Development and Validation of a Teaching Content System for Modal Learning Through Popular Music Genres in DAW Environments

ABSTRACT

This study aims to develop and validate a teaching content system for modal learning through popular music genres in DAW environments. Drawing on Chevallard’s didactic transposition and Brousseau’s milieu, this study operationalizes the mode as a learning content within the ‘various scales’ element of the Korean music curriculum, and develops a genre-based teaching and learning content system with accompanying activities. Four core genres (rock/metal, pop, hip-hop, and EDM) were identified through a frequency analysis of 53 middle and high school music textbooks under the 2022 revised curriculum. Findings of prior corpus-based studies on genre-specific modal usage were then reorganized into learning activities executable in a DAW environment. To validate the content system, two rounds of Delphi surveys were conducted with experts in music education, popular music, and DAW production (N = 27 in Round 1; N = 22 in Round 2), using the content validity ratio (CVR). Of 14 core Likert items, 12 (85.7%) reached the final convergence threshold, and the refinement process culminated in a finalized matrix. This study expands the educational applicability of mode learning in school music education by proposing a content framework that integrates the curriculum, popular music, and DAW-based creative environments.