1. Introduction:
Student engagement is a crucial factor in the success of students enrolled in higher education.
Student engagement (SE) is a buzzword in higher education (HE), with researchers, institutions,
and students using it to address various activities designed to enhance the overall student
experience (Maxwell-Stuart & Huisman, 2018). Although a large number of research exists on
pedagogies that influence student engagement, investigating pedagogies that influence student
engagement in higher education remains an important research topic. In particularly, in the field
of music education.
Constructivist pedagogy has been largely adopted in music institutes. However, fewer researchers
have clearly highlighted different mechanisms through which the theory can separately molded,
implemented, decoded and adopted into in-service classroom learning practices (Morford, 2007)
& (Cleaver, & Ballantyne, 2014). This study used constructivists practices for addressing the
challenges face by PiPa ensemble class as it is widely implemented theory and different past
studies have proven its positive impact on students’ creativity and engagement. Students’ less
involvement and low creativity are the main problems which needs to be controlled and it can be
only overcome through the successful implementation of constructivists practices (Abrahams, F.
2005), so this study choose these practices to evaluate whether students’ engagement improved or
not.
Problem Statement:
The pipa ensemble class faced the problem of students in lack of participation. Moreover, the
students had little creativity and always showed relatively low motivation. They also did not dislike
sharing opinions and suggestions. Throughout the teaching period, students did not try to create
2. and group members did not show much cooperation. This study intends to address all such
problems by comparing the situation of students before and after the implementation of
constructivists’ practices.
Purpose:
There are a lot of studies which have measured the importance and significant implementations of
constructivists’ practices in education or to improve the students’ engagement. But less attention
has been paid towards the implementation of constructivists practices in music education (López-
Íñiguez, & Pozo, 2016). It has been observed while working in different schools that
constructivism has been perceived or promoted in variety of ways and how it is adopted in practice
also differs. The procedure of implementing theoretical principles into teaching actions is largely
subjective as well as the ways used by an individual to execute this process is a crucial step for
teachers. Moreover, majority of studies evaluated the impact of constructivists’ theories of music
learning, while Pipa learning and teaching has been largely unexplored. It also measured the base
of constructivism and its implementations are checked to prove their authenticity and the quality
of music pedagogy (Morford, 2007). This study clearly explained the association of this study with
the all those pasts studies which have studied constructivists’ practices on students’ performance.
However, the gaps left in the domain of PiPa have been tried to fill by this study. To attract more
scholars to pay attention to the phenomenon of low student participation in Chinese instrumental
music courses, they have explored more ways to solve this problem.
The purpose of the study was to improve students' engagement in pipa ensemble class, so as to
improve their performance skills. By increasing student participation in the classroom, students
will further improve their ability to learn independently in pipa lessons and improve class
3. performance, including engagement between the teacher and students, and connections between
group members.
Research Questions:
Main question:
How can the engagement of students in Pipa class be enhanced by implementing
constructive practices?
Sub-questions:
1. What type of constructive practices could be beneficial?
2. How can the students’ involvement and creativity in class be increased?
3. Which type of techniques about a pipa ensemble class can increase students’
engagement?
Literature Review:
This section starts with the student engagement xxxx, followed by xxxxx, then xxxx will be
provided
A literature review is a comprehensive summary of previous research on a topic. It synthesizes
the research to draw conclusions about the current state of knowledge on the topic. The literature
review surveys scholarly articles, books, and other sources relevant to a particular area of
research. It describes, evaluates and contextualizes the literature in order to identify patterns,
gaps and inconsistencies in the research. It can be a standalone document or part of a larger
4. research paper. The purpose of the literature review is to provide a critical analysis of the
existing research and to identify areas for further study.
Students Engagement:
Student engagement has been widely discussed in ……Sheila Scott (2011) conducted a study to
observe the constructivist theories for teaching with a focus on students’oriented frameworks in
education and the active involvement of students in learning as they link new understanding to
what they already identify and cultivate past skills in terms of newly attained competencies. They
observed the improvement in the music education as they revised syllabus with consideration to
involved learning as observed within constructivist manners of knowing. Garnett, J. (2013)
conducted a study to explain the national syllabus of music in UK. He used the case study
methodology for highlighting the characteristics of music syllabus depending on constructivists’
laws, along with the influence of learning in professional manner. The findings of the study
highlighted that the syllabus preparation in the perspectives of musical improvements, and learning
by focusing on constructivists practices enhance the quality of music education.
According to (Ofsted, 2012), musical perceptions if disconnected from logical music composition
may become a practice in explaining hollow perceptions as compared to a chance for people to
enhance their own rational thinking. He explained the concept of Regelski’s investigation (1986)
who described the common summaries of unmusical thematic based learning. By joining the
musical composition and musical perception the opportunity rose for people who develop their
own perception of music, and for this empathetic to be engrained in the practice of sound are
necessary. Without a logical practice of music, there is nothing for a person to understand about
the basis of music.
5. Scott, S. (2006) performed a study to evaluate and compare various techniques that design a
foundation for the adaptation of environments. According to Mr. Cruthers who designed his
constructivism music program for measuring the significance of constructive techniques in music
education. The study reported after collecting data through surface methodology that the
classrooms which are implemented constructivist practices by teachers have more regulated
framework as students may discuss freely their own perceptions while composing music.
Banihashem, et., al (2022) conducted a study to compute the effect of the constructivist learning
framework and teaching Analytics (CLDLA) on teachers’ engagement and self-monitoring. It is
basically experiment-based research which interpreted results on the basis of collected data from
fifty graduates of Iranian University. They were asked to fill questioners consisting of questions
about the agentic engagement scale and self-regulations in two steps as a pre and post
measurements. The findings of the study reported that the CLDLA techniques put positive
influence on students’ engagement and self-monitoring.
Chinese Students’ engagement in xxxx class?:
Chin and Brown (2000) conducted a study to report the problems and challenges associated with
the music syllabus for university students in China. They observed that according to the
constructivists’ perceptions music syllabus are composed and adopted not to offer a platform for
the effective delivery of content but to create avenues for students to search musical issues and by
doing so enhance music content information and performance competencies. This unique
technique does not entail that content is not valuable. Fairly, content achievement and problem-
solving work in tandem when students are restricted to design questions and judge their work.
6. According to Morford, J. B. (2007), the base of constructivism and its implementations are
authentic and the quality of music pedagogy can only be enhanced through the implementation of
such practices. He reported few basic domains of the constructivist technique and measures the
impacts of constructivism for educational framework to revitalize current and expected
applications in post-secondary music education in China.
As mentioned above, all these studies were quite helpful and will help me while writing reviews
about constructivism approach. It has helped me while addressing different research questions of
my research and describing reviews. I used the recommendations provided by these studies for
increasing the students’ involvement in my Pipa class. The reviews of different studies about
increasing students’ commitment helped me to develop strong theoretical frameworks.
Constructivism theory:
Constructivism focuses on the understanding process of the individual with the assumption that
each learner brings his or her own knowledge to the classroom. Constructivist practice is designed
based on this theory, which could promote student musical understanding and student engagement
and provide a student-centered framework for the pipa ensemble classroom. Constructivism is
inherent in most performance-based and applied music courses; students can apply new knowledge
immediately and receive synchronous feedback, both from listening to themselves and from verbal
and nonverbal communication from conductors and teachers. However, knowledge-based courses
such as music appreciation, music theory, and music history, have historically relied on direct
instruction and the lecture model (Crawford, 2019). Various factors, including the nature of the
topics being presented, class sizes, the physical nature of the lecture halls, and the training of the
7. faculty members, have resulted in these courses being taught in teacher-centered, static ways. The
advent of technology offers new opportunities for breaking this cycle and bringing constructivist
pedagogy to knowledge-based music courses (Scruggs, B. 2009).
Three important education theories form the foundation for this course. The central assumption of
constructivism is that humans are active learners and must construct knowledge for themselves by
using tools at hand to learn from their experiences. (Geary, 1995). The constructivist educator
gathers materials for students to use in observing, collecting data, generating and testing
hypotheses, and working collaboratively with others (Wiggins, J. 2007). The decision to teach
using a constructivist paradigm gives students the choice to follow trails of interest, make
connections, reformulate ideas, and reach unique conclusions. Through their course activities,
students construct their own understanding of music history by investigating the topic then
completing unit assignments. The resulting assignment is a means of assessing the student’s
understanding of the curriculum (Keast, D. A. 2009). You need a sentence to conclude this part
and introduce next one.
Constructivist approach in PiPa ensemble class:
Cobb (2005) conducted a study to measure the relationship between constructivist approaches and
the performance of ensemble class. He concluded that teachers don’t need to select either a
psychological or social constructivist point of views; rather he focused highly that teachers must
search methods of cooperating psychological constructivist and sociological domains.
Morford, J. B. (2007) conducted a study to report the few important domains of the constructivist
technique and observes the impacts of constructivism for educational framework to enhance
current and expected applications in postsecondary music learning. It is qualitative research where
8. debates and reviews have been described for highlighting the importance of constructivism and
also describing how such practices can be adopted in music pedagogy and studios. The study
reported that the basis of constructivism and its implementations are valid and the eminence of
music pedagogy can only be amended through the implementation of such practices.
Podschuweit, S., Bernholt, S., & Brückmann, M. (2016) conducted a study to measure the effect
of the students’ complexity and teachers’ class involvement on students’ learning results. They
applied coded technique to evaluate the verbal complexity levels of the students and teachers.
Furthermore, pre and post evaluations of knowledge were implemented to measure the students’
learning again. ANOVA technique was implemented to observe the effect of complexity on the
learning results. The findings reported that the average complexity level explains a large ratio of
variance. In conclusion, the scholars pay attention on the adaptation of the redirected pedagogy
methodologies intended to increase class complexity for motivating students’ competency level.
Positionality statement:
I am a PiPa player and have been playing PiPa for over 30 years. I am also a PiPa studio educator
and have been teaching PiPa students for over 10 years. My students have won many awards. Now,
I am a university PiPa teacher and have 3 years’ experience on teaching PiPa ensemble course. I'm
able to apply my rich experience in performing and teaching PiPa to this project research. These
experiences will help me to observe very subtle changes of my students in the classroom.
Regarding ethical considerations, I will build trust and respect with participants to avoid their
further marginalization. The reporting of less involvement of PiPa students may create few ethical
problems but I will handle it by ensuring the confidentiality of data collected from them. Moreover,
I will describe them that it is research only and noting meant to expose your weaknesses.
9. Methodological Design:
Qualitative research has been applied in this study. Creswell ( ) argued qualitative research
methodology is characterized by the process of examining things in their natural settings and
engaging in the process of interpreting, describing and defining observed phenomena in relation
to human experience. We believe that this approach will allow the conduct a more in-depth and
comprehensive study of the topic of researching.
Action research was adopted in this study. Like Kemmis mentioned: “practice changing practice”.
The goal of action research is to enable teachers to individually or collaboratively study and
suggest solutions to research questions in their own teaching and learning communities. This
research approach could help me to examine the impact of constructivist practices on student
engagement in the classroom. It will allow me to continually reflect on the process of my research
and make appropriate adjustments to my practice, which ensure the reliability and validity of the
final research results. Moreover, qualitative studies have been applied in majority of the education
studies for collecting data which is also a main reason to implement such techniques in this
research.
Participants:
Students in the pipa group class at Xinjiang University, a total of 20 women (very few men study
pipa)
Demographic information:
6 students freshman year, 5 students sophomore year, 5 students junior year, 4 students senior year
Why you chose these participants?
10. Because they are students of the pipa ensemble course at Xinjiang University
How did you find these participants?
They are all my pipa students.
What’s your selection criteria?
Able to play the pipa proficiently, with an intermediate level of performance or above.
Consent form / Participant Information Sheet:
Data Collected
Phase One: I noticed in my pipa group class that students were not very engaged in class, the class
was very quiet, and there was not much interaction between group members. Then I also talked
about this phenomenon with my colleagues, who had found the same problem in other Chinese
instrument classes. Then I reviewed the literature related to student engagement in the classroom.
Constructivist practice was found to increase students' classroom participation and creativity.
Students’ less involvement and low creativity are the main problems which needs to be controlled
and it can be only overcome through the successful implementation of constructivists practices.
Therefore, I wanted to try to use constructivist practiced activities to increase student engagement
in a lute group class. I will get permission from the students before I proceed with my practiced
activity. This practice will last for one semester, 18 weeks. For these 18 weeks, I will create a
detailed lesson plan and practice plan and distribute it in advance to the 20 students who will
participate in the time.
11. Phase Two: I will conduct 18 weeks of lesson time activities for students in 20 lute group classes.
First, put them into random groups of 3-4 according to their number of students. Then give them
many themes to choose from, such as parks, subway stations, beaches, coffee shops, etc. Then give
those 20 minutes to prepare and use any instrument or sound effect to present their chosen theme.
After 20 minutes, return to the classroom to present in groups. Panelists can explain the topics they
are presenting, while groups not participating in the presentation need to comment on the
presenting group. Each week will have a different theme for the hands-on activities, but they will
all require students to work in groups to complete. In addition, I will conduct five observation
activities in weeks 1, 5, 10, 15, and 18 to collect my data.
Data analysis:
The data collected over the 18 weeks will be analyzed. Coding will be used here to ensure the
validity of the data analysis. Then I will discuss the results of the study I have obtained with my
colleagues and listen to their opinions. We will present the results of the study based on my data
analysis organized into a report. Then I will also conduct analysis and self-feedback to summarize
the problems encountered in the action research or the shortcomings encountered in the
implementation of the research.
The sample size consists of twenty students of Pipa ensemble class. Qualitative methods have been
used to collect data because such techniques provide more precise data and such data generated
more authentic results (Bresler, L., & Stake, R. E. 2017). Direct responses from PiPa students can
help to generate more precise and authentic results. The data has been collected by conducting 5
observations and 1 semi-structured interview. The five observations will be conducted in weeks 1,
5, 10, 15, and 18. And semi-structured interview will be conducted at the end of the semester.
12. Students’ confidentiality was promised to keep maintain and manage. Their name and identity
would not be revealed.
Trustworthiness:
The content of the interviews, observation reports and study results will be shared with all study
participants to ensure the reliability and validity of the study results.
因为这个是研究设计，没有最终执行，所以我觉得是不是不需要outcomes？
13. References:
Abrahams, F. (2005). The application of critical pedagogy to music teaching and learning: A
literature review. Update: Applications of Research in Music Education, 23(2), 12-22.
Banihashem, S. K., Farrokhnia, M., Badali, M., & Noroozi, O. (2022). The impacts of
constructivist learning design and learning analytics on students’ engagement and self-
regulation. Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 59(4), 442-452.
Bresler, L., & Stake, R. E. (2017). Qualitative research methodology in music education. Critical
essays in music education, 113-128.
Chin, C., and D. E. Brown. (2000). Learning in science: A comparison of deep and surface
approaches. Journal of Research in Science Teaching 37 (2): 109–38.
Cleaver, D., & Ballantyne, J. (2014). Teachers’ views of constructivist theory: A qualitative study
illuminating relationships between epistemological understanding and music teaching
practice. International Journal of Music Education, 32(2), 228-241.
Cobb, P. (2005). Where is the mind? A coordination of sociocultural and cognitive constructivist
perspectives. In Constructivism: Theory, perspectives, and practice, ed. C. T. Fosnot, 39–57.
New York: Teachers College Press.
Crawford, R. (2019). Using interpretative phenomenological analysis in music education research:
An authentic analysis system for investigating authentic learning and teaching
practice. International Journal of Music Education, 37(3), 454-475.
Garnett, J. (2013). Beyond a constructivist curriculum: A critique of competing paradigms in
music education. British Journal of Music Education, 30(2), 161-175.
14. Geary, D. C. (1995). Reflections of evolution and culture in children's cognition: Implications for
mathematical development and instruction. American psychologist, 50(1), 24.
Hanley, B., & Montgomery, J. (2005). Challenges to music education: Curriculum
reconceptualized. Music Educators Journal, 91(4), 17-20.
Keast, D. A. (2009). A constructivist application for online learning in music. Research and issues
in music education, 7(1), n1.
López-Íñiguez, G., & Pozo, J. I. (2016). Analysis of constructive practice in instrumental music
education: Case study with an expert cello teacher. Teaching and Teacher Education, 60, 97-107.
Masika, R., & Jones, J. (2016). Building student belonging and engagement: Insights into higher
education students’ experiences of participating and learning together. Teaching in higher
education, 21(2), 138-150.
Maxwell-Stuart, R., & Huisman, J. (2018). An exploratory study of student engagement at
transnational education initiatives: Proactive or apathetic? International Journal of Educational
Management,32(2), 298–309.
Morford, J. B. (2007). Constructivism: Implications for postsecondary music education and
beyond. Journal of Music Teacher Education, 16(2), 75-83.
Ofsted, O. C. T. (2012). Music in schools: wider still, and wider. Retrieved November 6, 2013.
Podschuweit, S., Bernholt, S., & Brückmann, M. (2016). Classroom learning and achievement:
how the complexity of classroom interaction impacts students’ learning. Research in Science &
Technological Education, 34(2), 142-163.
15. Radocy, R. E. (1994). Qualitative Research in Music Education: Why the Fuss?. Bulletin of the
Council for Research in Music Education, 94-103.
Scott, S. (2011). Contemplating a constructivist stance for active learning within music
education. Arts education policy review, 112(4), 191-198.
Scruggs, B. (2009). Constructivist practices to increase student engagement in the orchestra
classroom. Music Educators Journal, 95(4), 53-59.
Shively, J. (2015). Constructivism in music education. Arts Education Policy Review, 116(3), 128-
136.
Wiggins, J. (2007). Authentic practice and process in music teacher education. Music Educators
Journal, 93(3), 36-42.
