Student-focused education reform: Can it work for music?

With the Hong Kong Government advocating the use of IT in education and the stress on student-focused teaching in education reform, this paper investigates the effects these innovations have on students' learning. Bernstein's concept of strong/weak framing is employed analytically to conceptualise the transaction of teaching and learning. Different levels of framing inherent in the music software and related teaching strategies and the ways they affect children's achievement in composing in lower secondary school settings are investigated, using an experimental study. The results show that children achieved best with very weak framing conditions using the computer to compose, suggesting that a student-focused approach facilitated composing and creativity, and this has several implications to teachers and teacher education today. Copyright © 2001 Aichi University of Education.