Digital technology adoption and perceived barriers in music composition education among preservice music teachers in Ghanaian Colleges of Education

Digital technology has transformed music composition pedagogy in well-resourced educational contexts worldwide. In sub-Saharan Africa, however, the adoption of digital composition tools in preservice music teacher education is poorly understood. Limited indexed empirical literature appears to address preservice music teachers’ perceptions of digital technology in music composition education within Ghanaian Colleges of Education directly. This qualitative study addressed three research questions: (1) How do preservice music teachers at a Ghanaian College of Education perceive digital technology in music composition education? (2) What barriers do they encounter in adopting digital composition tools? (3) To what extent do they and their institution feel prepared for technology integration in composition teaching? Three research questions were retained because each addresses a distinct dimension of adoption—perceptual, structural, and institutional—that a single question cannot capture adequately. We used an interpretivist qualitative design with 22 final-year preservice music teachers at Abetifi Presbyterian College of Education in Ghana’s Eastern Region. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews, classroom observations, and curriculum document review, and were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis [ 6 , 7 ] with NVivo 14. Five themes emerged. Participants recognised the pedagogical value of digital composition tools — particularly real-time aural feedback and creative revision — but all 22 reported severe infrastructural barriers: unreliable electricity, scarce devices, and limited internet access. Sixteen participants identified a cultural-epistemological misalignment between Western-designed software and Ghanaian musical traditions built on oral transmission, polyrhythmic structures, and communal creativity. Seventeen described weak curriculum integration of digital tools, and fourteen expressed low confidence in their own and their institution’s preparedness for technology adoption. The findings extend the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT; Venkatesh et al. [ 25 ]) by demonstrating that its facilitating conditions construct cannot function where baseline resource infrastructure is absent. We propose the Ghanaian Digital Music Education Adoption Framework (G-DMEAF), which adds resource facilitation and cultural-musical fit as prerequisite moderators to the standard UTAUT constructs. The study has implications for curriculum reform, teacher professional development, and digital education policy in Ghana and comparable sub-Saharan African settings.