Motivations and instructional preferences of high school guitar students: a mixed methods study

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to explore high school students' motivation for learning how to play the guitar within a classroom setting. The researcher probed (a) motivation, (b) in-school learning contexts, and (c) outside-of-school music making transfer from the perspective of high school guitar students. Due to a lack of research on high school guitar students, the researcher used a mixed methods approach to gain a deeper understanding of the topic. To collect data, the researcher first conducted a survey; data from the survey was analyzed and presented in the form of descriptive statistics. After the survey data was analyzed, the researcher conducted one-on-one interviews, which were first coded using a typology developed from the survey data and then coded for emerging themes. Once each data set was analyzed, the researcher analyzed the survey data and interview data as one data set; conclusions were drawn after the combined data analysis. The following conclusions were made based on the results of this study: (a) these guitar students enjoy taking guitar class and value their experience in guitar class, (b) these guitar students favor a curriculum that covers an assortment of approaches and strategies, (c) these guitar students value and enjoy both large group instructional time as an entire group with the teacher directing and small group instructional time with peers leading the groups, (d) these guitar students play outside of class primarily for two reasons: for their own enjoyment and to practice for class. The researcher hopes this study will be replicated and inspire other similar studies to be conducted.