From ‘Being’ to ‘Becoming’: The Transition from Music Education Students to Novice Teachers, Universitas Pelita Harapan

Abstract

Students-turned-into-teachers encounter a transition process during their early years of teaching. In recent years, there has been considerable discourse on how crucial this transition process is. Scholars have suggested that the first five years of teaching are the determining factor—whether these novice teachers choose to stay in their profession, or otherwise. While this topic has become one of the utmost concerns by scholars in the education field, its study on music education is still limited. Thus, this research aims to explore and investigate the transition process of music education undergraduate students who became novice teachers, particularly at Universitas Pelita Harapan (UPH). UPH is one of the leading universities in Indonesia that serves a Music Education program for undergraduates. Using phenomenology case study, the data was collected through semi-structured interviews of two graduates of the Music Education Program at UPH who became music teachers in formal institutions. The secondary data of this research were the interviews of the respondents’ work colleagues and lecturers, as well as the questionnaires of 31 alumni of the Music Education Program. Overall, this research focused on three aspects of the respondents’ transition process, which are: (1) their challenges; (2) their perception; (3) their preparation program. The evidence showed that the graduates of the Music Education Program at UPH have experienced both positive and negative transition processes throughout their early careers. The most significant challenges of their transition are doing administrative tasks and class management. This research has also found that the university program gave a significant impact on preparing these newly-appointed teachers, in terms of their music teachers’ identity, and their professionalism in the work field. This research heightens the awareness and knowledge on how the university can improve the preparation program for music education graduates to face their transition process as beginning music teachers.