Malaysian secondary school music teachers' perceptions on issues in teaching music / Muhamad Zulfiqar Shaharudin

The purpose of this study to investigate the Malaysian secondary school music teachers' perceptions on several issues identified (e.g. society's perceptions toward music, shortage of music teachers, funding of the music programme, large class size, students' behaviors in the music classroom and excessive administrative workload of music teachers) and to examine which of the mentioned issues are perceived by music teachers to be the most challenging in teaching music. The respondents of this study consisted of (TV = 29) music teachers. A descriptive design using a quantitative method is adopted to elicit music teachers' points of view towards the issues in teaching music as well as their beliefs on its impacts. The findings of this study showed that the majority of the music teachers agreed that there is an issue with regard to the society's perceptions toward music, shortage of music teachers, funding of the music programme, large class size, students' behaviors in the music classroom, and the excessive administrative workload of music teachers in schools. Respondents believe that the issue of funding of the music programme has a negative impact on the opportunities of musical activities that the students receive. They also believe that the issue of students' behaviors in music classroom and excessive administrative workload creates stress to music teachers. In addition, the teachers also indicated that the issue of excessive administrative workload of music teachers creates job dissatisfaction to music teachers. Analyzing music teachers' views on the most challenging issues in teaching music, it can be concluded that most of the respondents perceived that the issue of excessive administrative workload of music teachers as the most challenging in teaching music.