Teaching Guitar in an Online Environment

Abstract

Many colleges, universities, and educational institutions regularly include online music classes in their schedule of courses. However, such courses do not focus on teaching the physical aspects of playing a musical instrument. The purpose of this instructional design project is to design and evaluate the effectiveness of an online module structured to teach beginning level students basic symbols and terminology associated with playing the guitar. The module was accompanied with a pre-module survey, pre-test, post-test, and an attitudinal survey. Twelve individuals from the University of Hawai‘i's College of Education and Educational Technology Departments participated in testing the module and evaluating its ability to deliver guitar instruction in an online learning environment. Group scores from the pre-test and post-test indicate that the module was fairly successful in reaching its teaching objectives. Collected data from the tests and surveys suggest that revisions to the module include additional examples and student rehearsal of the concepts linked to the imperfect test scores. Implications from the research are discussed and highlight the many tasks associated with designing and implementing online guitar instruction.