Band students’ perceptions of instruction via videoconferencing

Geographic impediments and urbanicity are core aspects of distance learning, the latter of which was defined as the degree of population concentration in a community. As distance education was largely developed to reach students removed from urban centres, better understanding of music instruction through videoconferencing may help further develop approaches to distance music education. The purpose of this study was to examine potential perceptual differences between urbanicity groupings after ensemble instruction via videoconferencing. Participants were 134 seventh (N = 80) and eighth (N = 54) grade band students at five different schools in the Southwest United States, consisting of 63 females and 71 males. Participants completed the Pupils’ Attitude Towards Technology short form questionnaire (PATT-SQ) to establish group equivalency. After completing the PATT-SQ, participants engaged in a rehearsal with a guest teacher present via videoconferencing software and immediately completed the Skype Ensemble Instruction Questionnaire. Results revealed a statistically significant difference for urbanicity, F(2, 131) = 5.891, p = 0.004, ƞ² = 0.083. Post hoc (Tukey Honest Significant Difference) analysis indicated that the mean for rural participants significantly differed from urban and suburban means. Possible explanations, future implications and limitations were then discussed.