Developing an Observational Schedule using Flow Dimensions

This chapter introduces the flow observation grids elaborated in the LINK project, an European funded project which aimed at testing the efficacy of the arts and music interventions in the school for promoting the well-being of vulnerable young people and their willingness to engage in continuing learning and school attendance. We will try to highlight the methodological issues encountered, such as the description of observable behaviours, the use of the grid as an indispensable research tool for studying the flow experience in children and as a tool for teachers and music therapists. A brief presentation of Flow theory and flow music studies will be given first; then the description of the characteristics of the observation grid implemented in our previous studies on children interacting with the “flow machine”, as they are at the origin of the grids used in the LINK. Then the way in which the flow theory was used in the LINK project and the two flow grids implemented in the framework of the LINK will be introduced. Some educational implications of our work will be suggested: the flow grids are a tool for researchers but also for teachers, both to observe the experience of musical flow in children, and to identify several strategies which help to create the conditions for the flow experience in educational or therapeutic contexts.