One of the most important tasks for me this semester was to make a clear problem statement. I also wanted to get an overview of all research gathered in the winter semester and sort out the most important findings.
The last couple of days, I have been using post-it notes to get a deep understanding on why exactly people decide to quit music education. This question has been repeated since the very beginning of my project, and I have gathered a wide variety of answers. The notes work as a summary of my research findings, and creates the base for an affinity model.
Writing the answers down on paper helped me get an overview of the complex problem. Thereafter, I decided to sort the post-it notes into different categories. I wrote one power statement associated with each category:
- A supportive community is needed to maintain motivation
- Wrong difficulty level and focus on performance make music seem too serious
- Difficult logistics make the threshold higher
- Motivation is dependent on goal-orientated practice and continuous improvement
- The structure of lessons should be adapted to every individual student
In the next step, I wanted to ideate solutions for each category. This helped me understand which statements I was more motivated to work further with.
In the end of the session, I finally concluded with a problem statement:
Absence of social community and musical experimentation makes it challenging for young musicians to maintain motivation.
The statement concludes the problems I want to attack. Based on my research, it is crucial for musicians to feel belonging with a supporting community, as well as having the opportunity to experiment with improvisation instead of just following strict rules. The challenge is not to make people start playing an instrument, but making them stay in music (prevent quitting).
