Justin J. West

Dr. Justin West is associate professor of music and human learning and fellow to the Sandra E. New endowed professorship in music education in the Sarah and Ernest Butler School of Music at The University of Texas at Austin. A recipient of the Butler School of Music Teaching Excellence Award, Dr. West specializes in choral music education, research methods, and law and policy in arts education. 

West is a leading scholar of teacher learning, with a focus on how professional development interventions and policies affect music teacher practice and music education quality in the U.S. His quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods research is published in prominent peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of Research in Music Education, Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education, Arts Education Policy Review, and Journal of Music Teacher Education. He serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Research in Music Education, Texas Music Education Research, and the International Journal of Research in Choral Singing. He is currently a principal investigator on the CARE Project (Collaborating Across Roles in Education), a grant-funded, statewide study of interdisciplinary professional development for music educators and athletic coaches experiencing role stress or attrition risk.

West was previously on the music education faculty at Louisiana State University, where he received a 2021 LSU Alumni Association Rising Faculty Research Award. He holds graduate degrees in music education from the University of North Texas (Ph.D.) and Columbia University (M.A.). A native Texan, he taught choir, AP music theory, and piano in the Houston area and has Texas principal and teacher certifications. He has also been a church musician (choir director, pianist, organist) for over 20 years.

MUS 210C 
Introduction to Music Education

MUS 356G 
Teaching Choir

MUS 393 
Qualitative Research in Music

MUS 393 
Law and Policy in Arts Education

West, J. J., & *Melton, A. N. (2024). How are conference clinics designed and delivered to facilitate music teacher professional development? Texas Music Education Research.  

West, J. J. (in press). National estimates and comparisons of alternatively and traditionally certified music teachers in the United States. Journal of Music Teacher Education. 

West, J. J., & Sanderson, D. N. (2024). Strengthening music teacher professional development: The P–12 music administrator’s role. Arts Education Policy Review. 

West, J. J. (2024). Professional development among music and non-music teachers in the United States: Comparative evidence from the 2017–2018 National Teacher and Principal Survey. 

 West, J. J. (2023). How to (re)build the secondary school choir program: Cues from a recent case study. Choral Journal, 63, 27–29.

Frey-Clark, M. L., Tucker, O. G., & West, J. J. A phenomenology of first-year music teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic. Journal of Research in Music Education. 

West, J. J., & Bowers, J. P. (2022). (Re)building the secondary school choir program: An organizational perspective. International Journal of Research in Choral Singing, 10, 19–44

West, J. J., & Bautista, A. (2022). Global perspectives on teacher professional development: Navigating the pandemic. International Journal for Research in Education, 46(1), 1–27.

West, J. J., Stanley, A. M., & Appova, A. K. (2022). Exogenous shocks and teachers’ motivation to learn: Pandemic and professional development in the United States. International Journal for Research in Education, 46(1), 261–308.

West, J. J., Stanley, A. M., Bowers, J. P., & Isbell, D. S. (2021). Attrition, (de)motivation, and "effective" music teacher professional development: An instrumental case study. Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education.

West, J. J., & Bautista, A. (2021) Greater than the sum of its parts: Promoting systemness in music and arts teacher professional development. Arts Education Policy Review, 122(1), 54–64.

West, J. J. (2020). Is music teacher professional development becoming more effective? Evaluating practice and policy in the U.S., 1993–2012. Journal of Research in Music Education. 

West, J. J. (2020). Understanding the process of proximate change following music teachers’ participation in large-scale conferences: A grounded theory. Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education, 225, 67–94. 

West, J. J. (2019). From the conference to the classroom: Elevating short-term professional development for lifelong learning. General Music Today, 31(1), 24–28.

West, J. J., & Frey-Clark, M. L. (2019). Traditional versus alternative pathways to certification: Assessing differences in music teacher self-efficacy. Journal of Music Teacher Education, 28(2), 98–111.

West, J. J. (2019). Social capital and music teacher professional development: Principle, policy, and practice. Arts Education Policy Review, 120(1), 33–44.