Self-education culture of future music teachers: diagnostic and formative methods

Introduction

Modern society in the field of education is aimed at a professionally competent, mobile, creatively active and socially responsible teacher, ready for independent decision-making, capable of self-improvement of his personality and self-educational activities. In pedagogical science, there is a transition from traditional forms of education to innovative ones, which are focused on equipping the future teacher with self-education technologies that allow for continuous professional and personal development. A modern teacher of musical art must have a certain amount of knowledge, skills, master the synthesis of general cultural, professional and special competencies, carry out professional self-education and personal growth, design a further educational route and professional career. However, modern conditions in higher education are characterized by a decrease in the number of classroom hours and an increase in the number of hours devoted to the independent training of a future music teacher, which leads to a dangerous tendency to reduce the professional level of a music student. The situation is also complicated by the introduction of combined teaching in both full-time and distance learning formats. At the same time, in higher education institutions, as practice shows, the formation of a culture of self-education of a future teacher of musical art is carried out mainly spontaneously, without a systemic organization, as evidenced by Savchenko-Shlapak et al (2021).          

Theoretikal Framework or Literature Review

The problem of self-education has attracted the attention of researchers from various fields of science - philosophy, psychology and pedagogy (Beznisko, 2007; Bekh, 2003; Babych & Vitvitska, 2014; Eraut, 1985); Evans, 1981; Nalyvaiko, 2011; Rodríguez, 2019, etc.). In Ukraine, dissertations in recent years (Tolstova, 2018; Hai, 2019; Huang, 2018; Yao, 2018, etc.) address the formation of self-educational activities of teachers of musical art. The problems of development and improvement of musical and pedagogical self-education, taking into account the specifics of artistic didactics, were considered by Gribkova, 2010; Sharnenkova, 2017; Vishpinska, 2012, etc. The formation of the professional culture of a teacher of musical art and various aspects of vocal and choral training of a future teacher of musical art were considered in the works of Vasilenko, 2016; Wang, 2017; Zhang, 2019; Merezhko & Kichenko, 2019. Despite the fact that the problem of personality self-education is in the center of attention of modern pedagogical science, this direction has not been the subject of special study. There is a lack of necessary research, suggesting the development of new methods and ways of effective professional training of future teachers of musical art, based on self-educational activities. The scientific novelty of the research lies in an attempt to fill the gap in research between the need for high-quality training of a music teacher with a high level of self-education culture formation, and the absence of a developed methodology for its formation in the system of higher music and pedagogical education; Also, the insufficient development of the possibilities of the pedagogical conditions of vocal and choral disciplines in the formation of a culture of self-education of the future teacher of musical art. The research is theoretically substantiated, the essence and content of the concept of “culture of self-education of a teacher of musical art” is revealed, the structure, criteria and indicators of its formation are developed; revealed the pedagogical potential of vocal and choral training in the formation of a culture of self-education of the future teacher of musical art (the experience of the previous vocal and choral training of the student, taking into account the possibilities of each of the disciplines of the vocal and choral cycle and their complex application in the educational process; a variety of forms of organization of vocal and choral training - individual and collective, classroom and extracurricular; conditions as close as possible to the professional activity of the future teacher of musical art; introduction of innovative methods of work into the educational process, providing for the independent activity of future specialists in musical art); substantiated the pedagogical conditions for its provision (systematization of the content of the student's independent work in vocal and choral training; methodological support and provision of the process of forming a culture of self-education of a future specialist on an individual educational route, the implementation of the process of forming a culture of self-education of a future teacher of musical art in the mode of targeted individual education, based lies the creative interaction of a student and a teacher; developed and experimentally tested the effectiveness of the methodology for the formation of a culture of self-education of a future teacher of musical art in vocal and choral teaching. The purpose of the article is to highlight the results of experimental research work on testing the methodology for the formation of a culture of self-education of a future teacher of musical art in the process of mastering the disciplines of the vocal and choral cycle.             

Methodology

The methodology for the formation of a culture of self-education of future teachers of musical art in vocal and choral training implemented the following tasks: awareness of the personal and professional importance of musical and pedagogical self-education; stimulation of self-educational activities of students in all areas of vocal and choral training (disciplines "Voice Production", "Choral Class", "Basics of Conducting", "Choral Studies", "Methodology of Working on a School Song"); formation of readiness for the implementation of musical and pedagogical self-education; organization of conditions for self-development and self-realization of the student. The proposed technique includes three groups of methods. The first group - methods of stimulation, motivation and self-motivation of learning, as part of this group: methods of forming cognitive interest and methods of forming educational and professional duty. The second group - methods of organization and self-organization of educational and cognitive activities. This group includes perceptual methods aimed at transmitting and perceiving educational and professional information received according to feelings (verbal, visual, audiovisual, practical methods); logical methods (organization and implementation of logical operations); gnostic methods (organization and implementation of mental operations) and methods of self-management of educational and cognitive actions. The third group - methods of control and self-control of the effectiveness of educational and cognitive activity, in the composition - methods of intermediate and final control. It was found that discussions, disputes, thematic conversations, preparation of thematic messages and their discussion, visiting, discussing and participating in concert and scientific events, creating independent projects, master classes became effective formative methods. The range of forms of training in vocal and choral disciplines covers individual and collective lessons, classroom and out-of-class forms of students' independent work. In the educational process, they are implemented in a complex manner, which allows one to actively form educational communications, to carry out interdisciplinary connections (Glukhova, 2010). Experimental verification of the proposed methodology lasted for 2017-2020. The results of the study were introduced into the educational process of students studying a cycle of vocal and choral disciplines at the Faculty of Arts of the National Pedagogical University named after M.P. Dragomanova; in the educational process of the Faculty of Arts of Kryvyi Rih State Pedagogical University and Mukachevo State University. The total number of participants in the experiment at all stages (ascertaining, formative, final) was 389 students. In checking the results of the implementation of the developed methodology for the formation of a culture of self-education of future teachers of musical art, the method of ascertaining tests was used (Podolyak & Yurchenko, 2008).

Results and Discussion

To conduct an experimental study, a diagnostic toolkit was developed, aimed at identifying the levels of formation of the culture of self-education of a teacher of musical art in vocal and choral disciplines. At the stage of the ascertaining experiment, the following methods were used: pedagogical observation of the results of students' independent work; conversations with students and teachers; questioning of students, aimed at identifying indicators of the culture of self-education of the future teacher of musical art according to three criteria: value-orientation, cognitive-activity, reflexive. The results of the ascertaining experiment showed that the general level of formation of the culture of self-education of future teachers of musical art does not meet the requirements established by regulatory documents. This is manifested, in particular, in the inability of the majority of the respondents. students to link self-education with personal and professional interests; insufficient understanding of the need to master the methods of scientific knowledge; inability to connect basic knowledge of the disciplines of the vocal and choral cycle; lack of skills for self-educational activity (lack of understanding of the ideals, meanings, aspirations necessary for the personality of a teacher of musical art; insufficient possession of the skills of personal and professional introspection, self-assessment of the level of self-educational activity in the field of musical pedagogy and performance; episodic manifestation of possession of the mechanisms of self-control and self-regulation of self-educational activity). The study involved students with different basic training: both graduates of higher educational institutions (colleges) and graduates of music and art schools. The results of a comparative analysis of the first test, which was carried out in the diagnostic block, showed that the difference in the levels of self-education culture formation among students of different basic training is insignificant, therefore, further we did not differentiate students by this criterion and evenly distributed them into 2 groups (two choral groups): experimental (EG) - 37 people and control (CG) - 39 people.
               
Orientation of future teachers of musical art to constant personal and professional self-improvement, the formation of the need for a systematic increase and deepening of knowledge, the ability to quickly and effectively assimilate information that is constantly updated, process and creatively apply it in educational, cognitive, research and professional activities, the formation of readiness for self-education throughout life is an urgent problem (Robert, 1992). We consider the formation of a culture of self-educational activity in him as the leading condition for the personal and professional development of a future teacher of musical art. The problem of professional self-education, the peculiarities of preparing future teachers of musical art for independent creative activity were studied by Abdullin, 2012; Rodríguez, 2019; Vysochkina, 2008 and others. However, the forms of organization, methods and techniques of forming a culture of self-educational activity of future teachers of musical art in modern pedagogical practice have not been studied (Savchenko-Shlapak et al, 2021). The formative stage of the experimental research work was aimed at increasing the initial level of the culture of self-education of the teacher of musical art by means of vocal and choral disciplines. Achievement of the set goal was determined by the solution of the following tasks: creation of students' mindset on the awareness of the personal and professional significance of musical and pedagogical self-education; stimulating self-educational activities of students in all areas of vocal and choral training; formation of readiness for the implementation of musical and pedagogical self-education; organization of conditions for self-development and self-realization of a music student. The implementation of the tasks in the educational process was carried out according to the developed program, which included three stages: 1) the stage of motivation (group and individual educational work with students of the experimental group as the leader of the choir); 2) the stage of organization (development of individual routes for students; 3) the stage of implementation (testing of pedagogical support for the formation of a culture of self-education of the future teacher of musical art in the process of mastering vocal and choral disciplines) (Zhang, 2019). During the stage of motivation, methods of stimulation, motivation and self-motivation of learning were used - methods of forming cognitive interest and methods of forming educational and professional duty: discussions, disputes, thematic conversations, preparation of thematic messages and their discussion, visiting and discussing concert and scientific events. The topics of disputes and conversations concerned the issues of the current state of musical culture and pedagogy, music education and science, the role of a teacher of musical art in society. With the students from the EG in the form of a polylogue, topical issues of the current state of the teacher of musical art in the field of performance, music and pedagogical education, in society were discussed. Here are examples of disputes and conversations: "The role of a teacher of musical art in a school of the XXI century", "The mission of a teacher of musical art as a bearer of musical heritage", "Choirmaster - the specifics of the profession of a teacher of musical art", etc. - pedagogical self-education, students were offered a list of topics for the preparation of messages and their public discussion. In their reports on outstanding conductors-choirmaster, students traced the paths of professional development of outstanding carriers of the profession. Examples of such student reports were the following: "Conductor of the present Anatoly Avdievsky", "Creative portrait of choral conductor Yevgeny Savchuk", etc. In further work, the most interesting student reports took part in the student scientific and practical conference, the best of which were recommended for publication. During the experimental research work, the students from the EG regularly attended concerts and scientific events held in the institution of higher education and outside it. Discussion and exchange of the received impressions were carried out both in group and in individual conversations with students. In addition, we regularly conducted individual educational work with students, aimed at strengthening students' confidence in their own capabilities, stimulating their cognitive activity in self-educational activities. As a result of complex systematic work of students from the EG, a stable value-orientational criterion of musical-pedagogical self-education was formed.      

At the second stage of the formative experiment - the stage of organization, based on the student's established attitude of readiness for musical and pedagogical self-education, methods of organizing and self-organizing educational and cognitive activity were used, in particular, the method of planning self-educational activity, which includes perceptual methods aimed at transferring and perception of educational and professional information through the senses (verbal, visual, audiovisual, practical methods); logistic methods (organization and implementation of logical operations); gnostic methods (organization and implementation of mental operations) and methods of self-management of educational and cognitive actions). The planning of self-educational activities required the development of individual educational routes for students from the EG. This was accompanied by the solution of the following tasks: compensation for shortcomings, additions, deepening, expansion and systematization of basic music education; organization of work to comprehend the best practices of music teachers and choirmaster; formation of an individual style of professional activity. The students from the EG carried out the planning of their self-educational activities in all areas of vocal and choral training - theoretical, technological, research, performing, pedagogical. The goal of the implementation stage was to create and regulate the relationships between the self-educational activities of future music teachers and their acquisition of professional experience, that is, the actual functioning of musical and pedagogical self-education. In educational practice, the decision on the formation of a culture of self-education of a future teacher of musical art was carried out in the process of vocal and choral training and was based on the student's independent activity. The methods of control and self-control of the effectiveness of educational and cognitive activity (methods of intermediate and final control) were used, in particular, the method of educational and methodological support and the method of systemic organization of self-educational activity. For the purpose of educational and methodological support and systematic organization of self-educational activities of a teacher of musical art, students were offered educational and methodological developments in electronic format: guidelines for the implementation of annotations on vocal and choral works (Nazarenko, 2012; Suta, 2021), guidelines on practical work with a vocal-choir group (Karas, 2017) and the distance course "Choral culture" (Martyniuk, 2010). Each student of the EG had to choose a concert repertoire for the student choir independently. The methodological recommendations considered the issues of performing written annotations for vocal and choral works in accordance with course requirements, proposed a plan for annotating a school song, a detailed plan for annotating a choral work, samples of information sources, a terminological dictionary. The proposed recommendations orient the student towards the adaptation of professional theoretical and practical knowledge and skills in relation to a specific creative pedagogical situation. Solving in the process of executing instructions the tasks of mastering operations, such as: analysis, comparison, systematization of facts, synthesis and generalization of various sources of information obtained from them (notes, electronic texts, audio and video recordings), future teachers of musical art acquire self-educational competence.
               
The methodological recommendations for practical work with a vocal-choir collective, proposed in electronic form, systematize the process of self-mastering of a choral work by a future teacher of musical art from the stage of choosing a choral score to the stage of preparing for a concert performance. Students were offered an algorithm for preliminary work on a choral score, which is a guide for independent research activities of students in the process of mastering a choral work, and a plan for a comprehensive analysis of a choral work.         

The objectives of the distance course "Choral culture" is the development of the most important qualities of a future teacher of musical art, namely: mastering the basic knowledge, skills and abilities necessary for a teacher of musical art for successful professional activity; mastering the skills of searching, studying, selecting, analyzing, generalizing information material (text, music, audio, video), that is, mastering the skills of research work; the acquisition of strategic skills in working on a choral score from the stage of selecting a repertoire to a concert performance. In independent work, the students from the EG mastered the curriculum in stages, created a musical-pedagogical project and carried out preliminary training, according to the following sections: selection of vocal-choral exercises for the singing of the choral collective; selection of song and choral repertoire; vocal, instrumental, manual mastering of vocal-choral exercises, song and choral repertoire; a comprehensive analysis of a choral work; creation of a performing interpretation of a choral work; development of a rehearsal plan for a choral piece. In individual lessons, the students from the EG received the teacher's advice, in the lessons on voice and choral class - they started to implement musical and pedagogical projects. This organization of the educational process made it possible to simulate the real working conditions of a music teacher. Such effective mastering of individual curricula allowed the students from the EG to carry out the circulation of musical and pedagogical self-education and form the experience of professional activity. Work was organized to involve students from the EG in research work. Students were offered a choice of such topics for writing essays, for example: “Higher art than choral singing, I don’t know” (N. Mishukov) “What is a choir, and is not a choir, but only a collection of singers; what is choral sonority, and what is only the sound of human voices” (P. Chesnokov). "Of all the musical professions, the profession of a choirmaster, in my opinion, is the most synthetic" (G. Struve). “Every class is a choir! - this is the ideal to which aspirations should be directed " (D. Kabalevsky) and others. As the results have shown, the majority of students in the form of free reasoning convincingly express their position, however, the examples given were unconvincing, the style of presentation can be characterized as literary and everyday. The carried out work allowed us to form readiness for research activity among the students from the EG. In the future, the research work of students was continued in the form of preparing reports at student scientific and practical conferences. All stages of work on the preparation of a scientific report, from choosing a topic, collecting and processing material, preparing the text of a speech, students carried out independently with the consulting support of a teacher. The research interests of students were reflected in the topics of the reports, for example: "The use of innovative pedagogical technologies in the development of musical and plastic skills of preschool children", "Features of the vocal intonation of primary school children", "The initial stage of work on polyphony in a junior children's choir", "Features of the choirmaster work of a teacher of musical art in a Sunday parish school", "Choral music of the Baroque era", "Genre peculiarities of Ukrainian choral music", "Formation of vocal and performing technique in a choir collective", "Ways of solving inaccurate vocal intonation in children of primary school age", "Modern performing direction in the style of" Music a cappella " and etc.       

During the experiment, in the control group (CG), the formation of a culture of self-education was carried out in the usual conditions of the educational process, while the experimental group (EG) of students was trained according to the methodology developed by the authors. At the final stage of the experiment, repeated measurements of the achieved levels of self-education culture of students from the EG and CG were organized and carried out using the previously developed diagnostic tools at the ascertaining stage (see Table 1). 

Table 1.
The levels of the formation of the value-orientational criterion of the culture of self-education of the future teacher of musical art based on the results of the final stage.

As can be seen from Table 1, a low level of self-education culture according to the value-orientational criterion was revealed at the end of the experiment in 18.9% of students from the EG and 43.6% of students from the CG. The average level in the EG was revealed by 54% of students, in the CG - 43.6%, and a high level of indicators of self-education culture formation at the final stage was shown by 27.0% of EC students and 12.8% of CG students. After analyzing the results of this table, we conclude that the level of formation of the culture of self-education according to the value-orientation criterion among the students of the experimental group is significantly higher than that of the students of the control group.

Determination of the levels of formation of the cognitive-activity criterion was carried out according to the results of the repeated research tasks "Annotation for a vocal-choral work" and "Rehearsal work with a vocal-choral work" (see Table 2).

Table 2.
Levels of formation of the cognitive-activity criterion of the culture of self-education of the future teacher of musical art according to the results of the final stage of the experiment. 

The results obtained allow us to conclude that the traditional methodology aimed at the formation of a meaningful attitude and an adequate assessment of vocal and choral works, according to which the students of the CG were trained, is not effective enough and requires more detailed revision, and the presented author's methodology is aimed at the formation of readiness for the implementation of musical and pedagogical self-education; organization of conditions for self-development and self-realization of the student.

The results of the questionnaire survey and the fulfillment of the creative task "Concert performance of a choral work" of students from the EG and CG to determine the levels of formation of the reflexive criterion at the final stage of the experimental work are shown in Table 3.

Table 3. 
Levels of formation of the reflexive criterion of the culture of self-education of the future teacher of musical art at the final stage.

According to the results of this table, the students from the CG overtake the students from the CG in terms of the level of self-education culture formation according to the reflexive criterion: a low level was recorded in 46.2% of students in the CG, in contrast to 27.0% of students in the EG, the average - in 35.9% of students in the CG against 43, 2% of EC students, a high level of 17.9% of CG students versus 29.8% of EC students. For example, good results of students from the EG were obtained on the development of the ability to interpret vocal-choral works, which was systematized throughout the experiment according to the developed methodology. The general level of the formation of the culture of self-education of the future teacher of musical art in the composition of three criteria: value-orientation, cognitive-activity and reflexive students of the experimental and control groups was determined by the formula:

Q = К1 + К2 + КЗ                  n

The summary data from the EG and CG according to the results of the final stage of the experimental work (see Table 4).

Table 4.
Levels of formation of the culture of self-education of the future teacher of musical art according to three criteria at the final stage of the experiment.

The results of the table demonstrate a higher level of self-education culture development according to three criteria of students from the EG in comparison with students from the CG. A low level of self-education culture development is present in 27.0% of students from the EG, while in the CG it is 51.3%; average level in the EG – 46.6%, in the CG – 35.9%; high level was shown by 24.4% of students from the EG and 12.8% of students from the CG. Further, we give a comparative table of indicators of the levels of self-education culture formation among students from the EG and the CG at the ascertaining and final stages of the experiment (see Table 5).

Table 5.
Dynamics of increasing the levels of self-education culture formation among students from the CG and the EG before and after the experimental work.

So, the information obtained at each stage of the experimental work on the application in the educational process of the developed methodology for the formation of the culture of self-education of future teachers of musical art in vocal and choral training, reflect the positive dynamics among students from the EG towards increasing the level of self-education culture of the future teacher of musical art by all criteria. During the formative stage, 24.4% of students from the EG reached a high level of self-education culture formation (it was 8.1%); the number of students who have reached the average level has significantly increased - 48.6% (it was 27%); the situation of a relatively low level has improved, at which still 27.0% (it was 64.9%) of students from the EG. Insignificant positive changes are observed among the students of the CG: a high level of self-education culture formation was recorded in 12.8% (it was 10.3%); an average level of 35.9% (it was 25.6%); 51.3% remained at a low level (it was 64.1%). However, such dynamics is spontaneous, since the majority of students remained at a low level of self-education culture formation. Positive dynamics took place not only in quantitative, but also in qualitative indicators of students from the EG. For example, in the choral class of the students from the EG, there is an increased professional interest in the process of rehearsal work, which consists in cognitive activity and methodological questions. It should be noted that most of the students from the EG began to use interdisciplinary connections: for example, the acquired rehearsal skills in a choir class, when a student is in the role of a singer, in the role of a choirmaster. The students from the EG have a significant increase in professional self-esteem. In pedagogical conversations, many students note that their previous fears of being unprofessional in such activities as choirmaster work, writing annotations on choral works, preparing messages and scientific reports have disappeared. In addition, the students from the EG increased their research interest: prepared theoretical and methodological messages for seminars formed the basis of reports at scientific and practical events. Some competitive works on the implementation of annotations on choral works of students of the experimental group are recommended for publication. Note that students from the EG began to systematically carry out preliminary independent preparation for lessons in vocal, choir, choral conducting and other disciplines of the vocal-choral cycle, which allows us to state an increase in the level of formation of the culture of self-education of the future teacher of musical art.

Conclusions

It is shown that the formation of a culture of self-education contributes to an increase in the level of competence, mobility, creative activity and social responsibility of students. The conclusions on the experimental-research verification of the methodology for the formation of a culture of self-education of future teachers of musical art on the example of mastering vocal and choral disciplines by students of the experimental group convincingly illustrates the high efficiency of the methodology introduced into the educational process. The dynamics of the achievements of high results of the students of the experimental group testifies to the effectiveness of the proposed methodology for the formation of a culture of self-education of future teachers of musical art in the process of studying the disciplines of the vocal and choral cycle. Thus, the author's method of forming a culture of self-education was substantiated and experimentally tested. Criteria and levels of formation of this phenomenon among students in the process of vocal and choral training are given. The results of the formative experiment are analyzed and their reliability is proven. According to the above, the upbringing of individual independence in educational activities is taken as the basis in the formation of a culture of self-education as a leading indicator of the competence of a specialist in the 21st century.