Benefits of hybrid learning in music education To what extent can hybrid learning contribute to learning how to play an instrument, in music education? Deniz Kavafoglu 10022023 Universiteit van Amsterdam Bachelor Informatiekunde Begeleider: dr. J.A.C. (Jacobijn) Sandberg Tweede beoordelaar: D. Heinhuis Supervisor: dr. Peter Weijland 26082015
Abstract Earlier research has shown that the performance of music students and their learning process is sensitive to social learning environments. Furthermore, in general, many musicians are found to experience music performance anxiety, obstructing the learning process. The purpose of this study is to identify how hybrid learning can benefit traditional music education. In this research, a four week experiment was conducted. Twelve music students participating in a guitar course were divided into two groups. One group consisting of six students were given access to video recordings of the teacher summarizing the homework. The other six students did not have access to this mobile content. Data was collected using surveys, observations, and interviews held with students. The progress of the students was measured based on teacher assessment. Students’ practice experience was measured via selfreflecting questionnaires and interviews. The students who had access to the video recordings rated the quality of their practice sessions significantly higher. A significant difference was found in actual progress between the groups. Also, no correlation was found between anxiety experienced during music lessons and students’ performance. Interviews showed test group students to appreciate and believe in learning with mobile content. Control group students expressed that they believed they would have made more progress had they had access to the video recordings as well. Keywords: Hybrid learning, Mobile learning, Anxiety, Music education
Table of Contents Introduction...4 Literature review... 6 Learning environment... 6 Anxiety...8 Effects of Anxiety...9 The processing efficiency theory ...9 Focus and selfconsciousness...10 Hybrid learning...10 Hypothesis...12 Method…...14 Participants………...14 Research design……...15 Survey……....……..…………...16 Observations………..…………...16 Interviews………..…………...18 Procedure…...………..…………....……...19 Data analysis.………..…………...21 Results………...……...22 Survey……….………..…………...23 Observations……..…………...25 Interviews …..…………...27
Discussion…....……...33 Literature...……...36 Appendix A. Student Questionnaire...40 Appendix B. List of symptoms and signs of anxiety………42 Appendix C. Interviews...45
1. Introduction Technology and innovation have had a tremendous impact on life. Both have changed the way we live tremendously. In the everyday life of individuals, the effects of technology are visibly present. Technology has penetrated into the educational field, changing education as we know it. Music learning too did not escape from the influence of technological developments of the past decades. Before technology was available to the general public, traditional ways of learning how to play an instrument were quite limited. One could choose a selfteaching method, using music books for example, or to follow music lessons. The lessons could be held in private or in a group setting. However, not everyone is privileged to enjoy this luxury, as music education tends to be rather expensive. With technologies such as CD, VHS, DVD and the internet, the costs for music lessons are much lower, making music education more accessible to a larger audience. In addition, the playback function which these technologies features makes users less dependent on time and location for music learning. During the last decade, mobile phones developed into versatile, powerful, portable computers, which have been adopted around the world (ElHussein & Cronje, 2010; Franklin, 2011; Kalinic, Arsovski, Stefanovic, Arsovski & Rankovic, 2011). The fact that students tend to always carry mobile phones and are proficient at using them, makes them a convenient learning tool. Ray Kurzweil, a well known computer scientist who is currently working at Google, once said: “Mobile phones are misnamed. They should be called gateways to human knowledge”(Barnes, 2015, p. 21). I strongly agree as I can see how smartphones can support us in our basic operations and enable us to extend them. For example, they can help us to store
auditory and visual information as external memory or facilitate instant communication with other individuals or groups which are not physically present. Already, much research has been done on how mobile devices could be used to the advantage of the educational field. Quinn (2001) defined mobile learning as combining Elearning (learning with electronic devices) with mobile computational devices, to create a learning environment which is both time and location independent. Hybrid learning integrates mobile learning into traditional learning systems (Fässler & BauerMessmer, 2004). Mobile learning and hybrid learning can contribute to the learning progress of young children (Sandberg, Maris & Geus, 2011; Zurita, Nussbaum, 2004) and to those of students in higher education (Evans, 2008; Stone, 2004). These cited studies are just a small selection of the large amount of research available. Many of these studies focussed on applications specifically designed for mobile and hybrid learning, used for a specific learning domain such as language or mathematics. Some of these forms of hybrid learning stress the importance of an interactional relationship between the learning environment and the student by, for example, giving students the opportunity to peer review assignments. Although hybrid learning already penetrated education, little or no research has been done on hybrid learning in music education. As former research on hybrid learning in regular education has proven its benefits, it is interesting to study the effects of hybrid learning on music education. This research focusses on the usage of mobile phones to access video recordings in addition to conventional music education for students who are learning how to play the guitar. The following chapter offers deeper insight into the limitations of traditional music learning and how hybrid learning can positively influence the learning progress and performance
of students. Chapter three presents the method section of the study and chapter four presents the results. In chapter five the results are discussed and suggestions for future research are offered. 2. Literature review Music students’ learning progress and performance does not only depend on their ability or the quality of the music lessons, but on the learning environment as well. Research by Hendricks, Smith and Stanuch (2014) has shown that music students are sensitive to their learning
environment . They show how anxiety, an emotion commonly evoked in a social learning environment, can have a major influence on the performance of the student. The next sections will explain how the learning environment can influence the music students’ learning progress and performance, how the learning environment can evoke anxiety and what the effects of anxiety are. Section 2.4 refers to several studies which demonstrate how hybrid learning can contribute to education. 2.1 Learning Environment
Hendricks, Smith and Stanuch (2014) showed the importance of a safe learning environment for music lessons. A safe learning environment instills a positive sense of selfbelief, freedom and purpose, which results in better learning, whereas a lack of such a supporting environment can be detrimental to the learning process. These negative effects differ depending on the student, as some students are more sensitive to the learning environment than others.
Hendricks, Smith and Stanuch (2014) stated five suggestions to help teachers create a safe learning environment. First, listen and be emotionally present for students, to give them the
feeling that they are really being heard. Second, use abilityappropriate and challenging situations to encourage and stimulate students, but also focus on the challenge at hand. Third, educate others about the importance of creating a safe space. Safety is not only created by the teacher but by everyone involved, fellow students included. They must understand that safe learning environments stimulate growth. Fourth, be sensitive to the relationship between students’ musicality and their personal life. Students who feel comfortable tend to learn better. Fifth, some instruction must be unconventional. Adapting to the needs of students, stepping outside the role as a teacher and letting go of conventional rules results in a stronger bond between teacher and student and also inspire students. Sensitive students can experience feelings of anxiety accompanied by physiological constraints, which might result in loss of motivation and loss of interest in music learning, when the learning environment is carelessly designed. On the other hand, when the learning environment is carefully designed, it can boost morale, motivation and the learning progress. Teachers tend to, often unintentionally, create a competitive atmosphere among students. This might result in students relying more on comparison with other students than on the judgement of the teacher, which could negatively influence students. The relation and interaction between teacher and student is of great importance, especially among novice music students, as they are most sensitive to their learning environment (Steptoe and Fidler, 1987). Although suggestions have been made for creating a safe learning environment, following these suggestions does not guarantee that the students will not experience any feelings of anxiety. LeBlanc, Jun, Obert and Siivola (1997) showed that students experience playing and practising an instrument in a group setting to be more stressful than playing alone. Keeping this
in mind, it seems to be inevitable for some students to experience some feelings of anxiety during class. 2.2 Anxiety A common form of anxiety is social anxiety. Social anxiety is the fear of interaction with other people that brings on selfconsciousness and feelings of being negatively judged and evaluated, which consequently leads to avoidance (DSMIII: American Psychiatric Association, 1980). Chiu, Demler, Kessler Walters (2005) found that 18 percent of the participants in their research (N=2900) showed signs of social anxiety. Music performance anxiety (MPA) has been defined by Salmon (1990, p3) as “the experience of persisting, distressful apprehension and/or actual impairment of performance skills in a public context, to a degree unwarranted given the individual’s musical aptitude, training and level of preparation”. In 1994 the American Psychiatric Association included MPA in the fourth Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders as a form of social anxiety (DSMIV: American Psychiatric Association, 1994). Research has shown that a significant part of musicians and music students experience negative consequences due to MPA. Steptoe and Fidler (1987), MarchantHaycox and Wilson (1992) and Van Kemenade, Van Son and Van Heesch (1995) all found significant proportions of musicians experiencing MPA. Steptoe and Fidler (1987) have shown that the amount of MPA experienced by musicians is the lowest among professional players and highest among students. Schröder and Liebelt (1999) and Wesner, Noyes and Davis (1990) studied large samples (N > 300) of music students. Both studies found that over 20 percent of the students experienced MPA. Other research with a smaller number of participants (Hille, 2002; Kaspersen & Götestam, 2002; Lockwood, 1988) showed similar results.
2.3 Effects of Anxiety The previous sections showed (music performance) anxiety to be a common emotion amongst music students, which can negatively influence the learning progress of students. This section focusses on the effects of anxiety on cognitive functioning. 2.3.1 The Processing Efficiency Theory. Eysenck and Calvo (1992) described the effects of anxiety on cognitive performance in the processing efficiency theory (PET). Their research was an extension on earlier research, performed by Eysenck (1979, 1982). Worry (concern over evaluation, concern over level of performance) is described as an important factor for causing state anxiety, which is anxiety that is situation related. (Eysenck and Calvo, 1992) Baddeley (1974) divided the memory system into three components; (1) the central executive, controlling the flow of information to and between the other components (2) the phonological loop, responsible for storing verbal/audio information and (3) the visuospatial sketchpad. Baddeley (2000) described a fourth component which had to be integrated into the model: Episodic buffer, responsible for linking information between and from the other components with time sequencing. What is important to know is that all components of the memory systems have limited capacity.
Eysenck and Calvo (1992) found that anxiety influences memory capacity. Worrying about performance may result in preempting some of the processing and storage resources of the memory system. One could say that worrying during music lesson could obstruct the learning progress of students, as it preempts processing and storage resources. 2.3.2 Focus and selfconsciousness. As the previous section already stated, worrying obstructs the learning process of students. Because of worrying, less focus and attention is given to the music lesson and more to the student themselves. An obvious consequence of this being that, without focus in class, information will be missed. Some research has been done on selfconsciousness and the consequences of selfconsciousness on task performance. Selfconsciousness is the awareness of an individual itself as a social object, being aware of the presence of itself in a social setting (Carver and Scheier, 2012). Daly, Vangelisti and Lawrence (1989) and Baumeister (1984) showed how higher levels of selfconsciousness lead to lower task performance. The more attention individuals focus on themselves, the less attention they can spare on task performance. Selfconsciousness can result in worrying, which, as previously mentioned, preempts memory capacity. 2.4 Hybrid learning Hybrid learning is defined as learning with the use of technology, combining traditional learning with new technology to instruct students paperlessly (Hinterberger, Fässler & BauerMessmer, 2004). They found that hybrid learning can raise the quality of instruction and easily motivate students to study longer.
Salomon, Perkins and Globerson (1991) found that hybrid learning can contribute to the learning progress of students, but it has to be more than a tool update, not changing the way activities are carried out. A word editor program instead of a typewriter or delivering old content in a new manner is not sufficient enough to influence learning effectiveness. But for example integrating blackboard and it’s interactive functions into a course, creating a time and location independent interactive learning environment, will positively influence learning effectiveness (DeNeui & Dodge, 2006). Evans (2008) showed how podcasts, periodic repeated series of video or audio files, are more effective as study material than textbooks. Evans’ research was done at a university in London among 196 students following a business course. After each lesson the students gained access to a podcast containing a five minute audio recording summarizing the findings of the lesson. Outcome of the research showed that firstly, students believed podcasts to be a quicker way to revise lectures than reading notes, as revising lectures with their own notes requires the students to refamiliarise themselves with the context in which the notes were made, which takes time and costs cognitive energy. As students tend to share notes they might study with received notes from other students, which will take even longer to understand and cost more cognitive energy. Secondly, students also believed podcasts to be more effective than reading the corresponding text in textbooks. Another research on the effect of podcasts found positive results as well (Edirisingha & Salmon, 2007). The podcasts used in this research consisted of a 10 minute recording, all containing the same structure. The podcasts consisted of an introduction, revision and extension
of this weeks work and a conclusion. Although the research conditions were different, the results seemed to be similar to those of Evens’ (2008). Study material in the form of podcasts have the advantage of being a “push” technology, meaning students (commonly) receive the material automatically instead of having to search for study material (Campbell 2005). Zhang, Zhou, Briggs, & Nunamaker (2006) showed that the use of interactive instructional video’s have a positive effect on the student's progress. In Zhang’s research, video interactivity is defined as having the ability to search and select certain parts of the video to watch. This was important as the instructional videos used in their research were of long duration (longer than 30 minutes) and treated multiple subjects. Poorly arranged instructional videos have a negative effect on the learning progress of the student, as they tend to be more time and energy consuming than other sources of information. For instructional videos to be of good use for students they have to be well arranged, easy to understand, and easy to use. 2.5 Hypothesis Former sections have explained how feelings of anxiety are common while practising among musicians and students. It is important to understand that a negligible part of the students will experience feelings of anxiety. Many students face obstacles in their learning progress. As it is inevitable for some students to experience anxiety, this research will focus on “healing” instead of “preventing”. There are two main reasons to believe that hybrid learning can benefit music learning. Firstly, not being able to focus, pay attention or memorize the lesson and matter subject correctly can make practising challenging. Providing students with more practical, beneficial resources, for instance giving them access to easy to use, straight forward and correct reference works, may result in more successful practice sessions, which might result in better
performance. Secondly, as practising becomes more easy, it becomes more satisfying and enjoyable, which might motivate students more, resulting in better performance. The main research question is: To what extent can hybrid learning benefit in learning how to play an instrument? To answer this question, a deeper understanding must be gained in how students experience music lessons, practice sessions and how these experiences reflect on their progress. To do so, the following five hypotheses will be tested. 1. Participants experience more anxious feelings during music lessons than at home. 2. Test group students rate their practise sessions higher than control group students 3. a. Test group students’ performance is graded higher than the performance of control group students b. The actual performance of students in the test group exceeds the expectation of the teacher more than those in the test group 4. There is a negative correlation between the level of anxiety experienced by students during the lessons and the ability to memorize subject matter. 5. There is a negative correlation between feelings of anxiety experienced in class and the graded performance.
3. Method 3.1 Participants Thirteen people participated in this research, twelve music students participating in a guitar course and their teacher. One group of twelve people would be too large to teach efficiently. At the beginning of the course the students were randomly divided into three smaller groups of four people. This division had nothing to do with the experiment and was of no influence. These three groups are from here on called “music group one (MG1), music group two (MG2) and music group three (MG3)”. The lessons took place on a monday, on a weekly basis for twelve weeks straight. MG1 was scheduled for 15:30 16:30, MG2 for 16:30 17:30 and MG3 for 17:30 18:30. The lessons were held in CREA in Amsterdam, in a large music studio room. This specific guitar course was chosen because the writer of the thesis was a participant in this course. All participants were students in Amsterdam. Of the twelve participants, only two are male and the age varies from 21 to 28 (M=22.33, SD=1.03). All participants, except for one, have never played the guitar before. The one person who had played the guitar before, played it for one year, more than ten years ago and has not played ever since. This person considered herself as a beginner as she does not possess any skills for playing the guitar. The teacher of the course is a 27 years old, master of music arts. He has been teaching for over more than ten years already. The participants have, explicitly, only used their own technology, which was their smartphone. Eight participants owned an iPhone and four participants owned an Android phone. Students already had six lessons before the experiment started and had four lessons left. The first
six lessons considered an acquaintanceship, playing techniques, music theory, reading notes, rhythm and one song. 3.2 Research Design The research was based on a four week posttest experiment. Students were randomly assigned by coin flip to one of two groups. The first group (test group) had access to the mobile content. The mobile content consisted of video recordings of the teacher, summarizing the lesson. These recordings were made recorded by a student at the end of every lesson. The video recording was shared via Whatsapp with other students who were assigned to the testgroup. The control group did not have access to the mobile content. The grouping variable, having or not having access to the mobile content, is the independent variable. These two groups are distinct from the earlier created groups by the teacher at the beginning of the course. At the beginning of the experiment there were four lessons left before the course ended. The teacher was unaware of the the group assignment. At the end of every lesson the students and teacher were surveyed by an questionnaire, this was done in the same classroom as where the lesson took place. The survey was done by questionnaires, measuring three dependent variables (1) practising experience, (2) feelings of anxiety during the lessons and (3) feelings of anxiety while practising. The teacher was asked to grade the students’ performance, the last dependent variable. The observations were done during the lessons. The interviews were held directly after the lessons ended in the same building at another location as the studio was occupied for the next lesson. Although all students had no experience when the course began, they all developed at different speeds. Some students were able to learn how to play songs quicker than other students.
To measure the progress of the students, the teacher was asked to give a prediction grade, encompassing how well he expected the student to master the homework. To minimise the chance of a biased judgement, the teacher was unaware to which group the students were assigned to. 3.2.1 Questionnaires. Three questionnaires were prepared for this experiment. One questionnaire, which was prepared for the control group, contained 25 self reflecting 5point Likertscale questions about their practice experience, feelings of anxiety during class, feelings of anxiety at home, and about their practice sessions. The second questionnaire, which was prepared for the test group, consisted of 30 self reflecting 5point Likertscale questions, the first 25 questions similar to those of the control group but with five additional questions regarding the mobile content. See appendix A for the students’ questionnaire. Questions and topics regarding the student’s questionnaire: ● Twelve questions regarding the students’ practise experience. ● Eight questions regarding feelings of anxiety experienced during class. ● Five questions regarding feelings of anxiety experienced during class. ● Five questions regarding experiences with the mobile content. The third questionnaire was prepared for the teacher and contained two Likertscale questions: 1. (Before the lesson) How well do you expect the students to perform? 2. (After the lesson) How well did the students actually perform? 3.2.2 Observations. The questionnaires for the students consisted selfreflecting questions only. As self reflection is always biased, it would strengthen the reliability of the
research to conduct observations. Another advantage of observations is that participants might show certain behaviour during class which might not be covered by the questionnaire. The World Health Organisation created a coding for several diseases and disorders, including anxiety. The coding: International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems 10th Revision , is available at Wikipedia. It contains signs, symptoms, causes 1 and complaints. Appendix B shows the full list of symptoms of anxiety. The visible, notable symptoms and signs of anxiety are the following: ● Verbal behaviour: ○ Higher pitched voice. ○ Changing voice volume. ○ Trembling voice. ○ Stuttering voice. ○ Content of what is being said. ● Physical behaviour and gestures: ○ Blushing ○ Shortness of breath ○ Shaking hands Aside from anxiety, students could also show uncomfortable behaviour. Uncomfortable behaviour is noticeable but the symptoms are less severe. Physical signs of discomfort are for example, frowning. Verbal sounds of discomfort are for example, sighing. Signs of uncomfortable behaviour are also taken into account during observations. 1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICD10_Chapter_V:_Mental_and_behavioural_disorders
Apart from anxiety, there are other influences which could affect learning performance. Fatigue, being unable to focus or simply “not feeling like making an effort" are a few examples which also have to be taken into account. 3.2.3 Interviews. Interviews are very useful to obtain information about feelings and experiences of participants. In this research interviews are held to gain a deeper insight on the collected data of the observation. The participants are also asked about their experiences during practising and how the mobile content did or did not contribute in their learning progress. The following interview structure has been prepared for the interview. The structure is prepared as guideline during the interview. Some questions will be aimed specifically towards particular students, based on information collected during the observations. 1. Questions about the lessons. ● How did you experience the lesson? ● Did you experience some feelings of anxiety during the lesson and how did you express these feelings? ● If you did not experience feelings of anxiety, were you able to fully focus on the lesson? 2. Questions about practising ● What difficulties did you encounter during practising? ● If you encountered difficulties, how did you deal with them? 3. For test group only ● How did you experience having access the mobile content? ● Would it be different if you did not have access to the mobile content? ● Did you watch the mobile content somewhere else than at home?
Although the questions in the interview seem similar to the questionnaires, they were open questions and not rating questions. This way the students could express themselves more freely 3.3 Procedure At the beginning of the experiment, six lessons have already taken place, giving the teacher a good indication of how skilled the students are. Before the experiment started, two instructions were given to the participants. (1) Please only use the mobile content if you have been assigned to the test group and (2) Please practise for 510 minutes every day . After the experiment started the dates of lessons changed. The lessons were now held Monday first of June (as planned), Friday the fifth of June, Thursday the 11th June and Monday the 15th of June. On the first of June the first recordings were made by students and distributed amongst other test group students. Before the observations were made, the participants were informed regarding my presence during the lesson. During the observations I participated in the music class to make my presence feel as natural as possible. During the short breaks within the lessons I took notes. The observations were done during the third lesson, the interviews were held after the fourth, final lesson. 1st of June Monday first of June would have been the first data collection moment, however only five participants showed up for the lesson, three control group students and two test group students. Because some students were absent, pictures of the homeworks’ sheet music for the next lesson were sent via Whatsapp to the absent students, including the questionnaires. The
recorded video was sent to the absent test group students. The present students filled out the questionnaire as well as the teacher. All students were asked to be present next lesson. 5th of June Despite the students being asked to be present, only three of the students that were present during the first lesson were also present during second lesson. There were three people present from the test group and three people from the control group. Pictures of the homework’s sheet music were sent to absent students. A video recording was made and distributed among students in the testgroup. Questionnaires have been filled out by present students. The questionnaires have been sent to the absent students. All students were urged to attend the last two lessons. 11th of June All students were present during the third lesson. Observations were done in MG1, MG2 and MG3. The video recordings were made and shared between test group students and all students were urged to be present during the last lesson. 15th of June Similar to the third lesson, all students were present. I conducted the interviews after the lessons ended.
3.4 Data Analysis Because several students were absent during the first two lessons, multiple values are missing in the data collection. Although homework and questionnaires were shared with absent students, data collection about the following subjects was impossible: ● If students experienced feelings of anxiety during class. ● How well did the student remember the homework. ● Performance graded by the teacher. With such a small sample size, and missing values, analysis on the collected data would have been unreliable. For this reason, only data collected during the last two lessons were used, data collected during the first two lessons were not used for analysis. Questions regarding anxiety were reverse coded. The acceptance level of significance was .05 in all cases. The internal consistency of reliability was determined by performing a test to measure the Chronbach’s alpha. The Chronbach’s alpha was highly accepted for questions regarding anxiety experienced during the lesson (a=0.90) as well as for questions regarding how students valued their own practice sessions (a=90) H1: A pairedsample ttest was used to compare the measured difference in anxiety, experienced during practising, by both groups, between a classroom setting and a home setting. H2: The differences between the two groups in how high they rated their own practice sessions was analysed using the MannWhitney U test.
H3a: A MannWhitney U test was also used to analyze the difference in graded student performance, between the two groups. H3b: A Wilcoxon Signed Rank test was used to compare the difference between the expectation of the teacher with the performance of the student. The expectation grade used in this experiment was acquired during the first lesson. The performance grade used in this experiment was acquired during the last lesson. H4: In order to determine whether there was a correlation between feelings of anxiety experienced during the lesson and the ability to memorize the subject matter, a Spearson's rho test was conducted. Data on the feelings of anxiety experienced by students in class were gained during lesson three and, the data on the ability to memorize the subject matter during week four. H5: In order to determine whether there was a correlation between feelings of anxiety experienced during the lesson and the graded performance, a Spearson's rho test was conducted. Data on the feelings of anxiety experienced by students in class were gained during lesson three and, the data on the ability to memorize the subject matter in week four.
4. Results 4.1 Survey Survey subject statistics for both groups, showing the mean and standard deviation, are mentioned in the table below. Hypothesis 1:Participants experience more anxious feelings during music lessons than at home. A significant difference was measured for the test group in the scores for anxiety experienced by participants during the lesson (M = 2.33, SD = 0.42 ) and for anxiety experienced by participants at home (M = 1, SD = 0), t(5) = 7,75, p =.001. The difference in the control group between the level of anxiety experienced by participants in class (M = 2.17, SD = 0.37) and the level of anxiety experienced by participants at home (M = 1, SD = 0) t(5) = 7.76, p = .001., was also significant. Participants in both groups experienced significantly more feelings of anxiety during the lesson than practising at home. Hypothesis 2: Participants assigned to the test group rate their practice sessions higher than the control group. The MannWhitney U test showed that the practise sessions of the test
group (Mdn = 4) are rated significantly higher than the practise sessions of the control group (Mdn = 3.5), U = 4, z = 2.88, p = .04, r = .83. Students who had access to the video recordings, rated their practise session significantly higher. The hypothesis is accepted. Hypothesis 3a: The test group’s performance is graded higher than the performance of the control group. The MannWhitney U test showed that the test group (Mdn = 3.5) scored significantly higher on student performance than the control group (Mdn=3), U=2, z = .78, p = .007, r = .23. Hypothesis 3b: The actual performance of students in the test group exceeds the expectation of the teacher more than those in the test group. A Wilcoxon Rank Test showed that the graded performance in week four, for test group students (Z = .447, p = .665) as for control group students (Z = .577, p = .564), did not elicit a significant statistically change in respect to the teacher’s expectation. Hypothesis 4: There is a negative correlation between the level of anxiety experienced by students during the lessons and the ability to memorize subject matter. A Spearson’s rho test was conducted on feelings of anxiety experienced during the third lesson and memorizing subject matter. No significant correlation was found (Rs(12) = .144, p = .66). Hypothesis 5: There is a negative correlation between feelings of anxiety experienced in class and the graded performance.A Spearson’s rho test was conducted on collected data from feelings of anxiety experienced during the third lesson and the graded performance of week four, no significant correlation was found (Rs(12) = .0,11 p = .74).
Other interesting findings: Five questions regarding benefits of having access to mobile content during practising, showed that test group students rated the mobile content as rather helpful (M = 3.6, SD = .17). Interesting to see is the difference between week three and week four in graded student performance. A MannWhitney U test on the graded performance of week three showed that the test group (Mdn=4) scored significantly higher than the control group (Mdn = 2.50), U = 1.5, p = 0.005. A MannWhitney U test on the graded performance of week four showed that the test group (Mdn = 3.50) did not score significantly higher than the control group (Mdn = 3.50), U = 16.5, p = .79. 4.2 Observations Behaviour shown by students varied. Two test group students and one test group students showed verbal anxious behaviour, three test group students and four control group students showed uncomfortable behaviour. In this section a few moments from the observation in MG2, in relation to anxiety, are described. Student 1 to 6 are test group students and student 7 to 12 are control group students. The findings of the observation are plotted in the table below.
Student 5 encounters difficulties: 16:40 Student 5 has trouble playing along, she looks around uncomfortably at how the other students play. She tries to play along but fails and laughs a bit uncomfortably, she is unable to play the chords at the same speed as the rest. The teacher gives some tips, she listens carefully and starts playing again. She still makes mistakes during playing and looks troubled. The teacher tries to encourage her to play but she seems to already have lost interest, she shakes her head and looks at her music sheets. The teacher now pays attention to other students. After a minute she starts playing again. It seems that she has low self esteem. 16:55 When the teacher initiates solo playing, she looks a bit confused, it seems to bother her. Two other students play first and she’s looking carefully at how the other students play. When she starts to play she feels uncomfortable. A few moments later when she makes her first mistake she stops. She says that she is not good enough. She tries again and fails. The other students notice her feeling uncomfortable to play and encourage her. MG1 and MG3 both had one student who also stopped playing when during solo playing. In all groups, students tried to support the ones being feeling uncomfortable. 16:55 Student 6 notices how Student 5 is failing in playing and feels uncomfortable. Student 6 then tries to comfort her by saying: “Hey, it’s alright to fail. We are all just trying, this is a lesson, we are here to make mistakes” Student 5 looks at her guitar and tries to play again. The moment above confirms the importance of a safe learning environment, stated Hendricks, Smith and Stanuch (2014), as student 5 is motivated by fellow students.
4.3 Interviews How did you experience the lessons? All students were very positive towards the lessons, everybody enjoyed the lessons. Some topics were mentioned several times. The most frequently mentioned topics are plotted below. Quote from Student 6: “The lessons we got from the teacher were clear and nice. The degree of difficulty was perfect. It was really nice that some songs could be played at different degrees of difficulty. Because of that, all students were able to play on their own level of expertise” Did you experience some feelings of anxiety during the lesson and how did you express these feelings? All students felt at the least some level of anxiousness when they played alone in class up to a level of anxiety. The most frequently mentioned quotes are plotted in the table below.
Quote from Student 4: “I have never felt feelings of anxiety during class. I do have to say that when I played alone I felt a bit strange in my stomach. But it feels more like “arousal”, (say, almost positive!) than anxiety, maybe a bit more like butterflies in my stomach” During the observations, Student 2, 5, 7, 11 and 12 showed verbal uncomfortable behaviour. When these students were asked their opinion they responded as following. Quote from Student 2 (assigned to the test group): “I just don’t learn as fast as others. I feel really anxious when I am the center of attention, specifically when I need to do something I am not good at and make mistakes” I asked her if she would have been more anxious if she would not have access to the mobile content. She then answered:“Because of the mobile content I was able to practise better, as I really needed this reference work. Without it I would have been even less able to play the song, but I don’t know if I would have been more or less anxious. After all, even with the mobile content I was unable to play the song.” Student 5 answered the following: “I dislike being the center of attention, well, I dislike it when I perform badly. When I notice that everybody is noticing me, then I want to stop playing. I asked towards her experience with Student 6 who seemed to comfort her, her response: “Yes, it is really nice to have someone say that it is alright to make mistakes, I know it is alright, but there is just a lot of pressure on such a moment.”
Student 7 responded as follows: “I felt anxious to play alone as I was unable to play correctly. I don’t like to be in the center of attention and even less when I am making mistakes. Maybe I would have been better if I had access to the mobile content, but we will never know” Student 11 responded unexpected: “Yes, okay, I did not want to play alone, this was because I was unable to play the song correctly. It is not that I feel anxious to play in front of the class, I just don’t like to…” When I asked what she particularly meant, she answered with: “It was obvious that I was unable to play the song, I needed to practise more, which is fine, after all that is what I am here for. But when everybody is watching it is hard to concentrate on my playing, not particularly because i’m anxious, but more because a part of my focus goes to the other students watching me” If you did not experience feelings of anxiety in general, were you able to fully focus on the lesson? Every student answered yes. Were there any other constraints during the lessons? Every student answered no. What difficulties did you encounter during practising? Most troubled issues were playing chords and rhythm, also known as swing. The most frequently mentioned difficulties are plotted in the table below.
Five test group students were able to play the rhythm correctly where only two control group students could remember and play the rhythm correctly. To the question: Do you think you truly progressed more because of the mobile content? They all answered the same: Yes. Quoting Student 1: “The mobile content was a great help during practising, whenever I got stuck playing a song, I could watch how the teacher played and reflected his playing on mine. If I played chords wrong, I could hear it. I did not need the movie for that. But it was nice to know how it should sound. The fact that I could hear the rhythm was perfect. When you play in class, you will get familiar with the rhythm. If you play it wrong, the teacher can comment on your playing. But you forget the rhythm easily, and reading the rhythm from sheet music was really hard. It was excellent to have an example” The rest of the test group answered similarly to Student 1, except for one student. This student mentioned the following: “Even with the movie, it was very hard to play the swing perfectly. I guess it’s a matter of timing, but it still sounded very robotic. I definitely got better due to the movie, but I still have a long way to go” The control group was less “lucky” as some of them mentioned it. Student 11 mentioned the following: “I don’t want to say that I would have been able to play the homework perfect if I had access to the video, but I am sure it would have been a lot better than it was now. Towards the end of the
last week’s lesson I was pretty much able to play the homework, but this was with a lot of help from the teacher. The next day I was already unable to play the rhythm and the chords did not go very well either. Without a teacher to help or a movie in which the rhythm and chords were visible and audible it was hard to play right. I have not been able to play it correctly all week long.”
Other students acknowledged what Student 11 said. Student 12 mentioned the following: “It was really annoying not having access to the videos, knowing others did. I already got stuck the first day of practising, I think it would have helped a lot if I could have watched the videos.” How many times have you watched the mobile content? All students have watched the mobile content at least three, to six times at the most. Everybody waited watching until they encountered troubles. Student 1 mentioned: It was nice to start practising on your own until you got stuck. The first day I started practising I could play the rhythm correctly immediately , but I had some troubles with the chords. I tried to do it without the mobile video at first but after a few minutes I checked the video. I could see what I did wrong and I continued to practise. The others gave similar answers. Have you played the guitar or watched the mobile content somewhere else than at home? All students gave a negative answer.
Student 4 mentioned the following: “The weather was not so good last week. I actually played in the park two weeks ago but I did not practise seriously in the park. I like to practise at home without any distractions. “ Are there more advantages from having mobile content available? All arguments have already been mentioned except for one. Student 5 mentioned the following: “As the weeks pass and new songs are learned, you forget the old songs. I tried to play a song from a few weeks ago and I could not manage to play it correctly. It was nice to be able to watch the video of a few week ago to recapture the sound, rhythm and playing technique, it’s really nice”
5. Conclusion & Discussion
Former research described anxiety as a common, possibly strong, emotion, which is capable of influencing the students’ learning progress and performance. During this experiment, students experienced significantly higher levels of anxiety during the lesson than during practising at home, both proven by questionnaires and observation. As anxiety could negatively affect the memory, this would mean that students would be less able to memorize subject matter. However, the results did not show a negative correlation between anxiety and memorizing subject matter. Also, the results did not show a negative correlation between anxiety and graded performance. This research was unable to show find relationship between experiencing higher levels of anxiety and poorer performance or less ability to memorize the subject matter. The results do show that test group students rated their practice sessions significantly higher than control group students, and these higher ratings were accompanied by a higher rating of the student’s performance by the teacher. The interviews support these finding. However, the higher ratings did not differ significantly with respect to the teacher’s expected performance. This could mean that (1) Having access to the mobile content does not influence performance (2) Higher ratings of graded performance occurred due to “better skilled students” (3) The
teacher’s expectation grade was misplaced. Test group students highly appreciated the availability of the video recordings. They believed that they learned more and more quickly because of the video recordings, and enjoyed practising more as it made it easier to practise. Additionally, control group students were found to believe that they would have been able to practise better, if they had access to the video recordings, and, as result, perform better.
Solely based on the quantitative analysis of this research, clearcut statements about the effects of hybrid learning on learning how to play an instrument, are difficult to make. The statistical power of this experiment is low on account of the small sample size used in this experiment. Also, the absence of several students during the first two lessons resulted in an incomplete data set. As a result, the data collected during the first two lessons were not used for analysis. Although the absence of students during the first two lessons had a negative impact on the reliability of the research, it did show how video recordings could positively affect performance: students without access to video recordings who were absent in a previous lesson, performed significantly poorer than students who were also absent but did have access to the recordings. Presumably, hybrid learning seems to be very beneficial when students are absent. However, the threshold for students for being absent could drop, as students are aware of the fact that they can access a summarizing video recording of the lesson. It might be interesting for future research to study the effects of hybrid learning on the level of absence of students. Observations showed how some students experienced uncomfortable feelings to the extent of not wanting to play anymore. Hendricks, Smith and Stanuch (2014) showed the importance of a safe learning environment and provided a few guidelines. One of these guidelines stated that it is not only the teacher who is responsible for a safe learning environment, rather everyone who is involved is, meaning fellow music students as well. The support from fellow students for students who experience difficulties or uncomfortable feelings, is visibly appreciated. The observations confirmed the importance a safe learning environment, as sensitive students can be put at ease by fellow students.
On one hand, Hendricks, Smith and Stanuch (2014) said that music performance anxiety can result into loss of motivation and loss in interest in music learning. On the other hand, fun and joy is commonly the main motivation in music learning. People who find joy in practising despite the anxiety they may experience, will keep on practising. In the long run, I believe that music students who truly want to practise and play, because they enjoy doing so, will perform much better than others. Based on the interviews I would say that the mobile content does benefit in the learning progress considerably. All test group students appreciated the mobile content highly and many stated that it helped with memorizing hardtoremember portions of the lessons. Being able to listen and watch how the rhythm was supposed to be played were found to be the most useful functions. Several control group students seemed to be unable to learn how to play the rhythm correctly without the mobile content, and most felt that, if they had access to the videos, their performance would have been substantially improved. For future research it would be important to use a larger sample size and extend the duration of the study for a longer period of time. Also, the importance of attending all lessons must be clear for all students. Lastly, it could be very interesting to integrate a social, interactive online learning environment in music learning. While the the form of hybrid learning used in this study was not interactive, other studies mentioned previously did stress interactivity in hybrid learning. For example, uploading a summary of the lesson, asking students to upload videos of themselves playing, and posting midweek exercises to engage them and stimulate interaction.
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Appendix A. Student Questionnaire Dear Student, Thank you for participating in this survey. Please mark the section that best reflects your opinion. This questionnaire consists of 25 Likert scale questions for the control group and 30 Likert scale questions for the test group. Possible answers range from 1 to 5 where 1 represents minimum and 5 represents maximum (See next page for full questionnaire) .
Appendix B. List for symptoms and signs of anxiety. ICD10 criteria[edit] ICD10 Generalized anxiety disorder "F41.1" Note: For children different criteria may be applied (see F93.80). A. A period of at least six months with prominent tension, worry and feelings of apprehension, about everyday events and problems. B. At least four symptoms out of the following list of items must be present, of which at least one from items (1) to (4). Autonomic arousal symptoms (1) Palpitations or pounding heart, or accelerated heart rate. (2) Sweating. (3) Trembling or shaking. (4) Dry mouth (not due to medication or dehydration). Symptoms concerning chest and abdomen (5) Difficulty breathing. (6) Feeling of choking. (7) Chest pain or discomfort. (8) Nausea or abdominal distress (e.g. churning in stomach).
Symptoms concerning brain and mind (9) Feeling dizzy, unsteady, faint or lightheaded. (10) Feelings that objects are unreal (derealization), or that one's self is distant or "not really here" (depersonalization). (11) Fear of losing control, going crazy, or passing out. (12) Fear of dying. General symptoms (13) Hot flushes or cold chills. (14) Numbness or tingling sensations. Symptoms of tension (15) Muscle tension or aches and pains. (16) Restlessness and inability to relax. (17) Feeling keyed up, or on edge, or of mental tension. (18) A sensation of a lump in the throat, or difficulty with swallowing. Other nonspecific symptoms (19) Exaggerated response to minor surprises or being startled. (20) Difficulty in concentrating, or mind going blank, because of worrying or anxiety. (21) Persistent irritability.
(22) Difficulty getting to sleep because of worrying. C. The disorder does not meet the criteria for panic disorder (F41.0), phobic anxiety disorders (F40.), obsessivecompulsive disorder (F42.) or hypochondriacal disorder (F45.2). D. Most commonly used exclusion criteria: not sustained by a physical disorder, such as hyperthyroidism, an organic mental disorder (F0) or psychoactive substancerelated disorder (F1), such as excess consumption of amphetaminelike substances, or withdrawal from benzodiazepines.[4]