Musical workshops are not only used to promote practical music skills, they may also have the potential to foster personality development directly or as a consequence of increased musical activity (Rauscher, Shaw & Ky, 1993; Rittersberger, 2002). While music workshops of several days` duration may be a highlight in the daily life of children and adolescents, there is insufficient research, how these interventions should be designed to increase the musical activity of children in their leisure time in the long term. Like in most sectors of cultural participation, especially controlled field experiments are lacking. Pivotal precondition for planning and conducting such experiments is a concept that is demonstratedly effective regarding fostering activity. It should build on the current empirical evidence in this field, integrate techniques of psychological behavior modification and explicitly include the tacit knowledge of music teachers. The concept should also provide the opportunity to integrate valid measures of student’s behavior during intervention and the effect of these interventions on students’ cognitions and activities. At the same time, these measures should not interfere with the flow of the intervention more than necessary.

In this study a concept for a musical intervention will be developed that is aimed at increasing musical activities of children and adolescents from grades 5 to 10. For this purpose, three cycles of development, design and evaluation of a musical intervention are conducted based on the concept of design-based research (Design-Based Research Collective, 2003).

The first step of our study was to analyze the literature in this context to get relevant facts and deduct first implications for developing the intervention. After analyzing the relevant literature, we executed a best practice analysis by interviewing n = 6 experts for musical interventions on their experience regarding workshops for children and adolescents. Based on the conclusions the first prototype of the intervention was designed by a group of educational scientists and music education specialists working in music schools. The first prototype resulting from this process was tested and used in a formative evaluation with n = 20 secondary students. To gather information for the subsequent process of redesign, all participants and their parents were interviewed regarding their perception of the workshop. We also analyzed changes in musical activities before vs. after the intervention based on data from student questionnaires. Moreover, we collected data regarding emotions during the intervention. The intervention was re-designed focusing on the quality of the musical teaching sessions and the organizational frame conditions. Then it was formatively evaluated again with n = 20 secondary students. Data for re-design were collected as in the first evaluation cycle. The intervention was re-designed again, this time focusing on the improvement of the integration of the measures and on increasing effect size regarding musical activity by integrating techniques of psychological behavior modification. The resulting intervention was summatively evaluated in a field experiment featuring a pre- post- and follow-up design with the follow-up being scheduled six weeks after the intervention. General effects of the intervention on musical activity, regardless of the version, in all n = 100 students were analyzed. Moreover, effects of intervention quality and the restriction of the use of smartphones on gain in activity were explored. Finally, following the concept of design-based research, implications for future field experiments using the designed intervention concept were discussed and integrated in a local theory on musical interventions.

A concept for three-day musical interventions has been developed, which has been shown to increase musical activity in children and adolescence independent of the experimental condition. The intervention has been designed for and tested with children of the 5th to 10th grade from several school forms both with and without previous musical knowledge. The intervention was conducted in the children`s leisure time and not in their school setting. At the same time, high acceptance of the concept among the participants and their families showed that it enables researchers to integrate data collection on pivotal variables while not affecting the pedagogical quality of the music workshop. From the whole project, implications regarding further development of the concept for the musical workshop and regarding the data collection were derived. Thus, an intervention concept has been successfully developed which can be both applied for practical musical education and used in future music education field experiments.

-Design-Based Research Collective. (2003). Design-Based Research. An Emerging Paradigm for Educational Inquiry. Educational Researcher, 32 (1), 5–8. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X032001005 -Rauscher, F. H., Shaw, G. L., & Ky, K. N. (1993). Music and spatial task performance. Nature, 365 (6447), 611. https://doi.org/10.1038/365611a0 -Rittersberger, A. (2002). Jedes Kind will musizieren: Musik macht Kinder intelligenter und selbstbewusster (1. Aufl.). KidsWorld. München: Beust.