That is what student, piano and music teacher Toril Siksjø asked herself while writing her master’s thesis at the Norwegian Academy of Music in 2015. The thesis is a comparative study of leaning effects and motivation in internet-based piano instruction for high school students. She researched the differences between piano tutorials and traditional teaching, and how it affected the pupils. The research questions were:
- Is there any difference in learning outcomes between students taught in a formal context at school and students acquiring knowledge in an informal context through the internet (tutorials)?
- How do students experience the different pedagogical approaches in terms of motivation?
To answer these questions, she concocted research in a music program at a high school, specifically in the subject area of instrument/choir/ensemble. The participants were between the age of 16 and 17, and had a basic knowledge of music in advance. She divided the class in two: Group one received traditional instruction, while group two received instruction exclusively through tutorial videos Siksjø produced herself. The content was the same and the only thing that differentiated the groups was the teaching method. Both groups were tested on their learning skills in the very beginning and at the end of the semester. The participants also had to attend interviews and answer several surveys throughout the semester, asking about their learning motivation and assessment of own skills.
Screenshot of one of Siksjø’s self-produced YouTube tutorials. In addition to the videos, she also created a private Facebook group where students could ask questions about the content of the videos, post comments, and engage in discussions with her and the other participants throughout the project.
Results
After the project, one of the pupils from group two stated (p. 82):
I could take it home, and then I could work on it alone. I could go at my own pace. I found it very enjoyable to be able to rewind because it’s not very fun to ask the teacher many times about what this and that is; instead, I could just rewind and watch it again a few times.
On the other hand, another pupil said (p. 83):
The day I went home, I thought I would really excel at this, but then I watched the video, and I have a bit of difficulty keeping up. I will never learn what’s in the video, and then I bring myself down, lose concentration, put it aside, and think, if I relax, I can do it later, but I didn’t. Then, there was very little time left, so I actually postponed it quite a bit.
I general, the motivation in group two was declining throughout the semester. Oppositely, the answers from group one was mainly positive, and most of the pupils were satisfied with their own effort.
When it comes to the theoretical outcome, there was no big difference between the two groups. On the test, they scored on the approximate same level. However, this was not supported by their own feeling of mastery and self-esteem. The participants on group one rated their own level as significantly higher than group two. Siksjø concludes:
My conclusion is that students who do not receive feedback on their learning process evaluate themselves lower than those who have traditional instruction, which can affect their self-efficacy in future learning processes.
This is a very interesting finding, that I will take in consideration when further exploring the use of different music teaching methods.
Reference
Siksjø, T. (2015). ”Kari lærte å spille piano da hun sluttet i kulturskolen” .
Musikkpedagogikk, Norges musikkhøgskole, Oslo, Norway. Retrieved from https://nmh.brage.unit.no/nmh-xmlui/bitstream/handle/11250/2379133/Toril_Siksjø.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
