development of pupils’ self-expression and social skills, such as working with others, in addition to the promotion of musical understanding and musical skills. Creative behaviour seems to be correlated with levels of optimal experience, with a sense of satisfaction in individual and group work (MacDonald, Byrne, & Carlton, 2006). As Csikszentmihalyi (1998) maintains, creativity brings about an inner experience of fulfilment not only in intellectual, emotional and physical terms but also as far as the quality of communication with other people is concerned. In particular, according to Ansdell (1995), ‘in contrast to being limited, dull and stuck, the experience of being creative involves a motivation and an energy (that we sometimes call inspiration)’ (p. 104). Moreover, the creativity of an idea or product is not evaluated by reference to its own qualities, but in terms of the effect it is able to produce in others who are exposed to it (Csikszentmihalyi, 1998). Creativity, therefore, according to Csikszentmihalyi, is a phenomenon that emerges through an interaction between producer and audience. Moore (1990), for instance, urges educators to encourage their pupils to spend more time and effort in creating musical products that would be satisfying to other listeners as the perception of an audience can make ‘fragmented experiments’ develop into ‘successful compositions’. 2. Methodology The aim of the study was to explore the meaning of the concept of creativity from the perspective of student teachers pursuing a one year PGCE (Post-Graduate Certificate in Education) course in secondary music teaching following their first degree. Seventeen music student teachers studying at the University of Durham during the academic year 2007–2008 agreed to take part in the research. The age of participants ranged from 21 to 28 years and they were mostly (13 student teachers, 77%) from a classical musical background with four student teachers coming from music departments which emphasised popular musical styles. Student teachers were selected as the sample for this study to offer their understanding on creativity in the secondary music classroom at the very start of their music teaching career. Their conceptions on the meaning attributed to the concept of creativity and its potential uses and implementation in the music classroom were explored. Data were collected through questionnaires and interviews were carried out with all participants. They were first asked to complete a questionnaire after having taught music full-time in two different secondary schools for about ten weeks overall (student teachers are required to teach about thirteen full-time weeks during the academic year). It was anticipated that the amount of time they had spent teaching would have shaped their conceptions and personal understanding of implementing creativity in their teaching.

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Phenomenography has been chosen as the most appropriate research method for the study as it provides useful analytic tools for describing awareness or ways of experiencing a particular phenomenon (Marton & Booth, 1997). In line with the main premise of phenomenography, the aim of the study was to enter the student teachers’ lifeworld and understand the various meanings they would ascribe to the concept of creativity in its implementation in the secondary music classroom. Participants first completed a questionnaire where they were asked, in the form of open-ended questions, to give an account of the nature of creative thought in music from their point-of-view and the place that creativity holds in their teaching and their pupils’ learning. To help elicit specific answers, participants were prompted to specify particular teaching examples which would involve musical creativity and ascertain which particular features were creative in those examples. The purpose of the questionnaires was twofold. On the one hand, the responses helped provide more focus as interesting issues raised by participants were followed up in the subsequent interviews in depth and, on the other, participants were given ‘maximum opportunity to reflect’ with the interview questions emerging out of the interest to obtain a clear picture of participants’ own experience rather than be influenced by the researcher’s own assumptions about the phenomenon (Ashworth & Lucas, 2000). Therefore, semi-structured interviews with pre-identified prompts for each participant to help probe their thinking further were then conducted. Each interview lasted approximately thirty minutes. An ‘empathic’ style of listening (Ashworth & Lucas, 2000) was adopted during the interview where an attempt was made for any predetermined views held by the researcher to be minimized. This was achieved by making a conscious attempt during the interview to encourage participants to describe the range of meanings that constituted their creativity conceptions rather than bringing the interview to a premature closure on the basis of the researcher’s personal knowledge and belief. In addition, no specific objectives had been identified prior to the data collection and analysis stages in order for participants’ range of meanings and viewpoints to be received and examined with an open and flexible mindset. The interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim prior to analysis in order to maintain closeness to the meaning of the data and preserve the participants’ own words. This is good practice in phenomenographic research (Åkerlind, 2005). The analytic focus, therefore, were the interview transcripts which were analysed using Atlas.ti, a software package for the analysis of qualitative data (Muhr, 1997). The first step in the analytic process was to examine closely each individual transcript by giving names and coding the emergent phenomena in the data. Each individual interview was then compared with the remaining interviews in an attempt to find similarities and differences in student teachers’ perceptions. After all transcripts were coded, similar events and happenings were grouped under a common heading or classification. The concepts that seemed to apply to the same phenomenon were then grouped together. This categorising process led to the emergence of ‘categories of description’ (Marton, 1981) to represent analytically the number of different ways of experiencing the phenomenon of creative thinking in the music classroom. This was a strongly iterative and comparative process in line with the phenomenographic analytic method (Åkerlind, 2005); data were continuously sorted and resorted, and constant comparisons between the data and the emerging categories of description took place. The final categories and their dimensions are presented in Table 1 with supporting quotes from individual interviews. However, in order to maintain focus on the collective experience, the findings from each individual case are then located within the context of the group of meanings as a whole (Table 2) to present in a holistic way the various layers of meanings assigned to the concept of creativity by these student teachers (Åkerlind, Bowden, & Green, 2005). Finally, an attempt has been made to represent the structure of the ‘outcome space’, to show, in other words, how the categories of description and their component parts represent a structured set which allows the phenomenon under investigation to be viewed holistically (see Fig. 1). As Åkerlind (2005) has put it, ‘the outcomes represent the full range of possible ways of experiencing the phenomenon in question, at this particular point in time, for the population represented by the sample group collectively’ (p. 323). To ensure reliability, a dialogic reliability check has been conducted where the researcher’s interpretative hypotheses were discussed with a colleague with expertise on student teachers’ conceptions of creativity and agreement was reached through mutual critique of the data. In addition, as suggested by Entwistle (1997), phenomenographic research needs to be judged in terms of its value in generating worthwhile insights into teaching and learning. The study’s findings are useful in understanding how student teachers conceive of and make use of creativity in the music classroom, and they will have, therefore, important practical implications for the education of music teachers and the professional development of qualified music teachers in secondary education. All names have been changed to ensure anonymity.

3. Findings Participants’ conceptions on creativity fall within the four categories of composing, improvising, listening and performing and are presented below. Table 1 provides examples from the interviews and the number of respondents making responses in each category.

3.1. Composing Creativity in composing was conceived as being related to aspects of the creative idea, the creative process and the creative product as described in this section.

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Table 1 Student-teachers’ conceptions of musical creativity in the secondary classroom. Sub-categories and number of participants

Example quotations

Composing – 17 Creative idea – 15 Composition task using a stimulus/structure – 15

Having the film on the screen and trying to play music to fit the scene Combining art and music: it was just year 7s and I wanted them to look at a painting or a picture and think about the ideas and emotions that that picture conjures, what was happening in the picture, and then they composed some music to go with the picture and the teacher thought that it would be abstract for them and too difficult a concept to grasp, they had to transfer something from one art form into another; but it worked really well actually and came up with really good composition The practical element, they had a set structure I suppose but within that structure they had to think up their own sounds to represent the train. So in that sense they had the image and they had to create the sound from that image of the train but at the same time they had to create that image themselves as well so it was kind of doubly creative. . .

Creative process – 17 Experimenting – 10

Self expression/using imagination – 13

Thinking – 10

Decision making – 7

Group work – 6

It’s obviously experimenting with, instead of on the glockenspiel that they were using, they were just using all the white notes, in all the previous lessons they were playing melodies just using the white notes, they had been experimenting adding in black notes as well and adding in different things, I think that was definitely quite creative because they were doing things. They had stumbled across it just by experimenting with different things, you know, there was another group that had like a bongo drum and they were trying to create this sad piece and one of them suddenly scratched the head of the drum and they liked that sound so they kept scratching the head of the drum that was creating a sort of. . . distant wind kind of sound and again it was just purely by accident but maybe it was either messing about in some pupils’ eyes but they had been experimenting with different things and again that was quite creative instead of them just tapping out a slow rhythm or things like that, they had used an instrument in a different way than probably what most of the rest of the class would ever think of doing. . . I think that’s the creative part, experimenting with the music and the sounds and the keyboard, like if it’s spooky they use chromatic notes and then they change the sound to like an organ, I think that is quite creative instead of just keeping a certain setting and it’s on piano, they experimented, created like an atmospheric piece. It may be somebody who has ideas that weren’t obvious, you know, that you could tell that they’d used their imagination to think up the story behind something, and then used that story to actually think how their music was going to be structured or made up. . . Maybe children being able to express a certain emotion through an instrument and using that instrument in various ways to express a different emotion, even just happy or sad or scary. . . .they weren’t using the same word over and over again, they’d put some thought into using texture, into using things like that so it didn’t sound boring, they’d put some thought into how it was gonna sound and how they would perform it. I hadn’t thought about it before, but I’ve said a few times ‘he’s creative or she is creative’ I think really it’s the way they’re thinking that gets them thinking that they’re creative. Well, I suppose a lot is that they’re asked a question and say, students who have explored more tend to ask questions and say ‘could I do this’ or ‘would it be possible to do this’ rather than sort of saying ‘is this ok?’, you know, they ask what they can do with it rather than asking if what they’ve done is all right, does that make sense? Actually deciding upon how to structure the melody, which notes to use, how to decide to go higher or lower and which instruments to write for as well. It was deciding what words they were going to put where, deciding how they were going to play it, how they were going to say the words, whether they were going to be loud, quiet, just basically having control over what was happening in that composition. After they’ve got the basics, they’ve got that chord and the melody notes that fit and then they start having passing notes in, making the melody more exciting or making the melody their own and they start having the dynamics and then another melody line and they build it up bit by bit, changing it how they want to. . . What I tend to say is that ‘you have to go together and if one person has an idea, you all have to listen and then you all have to try it out and if it doesn’t work, then it doesn’t work, and if it does work, then you use it’ and if another person has an idea, you then all have to listen again and go through that process. . . I think if you are in a group work, for somebody who is very creative, they can often suggest something to other people, they can often drag ideas out of the other ones who may not want to say what they are thinking, but if you get someone who is quite creative, they might say ‘what do YOU think?’, ‘what do you think of this’, ‘why are we given this’, somebody who is more of a leader in a group, so I think it depends what group they are put it. . . . so I think if they’re working in a group, they need one person who could be seen as quite creative, just sometimes get the others moving, get them working.

Creative product – 14 Own Creation – 9

It was interesting to see, a lot of them had similar stories with similar characters but all the outcomes were really different, and I think that shows that they must be creative because of their individual. . . each person has got a different thing, a different end product. I think creativity is quite personal, what you think as being creative is different to what someone else might think. I think that sorts of proves creativity there.

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Table 1 (Continued) Sub-categories and number of participants

Originality – 9

Variety/unpredictability – 8

Communicating creative intention – 4

Example quotations It requires you to use something other than what you might have read or you might have learnt from somebody else, it requires something of your own self I think put into, especially in composing, in performing as well. It requires something of yourself, not just rote learning or regurgitating something that you’ve read or learnt, it comes from within I think. They had been working together for three or four weeks and you could see that, some of them came up with things that were brilliant and hadn’t come from me, they came from themselves, little melodies that they composed, I think they were very creative. Being quite individual about it I guess, trying something new, not necessarily something new in the scope of music but new to yourself, in schools anyway pupils being creative is trying something they haven’t tried before, maybe opening up their ideas, opening up their mind to a different style of music that they haven’t been familiar or comfortable with. I would probably give the highest marks to somebody who would have done something completely original, like not copied off what they’ve heard previously or used ideas from that, someone that’s been really inventive and done something. . . One pupil in my diagnostic school, they were composing Pavane and her name was Rebecca and she took the letters of her name, B E C C A and did that into a Pavane all the way through and I gave her really high marks cause I said like Shostakovich does that and things and I thought that was really creative I thought using her name as the melody. I had all the different words representing different sounds on the drum, so that was using timbre, so if they used lots of words and they were using lots of different sounds whereas if they just used one word all the way through, it was quite boring, it was the same sound over and over again so I said that was like one element of it. Em. . . creative thought. . . just a wide range of things in the piece, different sounds, different instruments, I mean we had some people who weren’t just hitting the drum, they were hitting the side of the drum with the stick of the beater as well, . . . and people who are turning the volume up and down on the keyboard, not just turning on and playing ‘that’s the volume’, just using different parameters and I think you can tell creative thinking that way. . . There’s some of them that just daren’t use their voice because they just don’t have the confidence, but in their head they’d be able to think up loads of brilliant things but they don’t have the confident to put it across so. . . Yeah, again it’s having like the tools to be able to express yourself. You might be potentially a very creative person but not have the access to be able to. . . or the skills or the tools to be able to show it, or the confidence. It might be (inside there) but you might not have the confidence to show it so somebody might assume that you are not a very creative person, but you might have a lot of potential, creativity. . .

Listening – 9

Using imagination to invoke and share different feelings and ideas – 8

I think to some degree listening because I find that lots of children listen to the same piece of music but they can all come up with different ideas of what they think is happening, or if you ask them to imagine, ‘what do you imagine when you hear is piece of music’, some of them come up with really different things, and I think it’s because they draw upon their own interests and on what they are most inclined to think about and their own feelings and emotions, and it can spark off different thoughts in different people. But then some listening, it depends with the listening task is very prescribed and very specific, you know, which instrument is this, listening tasks are like that, aren’t they, they are more specific than maybe tasks where they are asked to listen to something and describe what’s happening and what it makes them imagine. . . What is creative about listening to music? It’s the way you can interpret it, like imagining what it can be describing and things like that. I think composition is quite creative as well, creating your own piece of music but I don’t think listening is quite as creative because you just listen to what somebody else has already done and you form your own opinion; I think the only way to be creative is to say what your opinion is whereas with composition and performance you have to have your opinion but then you can take it further by changing the performance the way you want it whereas with listening you (can just offer) your opinion, so I don’t think that is as creative. You can be creative with something you are listening to I suppose. How can you be creative in listening? Like what kind of feelings in it stirs up in the end and stuff. What you think about that piece of music can be quite creative. It could inspire. . . . . .and listening as well, I suppose you can be creative when you’re listening to music and appraising and describing it. . . .the sort of words that you use to describe it instead of just saying ‘it was good, I liked it’, one pupil said something about the melancholy of the piece from a year 8 pupil, so you can be creative, expressive as well as creative, in that sense. There is some music I listen to and it just gets so overwhelmed that will make me cry. Equally, somebody else will be like ‘it was ok’ but there will be something that they listen to that really moves them and I suppose everyone feels differently about the same piece of music. But I suppose when in Year 10 upwards, when you are doing listening as well that’s in a way. . . less creative to an extent because it’s based on history and listening but at the same time you can make it creative cause you can think. . . you can answer questions where it’s not just a yes or no answer, it’s not just true or false so, it’s kind of creative in that sense. It’s a different type of creativity to when you’re trying to transcribe your emotion, your expression, your feeling into sound but at the same time it’s still creative because each person is gonna hopefully create a different answer to a question as long as it’s not yes or no.

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Table 1 (Continued) Sub-categories and number of participants

Example quotations

Receiving creatively the creative piece of work – 1

Em, just because all music, like if you are listening to music that already exists, that’s creative because someone had to be creative to make that music, so you have to be creative in listening and appraising something that already exists. I think because you have to think about . . . I don’t know, what you hear and what it means, and think more deeply into the music so it’s not a case of passive listening, you have to sort of be actively involved in it and sort of see it from the perspective of whoever wrote it. If you can get sort of that deep into it, it becomes creative.

Performing – 11 Performing offers the chance for different interpretation – 11 Interpretation I think is a big part of it because it’s very personal and you can do it as an Group Performance – 1 individual but then you can do it as a group and decide together so I think that flexibility comes through music, particularly in performance I think when you’ve got a group performance like that. Because they’re producing that piece, even if it’s a piece that’s already written, that’s Performing own composition – 2 personalised to them, they’ve made it, they might play it really loud or really soft or slow things down, so it’s still creative even though it’s already written. I think maybe composition is probably the most personal because literally everything you do is your own work and then, if possible, you can probably perform it afterwards as well so in many ways a lot of it crosses over. Manipulating structure and musical elements – 8 Performing is creative I think because obviously you’ve got the sheet of music with all the blobs written on it and things, but then how you.. it’s your interpretation of it, so you might think a certain bit needs to sound quite dark or sound mysterious or whatever and then another bit sound much lighter and things but then somebody else might interpret that differently. Putting your own feelings and personality into shaping the music – dynamically. Dynamics, tempo, the way that they interpret it, again they could pick a different instrument to perform a certain piece, obviously not at GCSE, but, you know, within KS3 they could do that and that would be creative. I think performing is almost as creative as composing is, really, cause it’s the way that they sing it, the amount of. . . I don’t know, you sing something and you can either sing it like (ou, ou, ou: bad singing) or you can put loads of effort into it, and, yeah, I’ve said that creativity is so many different things, effort, originality, individual. . . Restricted by the composer’s intentions – 2 Although you can be very very creative with performance, at the end you’ve still got to have some kind of. . . well, in my opinion, you still have to reflect what the composer wants as well so, although you’re being creative, you’ve got to kind of reflect the composer’s creativity. Actually with my year 10 class the other week, they are studying music for dance and the Modern musical styles offer more scope for creativity – 3 listening work that they did and we’ve been doing Night Fever by the Bee Gees, and we did a classroom performance of that and that was really creative and it was totally different to the song and things, and we chose different sounds on the keyboard and stuff, that was really good, . . .not all the girls stuck exactly to the rhythm but it still sounded really good; they chose a different sound on the keyboard to what was written so I think the keyboard part, the girl that did that played it on vibraphone sound on the keyboard, it was really good, so they didn’t want to just stick to what was there, they just wanted to experiment and I think that is a really good aspect to how creativity comes out in music, it’s not the kind of set in stone even with the written music on the page. There would be like examples where you would have notes and rhythms, so there would be an example where you would have just rhythm and you added in your own notes or there would be notes with no rhythm and you’d add your own rhythm, so it was all combined together, he had a set structure but it was just the way that it was set out on the actual page, just the way it actually looked, kind of half showed what sound he wanted from it as well. . . .I suppose it allows the performance to be part of the composer to an extent, so. . .

3.1.1. Creative idea 3.1.1.1. Composition task using a stimulus/structure. This refers to the emergence of the creative idea where the teacher provides pupils with a stimulus, a framework that can be used as a starting point. Here the teacher provides the initial building blocks, the tools that pupils can use to create. Through this process, understanding of the task is also encouraged. According to the student teachers, a balance needs to be struck between providing a rigid, set structure while allowing room for flexibility and development of own ideas. 3.1.2. Creative process 3.1.2.1. Experimenting. This is the first conception that links the creative idea with the creative process. It refers to having developed or being given an initial idea and pupils start exploring different options, different ways of using the instruments in order to realise their idea and create a musical product. This process of experimenting and exploring is not a simple one; it refers to the ability to think outside the box and expressing oneself in order to generate creative ways of reaching the goal of responding to the creative idea/task. Even though one of the student teachers said that his pupils achieved this by accident, it

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Table 2 Student-teachers’ conceptions of musical creativity – individual cases are located within the context of the group of meanings. Participant

8 10 6 4 5 3 1 7 15 2 14 9 12 13 16 11 17

Composing

Improvising

Creative idea

Creative process

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

* * * * * * * * * * *

* * *

*

* *

* * *

* * *

* *

* * * *

*

* *

* * * * *

* * * * * * * * *

* * * * *

*

* * *

* *

* * *

* * *

*

* * *

Performing Chance for different interpretation

11

* *

12

13

14

15

* * * *

17

* * *

* *

*

*

*

* *

*

* *

* *

*

18

*

* * *

16

*

*

* * * *

* *

* *

* * *

*

1: Composition task using a stimulus/structure 2: Experimenting 3: Self-expression/using imagination 4: Thinking 5: Decision making 6: Group work

* * *

*

*

Creative product

* * * *

* *

Listening

7: Own creation 8: Originality 9: Variety/unpredictability 10: Communicating creative intention 11: Improvisation 12: Listening: using imagination to invoke different feelings and ideas

13: Listening: receiving creatively the creative piece of work 14: Group performance 15: Performing own composition 16: Manipulating structure and musical elements 17: Restricted by composer’s intentions 18: Modern musical styles offer more scope for creativity

was in the process of experimenting and trying out different ideas and strategies, so there was something intentional during the process of trying to realise a goal. At the end, these pupils were able to recognize these creative ways which seems to be an important aspect of creativity in the music classroom. 3.1.2.2. Self-expression and using imagination. Being able to use imagination and identify emotions, feelings, thoughts and ideas and expressing these assists the experimentation process where a range of options become available as each person is encouraged to identify and use own preferences through the expression of personal thoughts and feelings. Participants thought that there are as many ways of working on a task as there are people with their own unique ideas and preferences. Music for these student teachers seems a unique subject in allowing pupils to use their imagination and express themselves in the classroom. 3.1.2.3. Thinking – an active and dynamic process. Participants’ creativity conceptions also indicated that pupils who are engaged creatively in composition are able to demonstrate that they have developed deep thought processes while undertaking the task and they have devoted time and effort. They are able to bring in lots of different ideas which are the result of their mental engagement with the task. They have developed, therefore, the mental capacity to use thinking skills effectively in order to produce an interesting (not monotonous or boring as lack of thought or copying would produce) creative piece of work. This is described as an active mental process where pupils are dynamically engaged in exploring options, asking the teacher questions, asking for directions in an attempt to create a clear picture of the outcome and then work towards reaching that goal. The ability to be involved in thoughtful planning in the process of creating a novel and coherent whole is considered to be the highest order thinking skill in Bloom’s revised taxonomy of educational objectives (Krathwohl, 2002). 3.1.2.4. Decision making. Pupils also make small personal choices along the way. This conception refers to the process of scaffolding, where each small step leads to the next. Most importantly, a creative piece of work is one that shows that the pupil has moved away from the teacher’s ideas, from basic ideas that the teacher provided. Instead, they used these as examples to then be engaged in a dynamic process of exploring, thinking, discussing in groups and making decisions. This decision making process signifies having control over the creative process/product, being involved in a constant process of making choices, evaluating and making adjustments to improve and make the composition sound better. 3.1.2.5. Group work. Fewer than half of the students interviewed mentioned the important aspect of creativity work that takes place in groups in the secondary music classroom. Three participants talked more extensively about the learning that

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1. COMPOSING (100%)

Stimulus (65%) Experimenting (59%) Self-expression (77%) Thinking (59%)

Creative Idea (65%)

Decision-making (41%) Group work (35%)

Creative Process (100%)

No

Own Creation (53%) Originality (53%) Variety (47%)

Creative Product (83%)

Group performance (6%)

Performing Own Comp. (12%)

2. PERFORMING (65%) 3. LISTENING (53%)

Right

Communicating Creative Intention (24%)

Manipulating structure (47%)

Restricted by composer (12%)

Modern musical styles (18%)

Or

Chance for Different Interpretation (65%)

Wrong Using imagination to invoke feelings and ideas (48%) Receiving creatively the creative piece of work (6%)

4. IMPROVISING (12%) Fig. 1. The categories of description and their sub-categories represented as a structured set – the ‘outcome space’.

takes place when students work creatively in groups. This conception refers to the process of working together, listening to each other, sharing ideas, making group choices but also how the individual can be encouraged to think more creatively in a group situation. 3.1.3. Creative product 3.1.3.1. Own creation. A significant attribute of the creative product, according to these student teachers is that it is personal and unique to the individual or the individual-as-part-of-the-group that created it. When the product is creative, it ‘comes from within’ – this is contrary to copying, imitating or just repeating something which denotes lack of creativity. 3.1.3.2. Originality. This aspect of the creative product refers to producing a piece of work which shows originality by the individual that produced it in reference to previous work but it could also be the most original one when compared to the rest of the class work. This finding clearly illustrates the distinction between ‘individual’ (original work in relation to previous work and output) and ‘relative’ originality (original in relation to peer group work) as argued in the NACCCE report (1999, p. 32). The former is mostly relevant to individual rather than group work as it refers to a specific student’s effort and amount of work that shows improvement, whereas the latter could also include group work. 3.1.3.3. Variety/unpredictability. This conception exemplifies the creative features of the composition. In addition to being unique to the individual and original, it needs to have variety, include a range of musical elements and techniques rather than being monotonous and, possibly, boring. It can also contain an element of unpredictability where the product deviates from the listener’s expectation. This aspect of creativity in composing echoes a musical performance where the musical

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elements are elaborated to produce slight deviation from the written score that would go against the expectation of the listener. 3.1.3.4. Communicating creative intention. Participants’ final conception in this category refers to the need for the creative product to exist not only in the mind of the creator but it also needs to be communicated and recognized as such. There seems to exist an important difference here between having the potential for creativity and having the tools and confidence to express it. An important feature of music as a subject in secondary school, according to these student teachers, is that there are no right or wrong answers and, therefore, once pupils make this realisation, they can be encouraged to express themselves and experiment freely without constraints and without being conscious of going wrong. This is an important attribute of music making for this group of student teachers which gives music a unique position across the subjects. 3.2. Improvising Improvisation was rarely mentioned. Only two music teachers referred to improvising activities as being particularly creative in the secondary music classroom. In the first comment, the ‘after school club’ was portrayed as a very creative group engaged in ‘spontaneous’ improvisation. However, the student teacher did not follow up on this comment and did not, therefore, elaborate further on the creative nature of improvisation. The second extract comes from a different participant who referred to improvisation as an inherently creative activity where pupils can develop the confidence to be engaged in music making without the fear of making mistakes. ‘Composition always seems to be the easiest one to go to but, yeah, composition lessons and also improvisation as well. The school I am at at the moment, we’ve got like an after school club on a Thursday night and students get together and sort of jam with each other and that’s very creative as well, it’s all very spontaneous.’ ‘(With) improvisation, (you can do) what you want and be as original and as creative as you want, there’s no guidelines at all, just go for it, and it really helps boost their confidence as well using that and they can be creative through that confidence.’ 3.3. Listening Almost half of the study’s participants (53%) discussed the creative elements involved in listening activities in the music classroom. They all agreed that listening is a less creative activity than the actual act of music making (mainly composing and performing) as it is only possible to offer an opinion rather than to actively manipulate the music. However, they thought that when the listening task is open-ended and does not require a single correct answer, it can allow pupils to think and respond creatively to the listening task by producing diverse responses to the same task which are personal to the individual pupil. Perceived elements of this creative response in listening involve pupils using imagination to invoke different ideas and feelings. A few student teachers thought that the same piece of music can have a different emotional appeal to different pupils depending on their background and their own interests and that, therefore, by allowing them to react to music in their own unique way, they are encouraged to think creatively. Creativity, therefore, in listening, seems to be related for these student teachers to varied and unique emotional responses and the potential of open-ended tasks in helping explore and open up avenues of communication about feelings and thoughts relevant to the music. One participant thought that listening becomes a creative activity when the listener can be actively engaged with the music and is able to appreciate the creativity inherent in its production, being able, in other words, to value and meaningfully elaborate the creative piece of work using deeper thought processes. As one student teacher interestingly mentioned, there are as many different ways of responding to the same piece of music as there are different ways of interpreting and performing it. 3.4. Performing A large number of participants (about 65%) thought that performance is a highly creative area of the music curriculum which offers large scope for the expression of pupils’ creativity. These student teachers still felt that composition was the area that offers the best opportunity for creative thought, however, four student teachers (about 25%) could not rank one more highly than the other in terms of creative scope in the music classroom. A few different opinions were brought forth regarding the age at which pupils in the secondary music classroom can be creative in the area of performance. One respondent thought that Key Stage 3 pupils (years 7–9; 11–14 years old) cannot exercise their creativity in performance as they do not have the musical skills to move away from a very basic, simple performance. However, two student teachers thought that performance is a more accessible music making area for the younger pupils as their composition skills are more limited compared to Key Stage 4 pupils (years 10–11, 14–16 years old) even though the viewpoint that younger pupils can perform effectively what they have composed themselves, especially the ones that are not ‘musically literate’, has also been mentioned.

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The overarching conception of creativity within the category of performing seems to be the chance it offers for different interpretation, in other words, different performers would be able to interpret the same piece of music in different ways. According to these student teachers, its most frequent occurrence in the music classroom is when an existing piece of music is performed by one pupil; performing as a group was only mentioned once. In a couple of cases, the issue of performing one’s own composition was interestingly brought up showing how the boundaries between the two musical activities become unclear as the musician adopts both the composer and performer roles. Performance emerges from the interviews as offering the potential for experimenting with what is written on the page as performers can manipulate the given structure and the musical elements to make their own personal contribution to the music. According to the study’s participants, classical music offers some scope for creative interpretation of the composed music, however, the composer’s intentions need to be taken into account. Therefore, even though slight deviation from the written score is not only allowed but also desirable, the performer’s creative interpretation of the written score is restricted by the composer’s own creative intentions. However, more popular musical styles, such as jazz, pop and rock music offer unique performing opportunities in the music classroom as pupils are freer to put their own stamp to the music. They can add more variety to what is already written through, for example, their choice of instruments, adding different parts or just elaborating the musical elements, such as rhythm, dynamics or phrasing, to produce a more interesting and creative performance. A particularly interesting example referred to performing a graphic score, an alternative way of music notation, where the composer can deliberately create an unfinished piece of work expecting the performer to make decisions and complete the music on the basis of personal choice and preference. In this case, the otherwise distinct role of the performer and the composer become almost indistinguishable. 4. Conclusion and discussion All participants seemed eager to ‘teach for creativity’ (NACCCE, 1999) as they thought it was a vital component of their pupils’ musical engagement and development. As most of them had recently completed their music education themselves, they could relate well to the creative aspects of music making and were keen to instil in their pupils the desire for exploration and creative development. In contrast to Zbainos and Anastasopoulou’s (2008) study participants who believed that creativity is an innate characteristic and cannot be taught to all children, these student teachers were confident that all children can develop in creative ways through appropriate instruction and guidance. This different view about democratic creativity held by teachers in the two different cultural contexts (Greece and Britain) has been observed elsewhere with the majority of British teachers holding the view that creativity can be developed (Fryer & Collings, 1991) whereas Greek teachers appear less certain with half of them claiming that creativity can be taught (Kampylis, Berki, & Saariluoma, 2009). One possible reason, as Kampylis (2008 in Kampylis et al., 2009) suggests, is Greek teachers’ lack of understanding about the nature and level of creativity promoted by the absence of a substantiated working definition or explicit guidance on how creativity can be developed in educational formal documents despite its alleged importance. In Britain, however, there has been a bigger emphasis on the meaning, value, use and promotion of creativity in the classroom in formal documents (see, for example, QCDA, 2007). Fig. 1 presents the structured set of the emergent categories of description and their sub-categories where composing, performing, listening and improvising are ranked in terms of their perceived creative potential with composing offering the best chance for creative thought. Not surprisingly, all participants thought that composing activities offer ample opportunities for practising creative thinking and behaviour in the music classroom. Some, however, tended to overlook significant dimensions of the composing process, such as group work. Table 2 shows that there were similarities in student teachers’ conceptions on the creative nature of composing activities. Nevertheless, some student teachers hold richer conceptions on composing than others as the ones at the top of the table have discussed a greater range of composing dimensions. This finding is in line with relevant research. Moore (1990), for instance, states that By providing musical situations that require the use of students’ imaginations, decision-making capacities, and interpretive abilities, the teacher fosters a more direct involvement in the musical experience. . . .Not only will the truly creative individuals be allowed to manifest their unique skills, but the more typical student will develop a more comprehensive view of the musical world after experiencing it as a composer (p. 41). Performing was also considered as offering the chance for creativity in the music classroom as was listening work but to a lesser extent than composition. Creative listening or ‘thinking in sound’, according to Hickey (2001), needs to be encouraged in the music classroom so that students can listen in a new way and discover the musical possibilities of sounds. Music educators’ role in helping shape students’ ability to listen creatively is vital (Dunn, 1997) as ‘the major interaction most people have with music is as listeners’ (Reimer, 1989). The creative aspect of performance has been linked to deviating from the exact notational pattern for interpretative reasons especially in the performance of western classical music. So, even though the performance of a musical piece would be restricted by the composer’s intentions, there is still creative scope in performing classical musical pieces. This has been described elsewhere as creating ‘delicate and detailed temporal deformations for the purpose of giving life and energy to the music’ (Kokotsaki, 2003, p. 72). Participants thought that an important attribute of music making in the secondary music classroom is the lack of preoccupation with making mistakes as there are usually no right or wrong answers. Consequently, pupils can be encouraged to free themselves from the fear of going wrong while expressing themselves and experimenting musically without such con-

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straints. This lack of emphasis on right and wrong answers can be encouraged through music and can help pupils overcome their preoccupation with mistakes while teaching them that both right and wrong can be creative (Balkin, 1990). Musical activities, therefore, that do not require one single right answer need to be offered to help pupils bring forth their musical creative thinking processes (Hickey & Webster, 2001). This can help pupils overcome the fear of making mistakes and help establish a classroom environment where they feel safe to take risks. There is an important difference, however, between activities that have more than one right answer and the view of some participants that there are no right or wrong answers in musical activities. It is nevertheless important to strike a balance between accepting unique and original ideas with celebrating relevance and appropriateness according to the lesson objectives (Beghetto, 2007). This can be achieved through informative feedback as pupils reflect on, evaluate and refine their creative product. Interestingly, the study’s participants did not mention the important stage of reflection and revision following creative work which is considered important in order to help promote and develop intentionality (Hickey, 2001), self-analysis (Bamberger, 2003) and judgment as the student is ‘confronted constantly with the results of past choices’ (Davidson, 1990, p. 51). The lack of preoccupation with reflection and revision of the creative product may be linked to the aforementioned misconception that some student teachers hold about any creative activity being right and appropriate. If pupils are not encouraged to revise and judge the appropriateness of their creative product, they will not develop an understanding of the ‘organizing principles that unify and give structure’ (Boden, 1996, p. 79) to their musical thinking which can then compromise the development of their ability to create in music with purpose and meaning. Moreover, Kratus (1990) points out that educators need to write specific goals and objectives as these will help them to meaningfully evaluate pupils’ creative work and allow for further musical learning and progression to take place. Even though the study’s participants discussed their preoccupation with assessment and mentioned that they mostly assessed pupils’ creative work against predefined assessment criteria which creativity often formed a part of, no one mentioned any concern or attempt to plan for creativity as part of their overall lesson objectives or learning outcomes. These student teachers, therefore, do not seem to plan explicitly for creativity. It rather emerges as a by-product of a planned learning objective. In other words, creativity and creative behaviour is expected in music making but only on an intuitive and implicit level possibly because these student teachers have not been guided appropriately to think about the importance of creativity and the different ways in which it can be incorporated more explicitly in their planning. This is problematic as without explicitly planning for creativity, we might compromise students’ creative music learning in terms of its structure and sequence (Kratus, 1990) making ‘the measurable important rather than the important measurable’ (MacNamara’s Fallacy, see, for example, NACCCE, 1999, p. 127) and choosing instead to assess what is easiest rather than evaluating what is truly important (Paynter, 2000). In addition, the ‘verification’ stage of creative thought would be compromised through the lack of clear objectives on creativity. Improvisation as a particular area of musical involvement in the music classroom has been overlooked by the participants in the interviews as was also the case in Crow’s (2008) study. However, when they were specifically asked to select the area from the QCA scheme of work (guidelines offered by the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority to support mediumand long-term planning and help schools implement the National Curriculum programs of study) that indicates the best opportunity for creativity, ‘jazz improvisation’ came first for 12 participants (67%). It seems that composition was perceived as having the highest creative scope in the music classroom. It may be the case that if they were particularly asked about improvisation, they would readily talk about its place within a creative music curriculum. The fact though that they did not choose to explicitly talk about improvisation might be a sign of confusion and lack of overt recognition of the importance of improvisation in the music classroom or at least of the distinctiveness of improvisation as opposed to composition. This might reflect the mainly classical training of the study’s participants that often does not emphasise improvisation skills. It might also indicate that even more experienced music teachers in the schools where student teachers complete their teaching practice may make limited use of improvisation in their practice with implications on how student teachers perceive the value and role of improvisation in children’s musical development. This speculation regarding qualified music teachers’ conceptions of the value and use of improvisation is worthy of further research. The relevant literature has placed particular emphasis on the developmental and learning benefits of improvisation in the music classroom. For Kratus (1990), improvisation should come first as it helps students develop the strategies for producing and developing musical patterns and combinations of sounds which provide the basis for composing with meaning. Recently, improvisation has been conceptualised as an example of musical intelligence (Matare, 2009) and its effects have been found to be significant for young children’s development of creative thinking (Koutsoupidou & Hargreaves, 2009). In addition, when children are collectively involved in creative, and especially improvisational activities, a deeper musical understanding based on collaborative and constructivist learning, takes place (Sawyer, 2006). According to Brophy (2001), children’s improvisations move towards more formally organised content, the creation of more rhythm patterns and increased motivic development with increasing age. The most evident changes take place between the ages of 6–9, and again after 12 years of age. The latter period of musical development, in particular, acquires particular importance since it provides the foundation for the subsequent meta-cognitive stage where more logical operations start to emerge coupled with a growing self-awareness and rapidly evolving value systems (Swanwick, 1988). It is during the developmental stage of imaginative play that musical thinking, or ‘know-how’ (Ansdell, 1995), should be encouraged through the creative exploration of sounds and improvisational activities in the sense of learning to control musical intentions and produce coherent and meaningful sounds.

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In summary, this group of student teachers were found to hold narrow conceptions regarding the importance and use of improvisation in the music classroom, in incorporating aspects of creative expression in their lesson planning and in encouraging pupils to work creatively in groups and to evaluate and refine the musical product on the basis of informative feedback. Even though all participants felt that creativity was important and they held interesting views about what it meant in the music classroom, these conceptions were often implicit with little understanding about how they could become an everyday occurrence in the classroom through the interrelated key processes of performing, composing, listening, reviewing and evaluating (QCDA, 2007). A possible reason might be that music educators in formal education contexts are still in the process of exemplifying the determinants of creativity and explicitly using it to underpin all musical activities in the classroom since its introduction as a key concept in the new National Curriculum. These are important findings which highlight the need for music education programs to address these potential areas of concern in the education of student teachers in order to maximize pupils’ chance of fulfilling their creative potential in the music classroom and beyond. More specifically, creativity needs to be brought to the forefront of teacher training where both schools and training establishments work together to share ideas, learn from each other, realise where weaknesses in teachers’ education lie and develop a common understanding about ways to promote and celebrate creativity in the music classroom. The present findings can provide the basis of a fruitful discussion on creative work in music by (a) exemplifying teachers’ implicit conceptions of creativity as part of their lesson planning, (b) encouraging group work and collaborative learning, (c) promoting and enhancing the use of improvisation, and (d) ensuring that children will complete the cycle of creation by reflecting on and revising the musical product against the initial objectives to make effective musical product as they move on to creating with renewed understanding. The study’s findings represent a snapshot of these student teachers’ conceptions of creativity at a particular point in time and place towards the end of their teaching training year in a particular institution. It needs to be born in mind though that as participants develop their teaching skills further in the highly interactive and dynamic environment of the music classroom, action will result from a ‘continuous process of meaning attribution which is always emerging in a state of flux and subject to change . . . the individual constructs, modifies, pieces together, weights up the pros and cons and bargains’ (Cohen, Manion, & Morrison, 2007, p. 24). Therefore, meanings will be adjusted and renegotiated as more experience and knowledge is gained, however, the study offers a telling picture of the breadth and range of these student teachers’ creativity conceptions. Nevertheless, a larger scale study would be needed to establish the extent to which these findings can be applied to other groups of music student teachers from different training institutions. References Åkerlind, G. S. (2005). Variation and commonality in phenomenographic research methods. 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