Music and science: Improving student engagement through art and electronics

Abstract

This thesis investigates how interdisciplinary, hands-on learning experiences using the Theremin can support student engagement, collaboration, and inclusion in a Brazilian public school. Motivated by post-pandemic disengagement, fragmented curricula, and fragile peer relations, the study implemented a fourteen-week series of workshops in which students aged 13–15 explored, built, and performed with Theremins across science and arts lessons. The research adopted a qualitative case study design informed by constructivist grounded theory. Data were generated through pre- and post-intervention interviews with science and arts teachers, focus groups with all four Year 8 classes, and a reflective research journal. Findings show that, for many students, the project contributed to a shift from isolated, on-task behaviour to more organic forms of group work. Make–test cycles, the need to share partial knowledge of the build process, and the ERA arc (Experience → Represent → Apply) encouraged help-seeking, peer explanation, and collective problem-solving. Some students who were previously described as disaffected or disruptive repositioned themselves as competent helpers and co-constructors of the instrument. Social and emotional bonds, practical relevance, and opportunities for creative expression were central to these changes, especially when the artefact travelled between school and home. This thesis makes an original contribution by specifying how task design and the Theremin’s unique affordances worked together to support engagement and peer interaction in this context, and by deriving design principles for low-cost, artefact-based STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics) interventions. The Theremin’s affordances carried much of this work: its direct gesture → sound correspondence and visible hand motion made negotiation audible and visible, supporting imitation, turn-taking, and dialogue. At the same time, the study shows that a single STEAM project cannot offset structural barriers. Large classes, policies focused on numbers, socioeconomic hardship, and experiences of mistreatment continued to shape how far engagement could be sustained and for whom. The thesis argues that low-cost, artefact-based STEAM interventions such as this Theremin project can inform design principles for supporting multiple dimensions of engagement and peer interaction, while also making visible the systemic conditions that limit their reach.