A GROUNDED THEORY STUDY FOR THE CONVERSION OF APPLIED PIANO COURSES AT THE GRADUATE LEVEL TO ONLINE ENVIRONMENTS

Abstract

The rapid development and implementation and/or conversion of face to face graduate programs to online delivery have broadened educational opportunities in various professions ranging from business to nursing. Music is no exception. Universities across the United States offer online degrees in Music Education. However, there is still yet to see Music Education degrees offered fully online in Canada and even more so, performance degrees offered fully online in North America. The purpose of this qualitative study was to develop a series of propositions that may be useful to instructional designers when working on the development and/or conversion of applied piano courses, in the Piano Performance Master’s Degree, to online environments. The tradition of inquiry used in this study was grounded theory. Seven interviews were conducted and, data was analyzed following the three phases of coding. The findings of this study were 13 categories connected in three themes: (1) applied piano one-on-one lessons, (2) possible barriers, and (3) environmental constraints. The results of this study provide a starting point towards the design of effective strategies for the development and/or conversion of applied piano courses and indicate the need for further research.