Dorothy Miell

• University of Edinburgh

The work presented here is situated within the field of collaborative learning research, which aims to conceptualise and promote effective ways of thinking and talking together in the classroom. Much of the existing literature on shared meaning-making places an emphasis on collective argumentation or joint reasoning through Exploratory or Accountab...

Although there is an extensive body of literature that investigates the process and outcomes of children’s collaboration on scientific reasoning tasks, very little work has focussed on the nature and quality of children’s collaboration on creative tasks. One study reported here used a questionnaire to music teachers to ask about their typical desig...

There has been considerable research concerning peer interaction and the acquisition of children’s scientific reasoning. This study investigated differences in collaborative activity between pairs of children working around a computer with pairs of children working with physical apparatus and related any differences to the development of children’s...

Musical imagination and creativity are amongst the most abstract and complex aspects of musical behaviour, though, until recently, they have been difficult to subject to empirical enquiry. However, music psychology and some allied disciplines have now developed, both theoretically and methodologically, to the point where some of these topics are no...

This chapter begins by setting out the purpose of the book, which is to deal with complex musical issues previously regarded as intractably abstract, complex, and difficult to subject to empirical enquiry. The topics of musical imagination and creativity, from the points of view of both musical perception and musical production, involve fundamental...

This chapter presents an account of how talk about music in informal settings can play a crucial role within the musical communication process. It focuses on the ways in which talk about music serves a number of personal, social, and musical functions for both young people and professional musicians, which can be viewed as an important aspect of mu...

Music improvisation is a universal and diverse form of musical expression, yet it retains a shadowy presence within the study of music from both a research and a performance perspective. This chapter focuses on the importance of improvisation as a particular site for creativity in music. It explores contemporary notions of improvisation in a broade...

Geoffrey Miller has hypothesized that producing artwork functions as a mating display. Here we investigate the relationship between mating success and artistic success in a sample of 236 visual artists. Initially, we derived a measure of artistic success that covered a broad range of artistic behaviors and beliefs. As predicted by Miller’s evolutio...

This paper presents research from an ongoing study analyzing the co-creative practice of two undergraduate studio based music composers working with two peers from dance and video production. Whilst empirical research has explored joint creativity and group working processes within and across performing arts disciplines (including music), situation...

A range of systems exist for collaborative music making on multi-touch surfaces. Some of them have been highly successful, but currently there is no systematic way of designing them, to maximise collaboration for a particular user group. We are particularly interested in systems that will engage novices and experts. We designed a simple application...

This paper presents a study of a series of band rehearsals run by five young people as they practised for a gig together: preparing new songs as well as developing their existing sets. The analysis specifically explores the ways in which the band members collectively develop and evaluate their musical ‘works in progress’. Their interactions were di...

Drawing on socio-cultural theory, this paper focuses on children's classroom-based collaborative creative writing. The central aim of the reported research was to contribute to our understanding of young children's creativity, and describe ways in which peer collaboration can resource, stimulate and enhance classroom-based creative writing activiti...

Abstract not available.

In this paper we argue that the processes of collaborative creativity are just as important within the sociocultural context of PhD supervisory practice, as they are in other organizational and educational settings. In order to test this claim a series of interviews with supervisors and students were undertaken to uncover the pedagogic processes us...

Miller has argued that artworks act as fitness indicators in mate choice. However, there has been little empirical work to support or refute this assertion. This study aims to rectify this and in so doing to develop a novel method to consider whether observers of art are able to accurately assess the qualities of the artist and to use these judgeme...

Abstract not available.

This paper discusses methodological considerations in research investigating processes of asynchronous online learning. It challenges existing conceptualisations of online discourse which foreground the cognitive dimension of computer-mediated interactions. Informed by two studies about online university courses at the Open University, UK and the U...

This chapter first sets out the purpose of the book, which is to explain the musical, social, and cultural processes that underlie the eventual realization of the acoustic performance event (by the composer, performer, arranger, and all others involved), the means by which they lead to the listener's response, and thence to short and long-term effe...

Music is a powerful means of communication. It provides a means by which people can share emotions, intentions, and meanings even though their spoken languages may be mutually incomprehensible. It can also provide a vital lifeline to human interaction for those whose special needs make other means of communication difficult. Music can exert powerfu...

[About the book] The study of collaborative learning has a relatively brief history, yet there have been notable changes in the nature of the research being undertaken in this field. Initially, the primary aim was to determine whether and when collaborative learning was more effective than learning alone and there is a substantial body of empirical...

In: British Educational Research Association Annual Conference, Sep 2004, Manchester, UK. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------There is an increasing development of courses and course components taught through teaching and learning dialogues online yet there is little secure knowledge of the f...

This paper presents an investigation of age and friendship effects on the processes and outcomes of children's musical collaborations. Previous research in this area (Miell and MacDonald, 2000) has highlighted that when children work together with a friend they produce compositions that are rated as being better quality than compositions produced b...

Music is a tremendously powerful channel through which people develop their personal and social identities. Music is used to communicate emotions, thoughts, political statements, social relationships, and physical expressions. But, just as language can mediate the construction and negotiation of developing identities, so music can also be a means o...

Music is a tremendously powerful channel through which people develop their personal and social identities. Music is used to communicate emotions, thoughts, political statements, social relationships, and physical expressions. But, just as language can mediate the construction and negotiation of developing identities, so music can also be a means o...

Music is a tremendously powerful channel through which people develop their personal and social identities. Music is used to communicate emotions, thoughts, political statements, social relationships, and physical expressions. But, just as language can mediate the construction and negotiation of developing identities, so music can also be a means o...

Music is a fundamental channel of communication: it provides a means by which people can share emotions, intentions and meanings even though their spoken languages may be mutually incomprehensible. It can also provide a vital lifeline to human interaction for those whose special needs make other means of communication difficult. Music can exert pow...

This article presents a number of key themes relating to the concept of musical identities. It provides a definition of identity, with a discussion of why identity is a timely topic for consideration. The article then presents an overview of a series of studies investigating musical identities of jazz musicians. These highlight the utility of quali...

There has been considerable research concerning peer interaction and the acquisition of children's scientific reasoning. This study investigated differences in collaborative activity between pairs of children working around a computer with pairs of children working with physical apparatus and related any differences to the development of children's...

Recent publications within the psychology of music and music education have begun to highlight the importance that social factors have for a child's developing musicality, but there is still much to understand about this influ ence. This paper highlights two projects that investigated aspects of the intrin sically social nature of musical participa...

This study examined the social processes involved in children’s collaborative musical compositions. The communication (verbal and musical) between same-gender pairs of 11–12 year olds was analysed using measures of the relative distribution of transactive and non-transactive elements. Results suggested that mutual friendship pairs were characterise...

In recent years new translations and interpretations of the work of Vygotsky have generated considerable research activity by developmental psychologists and educational researchers on the relationship between the social and cognitive dimensions of learning. Rethinking Collaborative Learning aims to bring together, for the fist time in a single vol...

The focus here is on the constraints and possibilities afforded by the mediation of experience though semi-deterministic notions of the intergenerational transmission of abuse (the 'cycle of abuse' theory). A discourse analytic approach is adopted to accounts in which mothers identify themselves as having been abused in childhood. This identificati...

Previous research has focused on the ways in which women who are clients of welfare agencies are constructed by professional discourse. In contrast, the present study looks at the ways in which women who are designated as `problem mothers' take issue with these professional definitions. A discourse-analytic approach is adopted in the analysis of th...

This article examines the ways in which women who have suffered childhood abuse or disruption explain the breakdown in their relationship with their parents, and the extent to which their attributions of responsibility are influenced by expectations of `normal' parenting and family life. The women `s accounts are analysed in terms of the attributio...

This paper reports an exploratory study of 37 children (aged 4–5 years) throughout their first term of formal schooling. Children in two different schools were included in the study. Four pairs of friends and four isolated children were targeted for in‐depth observation every week throughout the term. The behaviour and speech of these 12 children w...

The months following the birth of the first child represent an acute transitional period in which mothers are called upon to reassess existing accounts of their personal relationships and to revise their views of parenting (Cowan, Cowan, Coie, & Coie 1978; La Rossa & La Rossa, 1981). A number of factors wih have an effect on mothers’ ability to suc...

People spend a relatively large percentage of their lives trying to get other people to like them, and the inability to engender positive feelings in others is often reported as a frustrating and unhappy experience (Bell & Daly, 1984). In initiating and developing relationships, unacquainted persons start with intentions, hopes, needs, desires, wis...

Examined individual differences in the level of planning and monitoring involved in actual interpersonal interactions between pairs of friends and strangers, as measured by a self-monitoring scale (SMS) developed by M. Snyder (see record 1975-03047-001). 18 male–male, 18 male–female, and 18 female–female undergraduate dyads of friends or strangers...

Examined individual differences in the level of planning and monitoring involved in actual interpersonal interactions between pairs of friends and strangers, as measured by a self-monitoring scale (SMS) developed by M. Snyder (see record 1975-03047-001). 18 male–male, 18 male–female, and 18 female–female undergraduate dyads of friends or strangers...

this chapter reports a study that examines part of this process of building up a unique relational context by investigating the gradual evolution of the personal history of a relationship during the early stages of its development relational level of analysis memory of relational information assessing knowledge of relationship development '...

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Lancaster, 1984.

The book brings together contributions from researchers, working across Europe and North America, who have interests in collaborative learning. The work presented here is united through the contributors’ shared desire to understand and promote educationally productive collaborative work, whilst investigating this in diverse ways, for example with r...

The study of collaborative learning has a relatively brief history, yet there have been notable changes in the nature of the research being undertaken in this field. Initially, the primary aim was to determine whether and when collaborative learning was more effective than learning alone and there is a substantial body of empirical evidence demonst...

This paper reports a study of the nature of children's musical communication when working on a collaborative compositional task. the paper reports the development and use of an innovative system for coding and analysing individual musical ideas and the manner in which these ideas are deveeloped and elaborated through interaction. The results illumi...