Effect of focused observation on preservice music teachers’ mention of students

Using Fuller and Bown’s (1975) teacher concerns model as a framework, we examined precursor strategies to Fuller and Bown’s Stage 3 (concern with student impact). We examined preservice music teachers’ focus on teaching videos to determine (a) if participants focused on teacher or student, (b) if prompts to notice students resulted in more comments about students, (c) if focus on students maintained without instructions, and (d) if results differed based on prior teaching experience with school-aged students. Preservice music teachers (N = 114) viewed videos of music classes/rehearsals, specifying “what you notice” (control, n = 54) or “what did the students do” (focused observation, n = 60). As a posttest transfer, participants viewed the pretest video again without instructions. There were significant posttest differences, indicating the extent to which instructions influenced participant focus and the effects of small amounts of teaching experience. Specifically, results showed that the inexperienced teachers with guided instructions responded more like experienced ones. Implications for teacher preparation were discussed.