A Decade of Music Therapy in Korea

An Analysis of Korean Graduate Research from 1997 to 2005

By Eun Young Hwang & Se Yeon Park

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the trends of research in music therapy through the analysis of studies from 1997 to 2005, and to make some directions for the future development of music therapy research in Korea. In this study, a total of 488 theses including master's and doctoral degrees, were analyzed by researchers' degree, publication resources, client population, research methods, and research objectives. The results of this study were listed as follows. First, the target theses were categorized as follows; 5 doctoral and 483 master's theses. In other respect, 276 were theses from music therapy programs and 212 were those from other programs. Second, regarding client population, 228 theses were about client with disabilities, 190 with non-disabilities, 29 with medical patients, and 41 others. Third, research methods of each thesis were categorized as 411 quantitative studies, 64 literature studies, 2 qualitative studies, and 11 quantitative-qualitative mixed studies. Fourth, in the target number of research, the field of emotion was the highest with 35%.

Introduction

Music therapy has played an important role in Korea since late 1990s, not only scientifically but also clinically. In 1997, the master's degree course for music therapists was first offered at Sookmyung Women's University and Ewha Womans University. Currently, training courses and degree programs for music therapists are offered at many other universities in Korea. Accordingly, numerous studies and clinical papers about music therapy have been published.

Research is a systematic and self-monitored inquiry, which leads to a discovery or new insight when it is documented and disseminated. Also research can contribute to existing knowledge or applications and change or improve practice. Therefore, research of music therapy will extend, generalize, transfer, or apply the findings to comparable clients and contexts by moving from specific data to specific clients to gather more general knowledge (Wheeler, 1995).

Although the studies about music therapy in Korea started quite a few years ago, in the period between 1997 and 2005, music therapy research has developed a great deal. It is therefore necessary to review and analyze previous research in order to find the trends of music therapy and to extend its application in Korea.

Kim (1999) analyzed 184 articles in Journal of Music Therapy from 1987 to 1998 and Nam (2000) examined 170 studies from Music Therapy Perspectives from 1982 to 1998 in order to inform the knowledge of music therapy in Korea. Besides, Jung (2001) discussed the history of music therapy in Korea and reviewed 83 articles and theses from 1973 to 1996. Jung's research showed that the majority of the studies were about children. Studies with the elderly were not published until 1996.

The profession of Music Therapy is growing fast in Korea. Thus it is very important to examine studies from the beginning to the present and its advantages are as follows. First, it will present perspectives for future research development in music therapy. Second, it will describe the current research trends in the clinical settings. Taken altogether, this study is to investigate the trends of research in music therapy through the analysis of degree theses from 1997 to 2005, and make a direction for the future development of music therapy research in Korea.

Methods

Target Studies

The studies analyzed were doctoral and master's theses that have been published at five different universities; Sookmyung Women's university, Ewha Womans University, Wonkwang University, Hansei University, and Myongji University. In this study, theses only after 1996 were analyzed because theses before 1996 were previously analyzed by Jung (2001).

Our research was conducted from 1997 to 2005. On-line database searches included The National Assembly Library, university library and some science services. Finally, 488 theses of music therapy from 1997 to 2005 were identified for our study.

Criteria for Analysis

Music therapy these from 1997 to 2005 were analyzed by year, theses, publication sources, client population, research methods, and research contents. The criteria for analysis are as follows.

1. Years: 1997- 2005
2. Publication sources: Research published in the music therapy and non-music therapy programs. Non-music therapy programs include special education, music education, early childhood education, general education, counseling, social welfare, nursing, theology, music, and other fields.
3. Theses: Master's and doctoral research.
4. Client population: Includes disability, non-disability, medical patients or others
   1. Disability was categorized by DSM-IV; developmental disorder, sensory disorder, emotional disorder, autism, mental retardation, ADHD, mental disorder, dementia, physical disorder, stroke, cerebral palsy, Down's syndrome, and learning disorder.
   2. Non-disability was categorized by age; neonate, infant, children, adolescent, students in university, adults, and elderly. And, others included music therapist, parent, teacher, and other related professionals.
   3. Patients included in-patients, the terminally ill, and cancer patients.
   4. Others includes non-human subjects.
5. Research methods Research methods were categorized by qualitative, quantitative, literature, and quantitative-qualitative mixed studies.
   1. Quantitative studies contained experimental and descriptive studies.
      1. Experimental studies were single case studies and group studies.
      2. Descriptive studies were case studies, correlation studies, and surveys.
6. Research contents
   1. Acoustic- perception/discrimination of rhythm, melody, and timbre.
   2. Emotion-self-expression/feeling/personality, anxiety/depression/inconvenience, Self-esteem/self-expression, creativity/EQ and reduce stress/relaxation et al.
   3. Behavior- stereotypic, self-injury, aggression et al.
   4. Social- interaction, cohesion et al.
   5. Cognition- recall, performance, language et al.
   6. Medical- physiology, rehabilitation et al.
   7. Theory - preference, history, content analysis, treatment factor et al.
   8. Correlation- music psychology, music education et al.
   9. Religion - worship et al.
   10. Others- antismoking et al.

Procedure

All of the theses used in this study were analyzed by the above criteria. Two researchers investigated and computed kappa scores in order to confirm objectivity, with inter-rater reliability of 0.83. The frequency and percentage were computed and chi-square analysis was conducted in use of SPSS Window ver. 12.0.

Results

Degree of Theses and Publication Sources

In this study, 488 theses were analyzed. Only 5 of them were doctoral degrees and the remaining were master's degrees. All of the doctoral theses were published in non-music therapy related fields.

Concerning the publication sources, 276(57%) these were published in music therapy with the average of 39 per year. Meanwhile, 212(43%) were published in non-music therapy, such as music education, special education, and others with the average of 24 per year. See figure 1.

Figure 1: Trend of research according to publication sources.

Concerning the non-music therapy, the majority of studies were published in music education. 33 in special education(16%), 29 in nursing(14%), 24 in social welfare(11%) are followed. See figure 2.

Figure 2: Composition of non-music therapy.

Client Population

Regarding the client population in the theses, 228 were with persons with disabilities, 190 were about without disabilities, 29 were with terminal illnesses or those receiving in-patient treatment. There has been an increase with client population without disability participating in the research since 2003. Before 2003, there were 130 theses involving client population with disability and 127 without disability. In the theses published in non-music therapy programs; 98 were with disabilities and 63 were without disabilities.

In order to find the difference of client population between music therapy and non-music therapy, a chi-square analysis was examined and the result showed a significant difference(χ²=33.0, P< .00). See figure 3 and figure 4.

Figure 3: The trend of research according to client population in music therapy.

Figure 4: The trend of research according to client population in non-music therapy.

Of these 228 theses involving client population with disability, 49 of them were on mental disorder 49(21%), which showed a little decrease since 2002. Theses on autism were 44(19%) and mental retardation were 38(17%). Among190 theses on clients without any disability, 40 were about students from middle and high schools, 31(16%) were about adults, 29(15%) were about children, and 25(13%) were about infants.

Research Methods

Of the research methods applied in the study, 411 were quantitative studies, 64 were literature studies, 11 were quantitative-qualitative mixed studies, and only 2 were qualitative studies. Among quantitative studies, 289 were experimental and 122 were descriptive studies. Quantitative-qualitative mixed studies have been published steadily since 2001. See table 1.

Table 1: Number of studies according to research methods

	Quantitative research		Qualitative research	Literature research	Quantitative-qualitative mixed research
	Experimental research	Descriptive research
97	1			3
98	3			5
99	17	5		6
00	37	22	1	10
01	33	21		8	3
02	48	12		5	5
03	52	24		7	1
04	57	22		13	1
05	41	16	1	7	1
Total	289	122	2	64	11

In order to find the difference in the research methods in theses published in music therapy and non-music therapy, a chi-square was used to analyze the data and the results showed a significant difference(χ²=573.8 P< .00). Literature research was published more in non-music therapy than in music therapy. On the other hand, all of the quantitative-qualitative mixed methods studies and qualitative studies were published in music therapy.

In experimental studies, 150 theses were published in music therapy and 139 were published in non-music therapy. On the other hand, 103 of descriptive studies were published in music therapy, only 19 were in non-music therapy. See figure 5 and figure 6.

Figure 5: The trends of research method in music therapy.

Figure 6: The trends of research method in non-music therapy.

Research Contents

A total of 569 research factors were founded through analysis by contents of all theses, and there were theses dealing with more than one factor. Among these, emotional issues, such as self-expression/ depression, rated highest, 198(35%), and 113(57%) of them were published in music therapy program. Studies dealing with theory rated second highest, 87(15%) and 36(41%) of them were also published in music therapy program. The total number of theses dealing with behavioral change/modification was 62, and 24(39%) of them were published in music therapy. The detailed results are as follows.

In the category of emotion, the highest percentage was in anxiety/depression/mitigation 77(39%), followed by self-expression 38(19%), self-esteem and self-concept 38(19%), reduce stress 20(10%), and creativity and EQ 16(8%).

Second, among the theoretical studies, those dealing with treatment factors 38(44%) was the highest, and preference 16(18%), then evaluation program 12(14%), analyses of content 9(10%) and training 7(8%) were followed respectively.

Third, among the behavioral studies, those dealing with eye-contact/attention 30 (48%) was the highest and stereotype/self-injury 22(35%) and aggression 7(11%) were followed.

Fourth, the medical studies, dealing with change of physiology 20(53%) ranked higher than physical/speech rehabilitation 16(42%). Most of them were published in non-music therapy but all of physical/speech rehabilitation researches were published in music therapy.

Fifth, all of correlation studies were published in music therapy. Music psychology was the highest 10(48%) and personality/trait 9(43%) was followed.

Table 2: Categories of research contents.

	Acoustic	Emotion	Behavior	Social	Cognition	Medical	Theory	Correlation	Religion	Others
97		3								1
98		5		2			2			1
99		8(5)	4(2)	4(1)	3(3)	1(1)	6(2)	1(1)		4(2)
00	4(3)	18(8)	9(4)	9(8)	8(7)	6(5)	16(7)	5(5)		5(2)
01	3(2)	19(13)	11(7)	7(4)	3(2)	2(2)	15(8)	4(4)	3(2)	3(2)
02	2(1)	41(25)	6(3)	9(6)	6(3)	9(3)	11(7)	1(1)		4(3)
03	5(3)	35(22)	11(4)	8(5)	2(1)	7(6)	18(7)	7(7)	1	2
04	4(4)	42(22)	11(2)	17(10)	8(4)	9(6)	11(2)	2(2)	7(3)	1(1)
05	4(3)	27(18)	10(3)	11(7)	6(4)	4(2)	8(3)	1(1)	5(1)	1(1)
	22 (16)	198 (113)	62 (24)	67 (41)	36 (24)	38 (25)	87 (36)	21 (21)	16 (6)	22 (11)
* ( ) were studied in music therapy ** others included antismoking, mitigation of dementia

Conclusion and Discussion

This study was to investigate the trends of research in music therapy through the analysis of 488 theses about music therapy from 1997 to 2005, according to the year, degree, publication sources, client population, research methods, and research objectives. Only 5 were from doctoral degrees and the rest were from master's degrees. The detailed results are as follows.

First, from the total number of 488 theses, 276 were published within music therapy program and the rest were published in non-music therapy programs. Such a trend can be explained by the fact that there were no published studies in music therapy before 1998, since the first graduate program for music therapists began only in 1997. Currently, about 80 students become music therapist in Korea annually, however, only 40 theses are published in music therapy since some universities do not require thesis writing as part of the degree requirement. However, as music therapy is being stabilized both academically and clinically, it is the time to publish more research dealing with theory and professional knowledge within the music therapy programs to facilitate professional development of music therapy in the future.

Second, 130 out of 228 studies on client population with disability and 127 of 190 studies on clients without disability were published in the music therapy program. In the beginning, studies on the client with disability was higher, however, with time, studies about non-disability are published more frequently. Likely, studies on the elderly population increased constantly every year since 1999 because the aging population has been increasing at a fast pace, and it has become a social issue as well. Along with this trend, it would be essential to study the effect of music therapy on other types of clientele, such as internet addicts, eating disorders with various age groups.

Third, the total number of quantitative studies was 411 and 289 were experimental studies and 122 were descriptive studies. 150 of experimental studies and 103 of descriptive studies were published in music therapy. On the other hand, the total number of literature studies was 64 and only 10 of them were published in music therapy. But 11 quantitative — qualitative mixed studies and 2 qualitative studies were published in only music therapy. Currently, most of studies are quantitative research but qualitative research focusing on the phenomenological aspects of musical interactions should be encouraged. Music is a complex form of sound and music therapy is process-oriented experience. Therefore, qualitative perspectives provide much more essential findings for therapeutic process.

Fourth, regarding the research content, the emotional issue was the most prevalent, 198(35%). Within the emotional issue category, the anxiety/depression was dealt with most frequently. These results imply that much of the research in music therapy examined the effect of music in emotional and psychological aspects of human needs using music as an "activity-intervention." These interventions were also used to bring changes in other domains, such as cognitive, social, affective, communication, etc. However, in order to facilitate the academic identity of music therapy, more research should be carried out for grounding theory and building philosophical orientations to support the academic and clinical basis of music therapy. Music therapy has been developed for the past 10 years in Korea and it is essential to review music therapy research and continue to identify research needs to pursue the development of music therapy.

References

Chung, E. Y. (2001). A study of the history of music therapy in Korea from 1960's to 1996. The Korean Journal of Music Therapy, 3(2), 21-40.

Kim, E. J. (1999). The content analysis: The Journal of Music Therapy, 1987-1998. The Korean Journal of Music Therapy, 1(1), 13-62.

Nam, E. J. (2000). The content analysis of Music Therapy Perspectives(1982-1998). Master's thesis published at Sookmyung Women's University.

Wheeler, B. L. (1995). Music therapy research: quantitative and qualitative perspectives. NH: Barcelona publishers.