Factors that Improve Student Retention in School Band Programs

Abstract

This study explored student retention in school band programs by means of a survey. Band teachers from Edmonton Public and Elk Island Public Schools were asked to provide information about their beliefs, values, opinions, as well as current demographic information. Topics of the survey included student factors, and teacher factors such as band assignments, performances, motivational strategies, and administration. Data were analyzed using the online program Survey Gizmo. Examination of the data confirmed that there are common band teacher strategies that improve student retention. Some key strategies are involving students in repertoire selection, being flexible on instrument changes, earning trip and tour privileges for practicing required material, assessing progress in the form of playing tests, scheduling frequent performances, administrator attendance at performances, frequent encouraging comments about progress, and planned listening and performance trips.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 2 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.