Dr Stephanie E. Pitts BA, MEd, PhD, PGCE, FHEA
Department of Music
The University of Sheffield
Jessop Building
34 Leavygreave Road
Sheffield
S3 7RD
Tel: +44 (0) 114 222 0481
Fax: +44 (0) 114 222 0469
email : s.e.pitts@sheffield.ac.uk
Biography
Dr Stephanie Pitts is a Reader in Music with research interests in musical participation, concert audiences and music education. She is Director of Student Experience in the music department, having previously served a year as Acting Head of Department (2011-12) and three years as Assistant Director of Learning and Teaching for the Faculty of Arts and Humanities.
After an undergraduate music degree at the University of York and a PhD at Sheffield on the historical development of music education, Dr Pitts was appointed to the staff at Sheffield in 1999. Her previous roles include work as a secondary school music teacher, and freelance researching and writing for the National Foundation for Educational Research. From 2002-7, Dr Pitts was joint editor of the British Journal of Music Education, and continued as review editor until 2011. She is external examiner for the BA in Primary Education with Music at the University of Reading, and has been external examiner for the MA in Community Music, University of York (2008-11), and for BEd and PGCE Music courses at Bishop Grosseteste College, Lincoln (2004-7).
Dr Pitts is the author of A Century of Change in Music Education (Ashgate, 2000), Valuing Musical Participation (Ashgate, 2005) and Chances and Choices: Exploring the Impact of Music Education (OUP, 2012). She has also co-authored two books: Music and Mind in Everyday Life (OUP, 2010) with Eric Clarke and Nicola Dibben, and Becoming a Successful Early Career Researcher (Routledge, 2012) with Adrian Eley, Jerry Wellington and Catherine Biggs. Dr Pitts’ research on music in higher education and on audience experiences of live musical events has been funded by PALATINE and the British Academy, respectively. With post-docs Melissa Dobson and Kate Gee, and Professor Chris Spencer (Dept of Psychology), she set up the Sheffield Performer and Audience Research Centre (SPARC) in 2010, and this research team has undertaken a study of performer and audience loyalty with a regional orchestra.
Dr Pitts is the holder of a Senate Award for Teaching Excellence, and has led Faculty projects on student feedback, employability and undergraduate research, receiving a Student Union award for contributions to student employability in 2009-10. She contributes to MA teaching in Psychology of Music, and was awarded a HEFCE grant to redesign the department´s distance learning MA in Psychology for Musicians and to introduce the MA in Music Psychology in Education.
Dr Pitts plays piano and cello, performing regularly as a piano accompanist and contributing to music at a local church. She is on the advisory board of Music in the Round and has links with local schools through her teaching and research.
Research Interests
- Musical participation
- Audience experience
- Extra-curricular school music
- Music in secondary education
- Music in higher education
- School-university transition
- Lifelong engagement in music
View Stephanie Pitts' research page
Current Projects
- The impact of music education: investigations of the long-term impact of music learning in school and beyond, with cross-cultural comparisons of education systems and their effects.
- Audience experience of live listening: the effects of venue, audience expectations and social factors on concert-going experience.
- Teaching and learning music in higher education: investigations of student experience in relation to assessment, study skills and school-university transition.
Recent Grants
- 2012 University of Sheffield Arts Enterprise Fund (£8050) – Investigating the impact of Music in the Community
- 2011 PALATINE Development Award (£6400) – Engaging music students in non-assessed activities
- 2010 Santander Research Mobility Award (£1,200) – Investigating audience experience at the Granada chamber music festival
- 2010 University of Sheffield Knowledge Transfer Fund (£9,809) – Performer and audience loyalty in the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
- 2010 University of Sheffield Divisional Director’s Award (£997) – Building research networks in audience research
- 2009 Yorkshire Forward Business Link (£3000) – New audiences for classical music: recruiting listeners in the 21-30 age group
- 2007 University of Sheffield Divisional Research Fund (£300) – Research visit to Bologna and Padova: musical life histories in Italy
- 2007 Worldwide Universities Network International Research Mobility Scheme (£776) – Research visit to University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign: music education and life histories in the USA
- 2007 British Academy (£4,974) – Audience experience at the Edinburgh Jazz and Blues Festival (with Dr Karen Burland, University of Leeds)
- 2005 HEFCE Innovation Fund (£9,097) – Redesigning the Psychology for Musicians MA for web-based delivery
- 2004 PALATINE Development Award (£2,490) – Fostering study skills with first year music undergraduates
- 2003 British Academy (£3,330) – Music, identity and belonging: a case study of the Music in the Round chamber music festival
Selected Publications
Pitts, S. E. (2009) Roots and routes in adult musical participation: investigating the impact of home and school on lifelong musical interest and involvement. British Journal of Music Education, 26 (3): 241-256.
Pitts, S. E. (2007) Anything Goes: A case study of extra-curricular musical participation in an English secondary school. Music Education Research, 9 (1): 145-165.
Pitts, S. E. (2005) Valuing Musical Participation. Aldershot: Ashgate.
Pitts, S. E. (2005) What makes an audience? Investigating the roles and experiences of listeners at a chamber music festival. Music and Letters, 86 (2): 257-269.
Pitts, S. E. (2003) What do students learn when we teach music? An investigation of the `hidden´ curriculum in a university music department. Arts and Humanities in Higher Education, 2 (3): 281-292.