Making the grade

How much difference do graded music exams make to students’ performance in schools? A study in Italy has been attempting to find out

News and events from around the world this month

Violin students at Trinity College London in Italy, with its director Emiliano Valtulini, Francesca Christmas and Annalisa Spadolini, president of the National Music Committee

GIULIA NASCIUTI

A four-year research project in Italy has been exploring what impact the introduction of graded music exams can have on the teaching and learning of music in schools. In October 2019 Trinity College London and the Ministry of Education in Italy signed a memorandum of understanding to develop a pilot project in primary and secondary schools.

By April 2023, 123 schools in 18 different Italian regions had joined the project, accessing Trinity’s music exams and resources and teacher training.

Researchers used lesson observations, interviews, focus groups and questionnaires to evaluate the impact of the introduction of the graded exams framework. The research project is still to be formally completed, but Trinity researchers have already identified an increased valuing of music in school settings, the benefits to teachers of more support and resources, and a positive impact on students’ motivation and progression.

Before the pilot project, Trinity’s principal involvement in Italy and with the Italian Ministry of Education was in the field of English language testing. Although Trinity introduced its music qualifications in Italy in 2013, international music assessment systems were largely unknown in the country. But a refreshed mandate for Italy’s National

Committee for the Practical Learning of Music for All Students – a group established in 2006 within the Ministry of Education – to develop music education at all levels of schooling presented a chance for Trinity to build awareness of international assessments through a collaborative research project.

Francesca Christmas, Trinity’s director of music and publishing, says: ‘Italy moving into music exams presented a kind of world-first opportunity for an impact study, something unprecedented in modern times. But I was keen to ensure that the pilot project we developed wasn’t about getting Italian tutors teaching the way we thought they should. Rather, it was about discovering what Italian teachers found useful, presenting what Trinity could offer, and finding how they could build their curricula from it. We’ve done a lot of bespoke work for the teachers to make sure the project works for them, rather than it being imposed on them. The outcomes of the pilot suggest that teachers have seen what we’ve offered as a resource bank, framework and training that they can use and tailor to their needs.’

Around three quarters of the project’s participating schools have been middle schools (aged 11–14) and upper schools with a music curriculum, where students have one-to-one instrumental or vocal lessons and play in ensembles, bands or orchestras. According to Trinity’s Italian office, there are more than 1,400 such middle schools and over 150 such upper schools in Italy, but there are many more non-music curriculum schools in a school system that serves about eight million students. In these non-music curriculum schools and primary schools where music is taught in a whole-class setting, how would the introduction of graded music exams work? Teaching music theory was unsurprisingly a more viable option, but Christmas says: ‘What we saw in the non-music curriculum schools and the schools for lower age groups was the Trinity resources being deconstructed for classroom teaching. Teachers would use elements of repertoire and assessment criteria in their lessons. Some schools also took a two-pronged approach, using the resources to teach music theory but also at the same time English language.’

‘It’s a shining example politically for other parts of the world’ – Francesca Christmas, director of music and publishing, Trinity College London

As part of the pilot project, all participating schools became exam certification centres, thereby quadrupling the total number of registered Trinity exam centres in Italy. Trinity exams were new for the vast majority of students involved in the project, and by the end of the project, which was affected by the Covid pandemic for two-thirds of its duration, the total number of Trinity music exams taken in Italy more than doubled. Some of these exams were digital exams introduced in response to Covid restrictions. ‘Covid had a huge impact on the research project,’ says Christmas, ‘but research tools such as interviews, focus groups and surveys were able to continue online. We built into the research additional tools and analysis around the impact of Covid. We collected enough data to be able to compare before and after, to enable us to complete the impact study, and on top of that we got more understanding about how teachers coped with Covid, what sort of support they needed, and what ideas and practices they’ve carried through in their teaching since then.’

This will be Trinity’s largest ever music research project. ‘It gives us knowledge of how to improve our exams, how to maintain good practice and how to better support teachers,’ says Christmas. ‘It also gives us a clear direction on the benefits for teachers and schools.’ A good working relationship with the Ministry of Education has been important for the success of the project, and Christmas was particularly impressed by the strong and pro-active governmentlevel involvement. ‘The music committee was very good at suggesting policy and then following it up with implementation,’ she says. ‘There was funding, support and resources from the Ministry, and the committee went to great lengths to understand how to help schools do the things they’d asked them to do. It’s a shining example politically for other parts of the world.’

SHANE ROZARIO