Engagement with education: Music education in a paediatric hospital

Highlights

• Digital music technology and specialist pedagogy engages sick children in learning.

• Music education leads to distraction, engagement, enjoyment and enhances learning.

• Music education in paediatric hospital improves familial and peer relationships.

• Music education builds confidence, relationships and enhances socialisation.

Abstract

This paper reports on an evaluation project aimed at improving engagement with education through a music based intervention using customised music technology and Specialist Music Teachers in an Australian paediatric hospital. The project utilised participant observation methodology, and ‘flow experience’ as a tool for analysis. The study found that using music technology with specialist pedagogy, led to engagement and enjoyment in making music and were key elements in enabling learning. The learning fostered intra-familial and peer relationships, a critical factor in closing the circle through supporting re-engagement with education. A model has been constructed which summarises these critical processes. We concluded that the technology and special pedagogy offers children with varying capabilities the ability to engage in learning despite hindrances during hospitalisation.

Introduction

In recent years, medical advances have seen children with serious chronic illness continue to survive for longer periods and increasingly into adulthood (Ball and Teacher, 2011, Shiu, 2001). Australian data show that up to twenty percent of students may experience chronic illness, of which five percent may experience severe and complicated chronic illness (Dockett, 2004). As a result, many of these young children spend large amounts of time in a hospital environment, potentially impeding their wellbeing, social development and their ability to achieve educational milestones due to absence from the classroom. Hospitalisation and hospital visits for appointments and treatments are a significant cause of missed schooling for many children and young people (Hopkins, Nisselle, Zazryn, & Green, 2013; Shiu, 2001). Research evidence suggests that 45 percent of school aged-children who have experienced hospitalisation face a range of problems at school including prolonged school absence (Thies, 1999) with 58 percent of these children consistently absent from their classroom (Thies & McAllister, 2001). The effects of prolonged school absence are manifold across the life course and may include: educational under-achievement, future unemployment or under-employment, poorer physical and mental health, lower income, housing stress (Haas & Fosse, 2008). Others include social isolation and capacity to interact with supportive stimulating manner (Magee et al., 2011). School-aged children and young people may also suffer significantly by being absent from community activities and socialising with their peers, a factor which is particularly critical during the adolescent years (Nesbitt & Tabatt-Haussmann, 2008). It is therefore extremely important to ensure that children and young people remain engaged with a range of learning opportunities despite the complications of a health condition (Hopkins et al., 2013).

Disengagement due to hospitalisation has negative consequences for the child’s educational achievement. However, supportive interventions to initiate and enhance active engagement in education and to maintain or re-build relationships have been shown to work (Ferguson and Walker, 2014, Liberto, 2016) but can be challenging to implement (Magee et al., 2011). In addition, so long as various phases of diagnosis, treatment, and hospitalisation continues, children and young people as well as their family members may experience heightened levels of stress and anxiety (Patenaude and Kupst, 2005, Robb, 2003). As a result, these children and young people may continue to experience social withdrawal, general distraction and isolation leading to disengagement with education (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984).

This paper argues that specialised music teaching using new digital technologies can play a critical role in engaging children and young people who are absent from school due to a health condition with ongoing learning. Nonetheless, because assessing learning outcomes for students as a result of brief or one-off interventions is difficult, we consider engagement with education as a proxy measure of learning, rather than attempting to measure learning outcomes against standardised measures over very short time frames. We developed an evaluation framework based on the exploration of the ‘flow experience’ to demonstrate engagement with learning. From this we theorise the effectiveness model. The model, based on our observed findings, supports our contention that the combination of stimulating technology with specialist pedagogy works effectively to engage students in learning in an out-of-school education setting. In addition, engagement with learning opportunities, leading to achievement in music (regardless of ability or prior learning), builds positive intra-familial and peer relationships which are critical factors in students’ re-engagement with education after absence from school. Our study focused merely on the characteristics of music education, which make it an effective tool for encouraging learning, and keeping sick children engaged as learners while absent from school.