My Roles: Lead Researcher | Analyst | Writer

Background and Project Description:

In this project we wanted to understand the landscape of “technological” tools used in music therapy (MT) practice, in a way that is situated in a commonly known session progression structure.

MT sessions typically follow a phase progression of Referral, Assessment, Treatment planning, Implementation (In-session), Documentation, Evaluation and Termination of treatment . This was our theoretical framework to classify our data.

We build on prior work to present a contextualized and more in-depth look at technology types that that support MT practice. Gathering data from 104 board-certified music therapists (MT-BCs), we found that planning, documentation and evaluation rely heavily on notetaking and data entry technologies, while assessment and in-session work see a more diverse configuration of technologies spanning music instruments, mixed media & interactive music interfaces and recording technology.

This project is meant to promote agenda-setting critical discussion within MT and cross-disciplinarily with Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) designers to envision the technology that supports music therapists.

Process

We obtained an email list from the Certification Board for Music Therapists (CBMT) and sent an online survey to 1,952 board-certified music therapists (MT-BCs), and received 104 completed surveys back (5.32% response rate).

The types of questions in the survey included:

• Demographics and health conditions serviced
• Technologies used for a) Assessment, b) Treatment Planning, c) In-session, d) Progress Documentation, e) Evaluation
• Adjustments to practice after COVID-19