Designing accessible digital musical instruments for special educational needs schools—A social-ecological design framework

Digital musical instruments (DMIs) offer significant potential for use in special educational needs (SEN) schools. DMIs can provide access to contemporary musical experiences that align with students’ life experiences, as well as active music making for individuals experiencing various barriers to the use of conventional musical instruments. Currently, there is no design framework for DMIs that addresses the specific context of SEN schools. However, research suggests the importance of prioritizing the context of use over the technology in design approaches. To address this gap, we integrate the results of a year-long development project in a SEN school into a social-ecological design framework. We extend an existing DMI design framework to address the unique environment of SEN schools. Our proposed framework serves as a planning and evaluation tool, providing a reference point for future design projects. It helps to determine which stakeholders to involve, define their roles, and it includes additional aspects to address in the goal definition and design process. Our findings highlight the importance of involving multiple stakeholders in the design process, including students, teachers, and assistants. In this regard, we identified a potential tension between stakeholders’ personal interests and their role as advocates for the musicians, which can have both positive and negative effects on the design process. Our research underscores the need for stakeholders to understand the use of technology, pedagogical strategies for effectively using the instruments with individual students while meeting their social-emotional support needs, and musical knowledge, including non-classical music genres. We suggest that the necessary technical, pedagogical, and musical knowledge (TPACK) be inscribed into the instruments themselves and supplemented by educational materials and teacher training. Furthermore, our study emphasizes that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to the design process, design decisions, and pedagogical strategies for different use cases.