Page 27 - IJPS-9-3

International Journal of
Population Studies Re-conceptualizing music education

Figure 2. Origin of the retained papers

1,359 female research participants. No papers reported
any other genders apart from male or female. The median
number of male participants was 6, while the median
number of female participants was 10. Means and standard
deviations for the number of male (M = 25, SD = 85) and
female (M = 33, SD = 89) participants were skewed, due to
the one study with a very high sample size.
Twenty-one papers provided the mean age of their
participants. Among those 21 papers, the mean age was 68
(SD = 6), with a median age of 70. Among those papers
where data were provided concerning the specific ages of
research participants, the mean lower age was 46 (SD = 19),
Figure 3. Year of publication
with a median age of 52, while the mean upper age was 82
3.1.4. Research participants (SD = 10) with a median age of 82 (Table 5).
Sample sizes were known in 67 out of the 68 studies. Among 3.1.5. Constructions of aging
those 67 studies, sample sizes ranged from just one to 35,735 Within those contexts, older adult participants were
(one “outlier” study), with over half of the studies reporting defined in a number of different ways. The most common
sample sizes of 21 or less. The median (mid-point) sample attributes related to their chronological age (“older”
size was 16, while the mode sample size (most frequent) in 29 publications, “senior” in 8 publications, “Third
was 11. Overall, among the 67 papers where sample size was Age” in 4 publications, and “elderly” in 1 publication).
reported, there were a total of 39,890 research participants. The participants were stated “lifelong learners” in 18
This total includes the one “outlier” study where data were publications, “retired” in 6 publications, and older defined
analyzed from 35,735 survey respondents. Without that by chronic illness in 2 publications.
one study, the total number of participants in the research
where sample size was reported was 1,152. 3.2. What kinds of research methods and processes
The number of male participants was reported in are used in the studies, and what are the principal
43 papers comprising a total of 1,079 male research phenomena of interest?
participants. Among the 41 papers where the number of In this section, we report findings from the systematic
female participants was reported, there were a total of review concerned with the phenomena of interest

Volume 9 Issue 3 (2023) 21 https://doi.org/10.36922/ijps.383