Hong Kong music teachers’ perceptions towards the new senior secondary (NSS) music curriculum in developing students’ creativity

Ruochen Donna HAN, Bo Wah LEUNG

Research output: Contribution to conferencePapers

Abstract

This study attempts to explore the implementation of the New Senior Secondary (NSS) music curriculum and senior secondary school music teachers’ perceptions towards the NSS music curriculum in developing students’ creativity. In Hong Kong education reform, the necessity of developing students’ creativity was emphasized and “developing students’ creativity” was addressed as one of the four learning targets of music education. As the last step of Hong Kong education reform, senior secondary curriculum reform has been implemented in 2009. Compared with the previous senior secondary music curriculum, the NSS music curriculum contains more diversified teaching contents and assessment methods. Besides, since senior secondary students who select music as one of their elective subjects have to participate in a public examination, and the results directly related to whether they can be accepted by universities, senior secondary music teachers who are undertaking to teach the NSS music lessons are under a pressure of assisting students to get a positive result in the public examination. Under this circumstance, to what extent the learning target “developing students’ creativity” can be achieved through undertaking the NSS music should be further studied. In this study, seven in-service senior secondary music teachers were invited to share their arrangements of offering the NSS music and their perceptions towards the NSS music curriculum in developing students’ creativity. Since “Creating” was stated as the most effective module in developing students’ creativity in the NSS music curriculum guide, music teachers’ teaching practice for teaching the “Creating” part was asked particularly. Findings indicate that 1) the NSS music was only offered by a few of senior secondary schools; 2) most of the interviewees displayed a positive attitude towards the importance of creativity; and 3) most of the interviewees considered that students’ creativity cannot be significantly developed through undertaking the NSS music lessons, because the curriculum lacks space that allows students’ creativity to thrive: the teaching contents are too broad and the difficulty of the public examination is too high.
Original languageEnglish
Publication statusPublished - Jul 2017
Event11th Asia-Pacific Symposium for Music Education Research: Music Education Transcending Borders - The Historical City of Melaka, Melaka, Malaysia
Duration: 19 Jul 201721 Jul 2017

Conference

Conference11th Asia-Pacific Symposium for Music Education Research: Music Education Transcending Borders
Abbreviated titleAPSMER 2017
Country/TerritoryMalaysia
CityMelaka
Period19/07/1721/07/17

Citation

Han, R. D., & Leung, B. W. (2017, July). Hong Kong music teachers’ perceptions towards the new senior secondary (NSS) music curriculum in developing students’ creativity. Paper presented at the 11th Asia-Pacific Symposium for Music Education Research (APSMER 2017): Music Education Transcending Borders, The Historical City of Melaka, Melaka, Malaysia.

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Hong Kong music teachers’ perceptions towards the new senior secondary (NSS) music curriculum in developing students’ creativity'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.