Authorship and Methodology Patterns in Music Education Research, 1984-2007

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to evaluate gender-related authorship and research methodology patterns in music education research. Articles were examined in order to determine if the frequency of women authors in the sample matched the frequency of women receiving doctoral degrees in music education. Furthermore, methodologies of the articles were tallied to determine what types of research were being published and in what frequencies. Analysis of seven top-tier music education journals published from 1984 to 2007 suggested that women published below the expected frequency and that quantitative research comprised 78.93% of published articles. Data indicated that women were less frequent authors than men, but published a greater percentage of qualitative research. The number of women authors increased from the Early Period (1984-1991) to Late Period (1992-2007), as did the number of authors writing qualitative research.