From student evaluations to teacher performance: a study of piano class instruction

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to evaluate instruction in individually mentored piano classes in nursery and kindergarten teacher training programmes. Questionnaires were developed and administered to piano class students; using the resulting data, relationships among the variables that affect student's satisfaction with piano classes and their performance scores were explored using structural equation modelling. Possible differences in the relationships among variables at two different levels of piano skill were also examined. Instructor's efforts had a strong influence on student's total satisfaction and feeling of enrichment; student's efforts and their performance scores were also strongly related. At the higher level of piano skill, instructor's effort did not directly affect student's efforts; however, student's effort was strongly affected by appropriate assignments, indicating the importance of assignments tailored to each student's ability. The results of this study will help music instructors understand student's experience of piano instruction, and the elements of effective instruction that will lead to student's satisfaction and progress.

Keywords:

• effective evaluation for instruction
• nursery and kindergarten teacher training programmes
• structural equation modelling
• levels of piano skill

Notes

1. In a recursive model (that is, a sequential model in which the direction of causal relationships is one way), an indirect effect is calculated as the product of path coefficients (Toyoda 2007, 37).