There are many published examples of research in music education, using a variety of approaches including surveys, experiments, and historical studies.
In the United States, research in this field has been carried out for many years under the auspices of the National Association for Music Education (NAfME, formerly MENC).
In A Guide to Research in Music Education, Phelps, Ferrara and Goolsby define research as the identification and isolation of a problem into a workable plan; the implementation of that plan to collect the data needed; and the synthesis, interpretation and presentation of the collected information into some format which readily can be made available to others.
The impact of the study was the recommendation that school systems should provide larger, more adequate teaching facilities and that universities and string teachers should emphasize strategies for teaching larger string classes in their teacher preparation programs.
Development studies collect information on existing situations, determine relationships, and examine changes in these variables over a period of time.
Development studies include: Historical research refers to the collection of data to record and interpret past events.
Through the process of external criticism, the researcher learns whether or not the object of scrutiny is authentic.
Through the process of internal criticism, the researcher determines if the information contained in the object is credible.
An example of philosophical research is a 1999 article by Bennett Reimer published in The Music Educators Journal: "Facing the Risks of the Mozart Effect."
The Educational Council published bulletins, mostly based on survey data and including recommendations for the profession.
One such bulletin was The Present Status of Music Instruction in Colleges and High Schools 1919-1920.
The Journal of Research in Music Education began publication in 1953 under the editorship of Allen Britton.
Price and Chang (2000) provide an overview of the many diverse music education research journals including annotation and publication details for each source.
Research on the impact of music education research journals includes investigations of initial citation speeds (Hancock, 2015), accumulated citations (Hamann & Lucas, 1998), and highly-cited authors and sources (Kratus, 1993; Hancock & Price, 2020).
The purpose of SRME is to encourage, support, and promote research as a vehicle for improving all aspects of music education.
Edited by Richard Colwell, the Handbook contains fifty-five chapters written by more than seventy scholars.
Colwell edited a second volume in 2002, The New Handbook of Research on Music Teaching and Learning.
The inclusion of sections on "Conceptual Framework" and "Evaluation" in the 1992 volume is evidence of emphasis on standards and a set body of knowledge.
The absence of similar sections in the 2002 volume is evidence of a shift toward a pragmatic philosophical and a constructivist teaching theory.
Stratification of Time to First Citation for Articles Published in the Journal of Research in Music Education A Bibliometric Analysis.
A comparison of the basic song repertoire of vocal/choral and instrumental music education majors.