Music Education in Near'n'Peer-Review

A digitally supported university seminar format oriented on the principle of the scientific double-blind review process with a focus on student feedback competence

Abstract

How can students deal in depth with social issues relevant to music education in seminar contexts and at the same time develop their feedback skills with a view to their future teaching activities? In this article, we present our seminar concept “Musical Education in Near’n’Peer Review”, which focuses on these questions. In the winter semester 2022/23, student teachers of music at the University of Osnabrück explored three topics that are currently the subject of intense social debate and their influence on music education: Gender-sensitive music lessons; cultural appropriation and music lessons; participation in/at music lessons. In the seminar concept, which was funded by the Niedersächsische Ministry of Science and Culture, the principle of the scientific double-blind review process is embedded in the seminar structure: The students become a community (peer) in which they write individual essays on the topics mentioned and review them in a near’n’peer review process. The reviews are also evaluated by the recipients. The resulting ranking shows which students have written particularly helpful reviews of the essays. To evaluate the changes in the area of feedback competence, the job-related self-concepts ‘counselling’ and ‘diagnostics’ (feedback-related self-concepts) are surveyed using validated questionnaires by means of a pre-post measurement in n = 13 teaching students with music as a teaching subject on the Master’s degree program. The results can be interpreted to mean that although the students did not exhibit an increased feedback-related self-concept after the seminar, their self-concept has become more realistic.