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Rider University Libraries

Art of Teaching Music

Resources for research in music education

Resources for your research

The library home page is a great starting place for your research!

 

In Encore's advanced search mode, you can click on a radio button to enable the boolean operators.  

Using Encore's login feature enables you to create customized lists for all phases of your research, Including Interlibrary loan (ILL).

You will log in with your last name and your Bronc ID.

OneSearch (EDS, or Ebsco Discovery Service) cross-searches all of the library's resources, including books, scores, audio materials, videos, journal articles, and electronic resources. There will be much more material with which to deal when executing a query using OneSearch. You can search OneSearch through the Library home page.

 

Library of Congress Subject Headings, and why they are important in an online environment

Music -- instruction and study

School music -- instruction and study

Choral music -- instruction and study

Instrumental music -- instruction and study

 

These subject headings link items in our catalog based on their subject! So, if you find an item that has "Choral music -- instruction and study" and you want more like it, you can use the subject heading to find even more like it.

One great way to find journals is through our Publication finder. To use this, go to the library home page and click on the blue button that says "Journals" about halfway down the page. Here are some of the music education-specific journals we have:

Music Education Journals (open entries; closed entries)

American Music Teacher. December 1999- (print and online; Education Full Text).

British Journal of Music Education. v.1, no.1 (1984) - v.31, no.3 (2014) (print only, Indexed in RILM).

The Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education. 1963 – (print only, shelved by title in PERIODICALS). 

Bulletin of Historical Research in Music Education. 1980 – 1999 (title change to) Journal of Historical Research in Music Education 1999-2017 (online through JSTOR).

Contributions to Music Education.  Print: v.1 (1972) - v. 37, no. 2 (2010). Online access, via databases Education Full Text; Omnifile Full Text (2005)-.

International Journal of Music Education. 2004 – (Online only). 

Journal of Research in Music Education. 1953-2017 (online from JSTOR); 1996-2011 (online from Education Full Text); 2001- (online from Ebsco Academic Search Premier).

Music Educators Journal [NafME]. 1934-2017 (online from JSTOR); 1990- (online from Ebsco Academic Search Premier).

Philosophy of Music Education Review. v.1 (1993)- (print and online through JSTOR).

Teaching Music. 1993- (print only at Talbott. Some missing issues; available online through NafME site).

Update: Applications of Research in Music Education. 2003-2016 (full text online from Ebsco Academic Search Premier).

Visions of Research in Music Education. 2001- (full text online at journal website).

Databases and Indexes 

Education Full Text

  • Publications – Thesaurus – Indexes
  • Thesaurus can help you generate multiple, related terms

ERIC (U.S. Department of Education's Educational Resource Information Center)

  • Thesaurus – Indexes

Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians

Full texts of The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd Edition (2001), The New Grove Dictionary of Opera (1992), and The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, 2nd Edition (2001), as well as all subsequent updates and emendations. Including more than 50,000 signed articles and 30,000 biographies contributed by over 6,000 scholars from around the world.

JSTOR

JSTOR has over 12 million academic journal articles, books, and primary sources in 75 disciplines

Music Index

The Music Index is a comprehensive guide to music periodicals and literature featuring digitized content from 1970 to present.

National Center for Education Statistics

  • Data repository which contains statistics for school districts, colleges. Search zipcode 08648. Enrollments, demographics, student-teacher ratios.

​Oxford Handbooks Online

Incorporates the 2 v. Handbook of Music Education, Music and Disability Studies, Philosophy in Music Education, Qualitative Research in American Music Education, Social Justice in Music Education.

RILM Abstracts of Music Literature

An international database of abstracts in English of current scholarly literature on music in all languages including books, articles, commentaries, prefaces to editions, dissertations, and reviews.

Teacher Reference Center 

National Teacher Reference Center provides indexing and abstracts for hundreds of periodicals. In addition, 96% of journals indexed in TRC are peer-reviewed.

Topics include: Assessment, Best Practices, Continuing Education, Current Pedagogical Research, Curriculum Development, Elementary Education, Higher Education, Instructional Media, Language Arts, Literacy Standards, School Administration, Science & Mathematics, and Teacher Education.

Worldcat
WorldCat is the world's largest network of library content and services. WorldCat libraries are dedicated to providing access to their resources on the Web, where most people start their search for information.

Evaluating a Website for Credibility

 

Purpose

  • Is there reasoning for the purpose of this information? Is it to inform/explain? Sell a product? To persuade?

  • Who is the audience for this website? Children? General public? University students? Scholars?

 

Author

  • Is the name of an author and/or contact information for this person present anywhere on the website? 

  • Is this person qualified to be writing about this topic? Can you find any credentials on this person?

  • Is this person affiliated with an organization or university?

  • Has this person been cited by others?

 

Date

  • Can you find any sort of date/information on when this page was last updated?

  • Is it recent research on what you are looking for? 

 

Domain names

  • .edu - Education-related websites, generally university-level (US)

    • .ac.uk - UK universities, .ac.nz - New Zealand universities, etc.

  • .gov - Government-related websites

  • .org - Organizational websites

  • .com - Commercial websites

  • .net - Network websites (Originally! Now more or less interchangeable with .com)

 

Objectivity, Reliability and Credibility

  • Is the information found fact, or the opinion of the author?

  • Is there any biased language? Does it promote a biased view on the topic?

  • Are the tone and style professional?

  • Is the information backed up by other sources/does it seem to be well-researched?

Accuracy

  • Is the information written well? 

  • Are there grammar errors?

  • Are there spelling errors?

  • Has the information been peer-reviewed?

  • Is there a bibliography of sources?

  • Can you find these sources to verify the information found on this page?

  • Is the information relevant to the subject area/topic?

 

Links

  • What sort of sources are linked, if any?

  • Do the links on the page still work?

 

Does it look professional?

  • Websites with credible information often look more professional. However, that is not always the case! Some websites seem to be stuck in previous decades, so this one is not going to be the most important indicator.

  • Is it easy to use?