Research
Methodology in Education
An action research enquiry into the teaching and learning of folk music
through online music sessions
Vicki Swan 2004
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Research Proposal
An enquiry into the teaching and learning of folk music through
online music sessions
Rationale
The focus of this research is to investigate the idea of broadcasting
a live music session over the internet to an audience giving them an opportunity
(that they may not otherwise have) to play along with other musicians
and increase their musical repertoire. The methodology for this study
is action research.
The choice of this methodology is evidenced by improvement of personal
practice and the development of a new medium for teaching traditional
music. As a traditional music practitioner in an area of the UK that has
few educational opportunities in this genre this is a very pertinent study.
The study will examine both the technical difficulties of webcasting and
also the social and cultural issues of placing an inherently social activity
in a traditionally asynchronous text environment. The research will create
a method of linking together people not only from this country that would
not normally have access to folk music education, but also musicians from
different countries all over the world. This study may be of great value
to both Ultralab and APU is it pushes further the boundaries of online/distance
education and learning. If successful it could take online learning and
online community to a whole new level of education.
Literature Review
There has been much research performed in the area of online learning
and of music education but there has been very little written about the
learning of traditional folk music and less still about learning folk
music in the online environment. MacKinnon (1993) writes about the music
session
“a session is a gathering of musicians who meet informally to play tunes. A singing session or sing around is a similar gathering of singers, though if instrumental and vocal music occur together it is normally referred it as a session” (MacKinnon 1993: 99)
Fairbairn (1994) describes the “traditional music session” and how, in the 1930s, Irish immigrants coming to London could no longer play music in the home and turned to public houses as a venue:
“Since the 1930s instrumental music has become increasingly disassociated from its primary function - to accompany dancing.... The traditional setting for the music is the country house dance, remembered vividly by today’s oldest generation of musicians” (Fairbairn 1994: 572)
The traditional music session is a sociable event where tunes are swapped and learnt as opposed to taught in a formal sense. Fairbairn (1994) reflects on session culture:
“Sessions dissolve boundaries bringing together large numbers of musicians, with or without previous experience of one another's playing, and representing diverse musical backgrounds, styles and experience.” (Fairbairn 1994: 583)
whilst Swanwick touches on the aural and traditional performance:
“Without aural performance traditions, most expressive and structural shaping is missing.” (Swanwick, K. 1996:244)
There has been very little written on the pedagogy of learning processes
in traditional music sessions and as such this is an area that needs
further study.
Elsewhere in the music environment, research is being undertaken to
investigate online music teaching. The Santa Barbara Music Academy have
undertaken research into performing synchronously online, putting on
concert where two musicians perform a duet from different locations
across the internet.
“The virtual duet performance marks a first in the history of music and technology, allowing the musicians to perform in realtime.” (Kuehn 2003)
Ruippo (2003) looked at synchronous communication, phone / video conferencing. His work focuses on technological resources replicating the real teaching scenario by trying to mirror the face to face experience. Video conferencing was explored and developed as the preferred model of distance learning.
“These examples demonstrate that Videoconferences seem to suit many kinds of music material.” (Donner 2003)
Bhandopadhyay (2000) takes the asynchronous perspective with the learner being forced to be more audidactic:
"With faculty guidance, the learner must increasingly become self directed, acquiring knowledge and skills through interactive technology-based instruction, videotaped courses, CD ROMs, self-paced learning modules and interactive education.” (Bandopadhyay 2000)
Wenger (1998) claims that learning is fundamentally social; to learn we need to interact with our teachers/tutors and with our peers. As Rovai (2002) states:
“Research provides evidence that strong feelings of community may not only increase persistence in courses, but may also increase the flow of information among all learners” (Rovai 2002)
The research that Bandopadhyay, Ruppio and others are undertaking, although including a limited amount of interaction don’t use community as its foundation. As Ho (2004) states:
"Whilst the students maintained that music technology could help them with listening, composing and performing, and with music history, they believed that activities such as choir practice and instrumental learning require teachers.” Ho (2004)
These papers appear to recognise that learners are dependant upon
social interaction for the success of their learners: that community
is the lynch pin that provides the enthusiasm, motivation and momentum
of the self directed learner. This too is an area that needs further
study.
Combining the previous writings of these researchers, it is hoped that
this this study will examine the social pastime of learning traditional
music tunes in the online environment, pushing both the technical limits
and the preconceptions of many folk musicians.
Research Questions
Traditionally folk music has been learned aurally1
often in the environment of public houses. The focus of this research
is to examine and improve the learning of folk music in a synchronous
online environment by broadcasting a live session over the internet.
To aid improvement the following research questions will be addressed:
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IIs the current technology of a high enough standard to enable online music learning.
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ie connection speed, programme availability and hardware compatibility?
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Is it possible to “play along” with broadcast musicians?
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What learning, if any is taking place?
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What role does conversation play in the learning of folk music?
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Is the online chat room a fair substitute for face to face interaction?
- Will musicians find value in this study and wish to continue learning music in this way?
Methodology
The anti-positivist, naturalistic and qualitative nature of this enquiry
perfectly lends itself to the action research methodology. Cohen and Manion
(2001) state that:
...the social world can only be understood from the standpoint of the individuals who are part of the ongoing action being investigated: and that their model of a person is an autonomous one, not the plastic version favoured by positivist researchers.” (Cohen and Manion 2001:19)
To teach traditional music online a webcast will be performed with participants able to feedback and socialise by means of a chat room. After the webcast is completed feedback will be presented, reflected upon and discussed before repeating the webcast. In between the webcasts an area for peer review will be made available, where findings can be published and discussion taken place. Data will be gathered using synchronous chat, questionnaires and post event discussion. This follows the protocol for action research as stated by Elliot (1991):
“In action research ‘theories’ are not validated independently and then applied to practice. They are validated through practice.” (Elliot 1991:69)
This method of learning using the internet and online remote communications is one that is totally new to the folk music scene. By investigating the learning of tunes in this way it fulfils an action research criteria as laid out by Cohen and Manion (2000), that is to develop new methods of learning:
“continuing professional development of teachers - improving teaching skills, developing new methods of learning... (Cohen and Manion 2000:226)
There is a strong embedded culture in the traditional music world that
participants must learn “folk tunes” aurally. There is a resistance
to the use of technology, amplification and even to the use of written
notation. These are barriers to overcome, so reflective practise carried
out will be needed to gradually win musicians over to the new techniques.
The technology needs to be transparent and allow the music to be played
with no hindrance. The use of questionnaire and follow up discussion is
vital to glean whether or not participants have found the experience a
positive one and have either learned new music or gained more confidence
in already known tunes. This is vital to discovering how the webcasts
can be improved.
Data Collection Methods
The data for this study will be generated by the live chat, follow
up questionnaires, feedback and discussion. A chat room such as those
provided by MSN instant messaging or Yahoo instant Messenger will set
up for synchronous communication. A chat transcript will be saved from
the webcasts (either using a save facility or copy and paste as a text
file), but will be for evidence and not necessarily for analytical purposes.
The post webcast questionnaire will evidence the learning (if any) that
has taken place and create pointers for improvement in the practice of
webcasting music education. The analysis will be strongly qualitative
to assess peoples perceptions of whether or not the ‘online session’
has been successful and learning has taken place.
Resources and Support
The technical resources required for this study will be access to a streaming
server, webcasting camera, webcasting computer, computer for accessing
chat room whilst webcasting, and broadband internet access, these are
available from Ultralab. A test broadcast as part of a pilot study will
take place to ascertain any technical issues to be addressed.
Other resources include musicians for a webcast team (gathered from assorted
professional musicians) and remote musicians based around the world to
take part in the study. These external musicians will require ISDN internet
access or faster, a computer with the program Quicktime (free internet
download) and speakers. The participants will be gathered from assorted
online communities such as mudcat.org, bellowspipes@yahoogroups.com and
smallpiper.proboards38.com.
There will be no other resources required and non required from supervisors.
Ethical Issues
The most significant ethical issue raised is musical copyright. When music
is performed to the public and broadcast, royalties need to be paid. To
counter this, only traditional music that is out of copyright can be performed.
The same will be true of any music that is published on the website. As
the webcasts are being created for the express purpose of this study the
participants will be aware from the outset from the adverts that they
are taking part in research. Any chat transcripts, discussions, pictures,
audio files or video files will be used with the permission of any person
involved and anonymized prior to publication.
Time scale
The research planning will include preparing the technical aspect
of the webcast: researching how to best perform a webcast and what materials
are required. This includes computer hardware, live chat room facilities
and resources required by the participants. Data collection will be done
by qualitative analysis of the realtime live chat, post webcast questionnaire
feedback and discussion in a message forum. From start to finish the time
scale of the entire research should take no more than 12 months. Research
planning should take roughly 2 months, the data collection 6 months and
the analysis and report writing stage 4 months:
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To perform this study it will be necessary to access not only the university library, but also various other libraries and associations. The following list is a typical sample that will be expected to increase as the study is performed.
For the Traditional Folk Music literature it will be necessary to access:
EFDSS library- The Vaughan Williams library in Cecil Sharp House in London. This has “the most important concentration of material on traditional song, dance, and music in the country” Simpson & Roud (Oxford OUP, 2000)
mustrad.org.uk - Magazine for Traditional Music throughout the world
mudcat.org library- The Mudcat Folk Library
Folkmus.htm - English folk and traditional music on the Internet.
The Folk Music Journal - This is not available from athens, so it will be necessary to go through past volumes at the Vaughan Williams library.
For other resources see the reference section at the end of the assignment.
Methodological Approaches - Action Research
In order to examine the educational properties of webcasting and education
it is necessary to look at the different traditions of research. The
study that is being examined here falls neatly into the anti-positivist
and qualitative camp. The positivist view of research is such that;
"social science procedures should mirror as near as possible those of the natural sciences. The researcher should be objective and detached from the objects of research” (Blaxter et al 1996:60)
As it is the practice of performing webcasts in this scenario that is being examined it can be seen that the positivist view is totally inappropriate. The data that is gathered is strongly qualitative, the participants being asked to judge if they have made any learning gains. Such information could be transformed into quantitative data if statistics were required, but the focus in this study is far too qualitative:
Has learning taken place? Is it worth repeating? Can it be improved?
This focus upon the participant and the researcher is supported by Cohen and Manion (2001):
“...the social world can only be understood from the standpoint of the individuals who are part of the ongoing action being investigated: and that their model of a person is an autonomous one, not the plastic version favoured by positivist researchers.” (Cohen and Manion 2001:19)
To answer these questions the approach chosen for this study is action research. This approach has become extremely popular especially for:
“...those working in professional areas such as education... It is well suited to the needs of people conducting research in their workplaces, and who have a focus on improving aspects of their own and their colleagues’ practices.” (Baxter et al 1996:67)
On the surface action research would seem a very straight forward approach, but digging deeply into literature reveals many different definitions. For example Kemmis and McTaggart state that:
“Action research is a form of collaborative self-reflective inquiry undertaken by participants in a social situations in order to improve the rationality and justice of their own social or educational practices..... The approach is only action research when it is collaborative” (Kemmis and McTaggart, 1988:5)
Whilst Hopkins suggests that:
“the combination of action and research renders that action a form of disciplined inquiry, in which a personal attempt is made to understand, improve and reform practice.” (Hopkins 1985:32)
and Cohen and Manion discuss that:
“a small-scale intervention in the functioning of the real world and a close examination of the effects of such an intervention.” (Cohen and Manion 1994:186)
The key concepts of action research most commonly are i) the ‘self
reflective spiral’, (Kemmis and McTaggart, 1992:22 cited in Cohen
et al 2000:229), i.e. planning, acting, reflecting and ii)
collaboration.
A common use for action research in education is for practising classroom
teachers, the spiral of: planning, acting, reflecting, planning etc. is
ideal for improving personal practice. It is not only the classroom teacher
that can benefit from this methodology, Bell (1987) states that this can
be applied to a wider audience:
“The essentially practical, problem-solving nature of action research makes this approach attractive to practitioner-researchers who have identified a problem during the course of their work and see the merit of investigating it and if possible improving practice.” (Bell, 1987:9)
Music research has taken a far more quantitative direction as distinct from many of the education methodologies. Swanwick (2001) summarises:
"the methodologies range from naturalistic observations to experiment. Research foci include the nature and development of musical understanding (cognition), response to music, music aesthetics, curriculum evaluation...”(Swanwick 2001:6)
Contemporaneous Research
Historically in music and the arts research action research has not been
a widely used methodology. The British Journal of Music Education has
as it’s emphasis ‘careful and critical enquiry’ and a good
deal of research associates with explicitly quantitative methodologies.
These range from naturalistic observations to experimental ones. (Swanwick
2001). By far the most popular methodology employed in most UK universities
offering performance related research currently is ‘practice as research’,
also referred to as PARIP. This methodology was developed as a response
to the government ‘research assessment exercise’ to enable arts
and music faculties to compete with academic departments in attaining
RAE points.
Although this study is very much performance and arts based, the emphasis
is firmly on education and improvement of practice and not the creation
of a performance.
Two examples of contemporaneous research: Dr. Popat (1999) carried out
a synchronous dance performance study with participants webcasting from
remote locations. This study has many similarities in that the performance
was synchronous and it took the form of a webcast. The methodology employed
in this case was experimental, some emphasis was placed on learning but
a great deal was on the performance created and not the improvement of
personal practice. This methodology was again unsuitable for the study
of the online folk music session.
Ruippo (2003) looked at synchronous communication, phone / video conferencing.
He appeared to focus technological resources on replicating the real teaching
scenario i.e. by trying to get as close to face to face as possible. Video
conferencing was explored and developed as the preferred model of distance
learning.
“These examples demonstrate that Videoconferences seem to suit many kinds of music material.” (Donner 2003)
Although Ruippo was attempting to research in the fairly new idiom of distance learning he still fell into the patriarchal mode:
“To begin with, the dominant cultural institution has been the Eurocentric Fine Art of 'high' musical Culture advanced by the "cultural patriarchy" (Abrahams 1986) of university schools of music and conservatories, and imitated in public schools by teachers trained by the 2 patriarchy.” (Regelski 2002:7)
These methodologies are not appropriate for this study as the emphasis
is on improving educational practice and not creating a performance or
the undertaking of an experiment.
Justification of chosen methodology
The chosen methodology is appropriate in this scenario as the focus
of study is on improvement of educational practice. By investigating the
learning of tunes in this way it fulfils one of the action research criteria
as laid out by Cohen and Manion (2000), that is to develop new methods
of learning:
“continuing professional development of teachers - improving teaching skills, developing new methods of learning... (Cohen and Manion 2000:226)
In addition to improving practice in the area of teaching music in online sessions, new knowledge is being created as a new method of teaching is being developed, this also falls neatly into the action research category as stated by Cohen and Manion:
“continuing professional development of teachers - improving teaching skills, developing new methods of learning... (Cohen and Manion 2000:226)
Weakness of the chosen methodology
“Lewin is credited with coining the term ‘action research’ to describe work that did not separate the investigation from the action needed to solve the problem” (McFarland & Stansell, 1993, p. 14)
This on the one hand is the major strength of action research, but also
forms it’s weakness. In the attempt to improve personal practice
or solve problems many new an unexpected issues can arise. These can lead
to changes in direction and too many new problems to comfortably address
within the bounds of study.
Many criticisms have been made of action research including :
“The threefold typification of action research is untenable: it assumes that rational consensus is achievable, that rational debate will empower all participants...” (Cohen and Manion 2000:233)
The collaboration aspect is questioned:
“Kemmis and McTaggart (1992:152 pose the question ‘why must action research consist of a group process?’ ... it is too controlling and prescriptive” (cited in Cohen and Manion 2000:233)
Despite all these weaknesses and criticisms action research is still
the most appropriate methodology as it is seeking to improve not only
education practise, but created new knowledge. This study is not seeking
to control or change, but investigate a new medium to enable remote musicians
gain musical education.
Types of data gathered
The criteria that defines action research specifies that it must be
reflective and collaborative. The data created will be qualitative in
nature. The study entails real time collaboration, so data is gathered
in the form of feedback, initially in a chat room and subsequently via
e-mail and message board forum. A record of the chat will be saved in
the form of text files and the webcast will be recorded and saved, the
chat and webcast archive will be kept for evidence but not necessarily
use for analytical purposes.
Conclusion
To fuse the traditional music session and online education is to enter
into an entirely new method of learning. It is one that after further
study should have a major impact on remote musical learning. Action research
is ongoing and even post study, the reflective process should continue
and be passed on so that eventually the online distance session could
become a normal way of learning for those that can’t access face
to face sessions.
Part Three: Research Methods - Action Research
Action research as suggested by McTaggart (1998) is enquiry to improve practice and is by turn self-reflective and collaborative. As a result of the collaborative element some or all of the data could be gathered in the form of discussion and questionnaire responses. The focus of this study is education in an online environment so the data will be gathered in the form of chat transcripts, questionnaires, e-mail or forum. As Weinreich (1996) states, the weakness of qualitative data is that it can be time consuming to collect and subject to interpretative problems:
“Hypotheses are generated during data collection and analysis, and measurement tends to be subjective. In the qualitative paradigm, the researcher becomes the instrument of data collection, and results may vary greatly depending upon who conducts the research” (Weinreich 1996)
Although data gathered from questionnaires can be limited in scope (Cohen and Manion 2000:245) there are also great strengths:
“that they generate rich, detailed data that leave the participants' perspectives intact and provide a context for health behavior.“(Weinreich 1996)
In an online environment data can be gathered far faster than in the traditional way:
"These suggested that the main benefits of online research were the potential to deliver results much quicker than conventional research and cheaper. For example they quoted obtaining surveys results in 2-3 days rather than 2-3 weeks (when conducted traditionally)" (Comley 2002)
There are many plus points for using the internet in conducting questionnaires. Comley (2002) goes on to state:
Easier to conduct with certain groups eg samples spread geographically, disabled, Internet 'netheads'
Sometimes more honest eg researching sensitive subjects or with young people
Sometimes cheaper to conduct (mainly US) (Comley 2002)
The purpose of this study is to perform action research on the practise
of teaching traditional folk tunes in an online synchronous environment.
For the purpose of this the internet will enable a synchronous global
target audience to learn music and also provide the asynchronous feedback
mechanism. The participants will be found through currently active internet
music communities. As existing internet community and technology users,
the participants should be able to fulfil the response criteria outlines
by Comley (2002). The following is an outline of the data collection
methods.
Data Collection - Communication
The Broadcast
A broadcast will be set up using the Quicktime Broadcaster software
on a broadcast computer and a streaming server. A group of musicians
will be gathered to perform a webcast of traditional music to a remote
audience thereby enabling them to learn play along and learn new tunes.
The participants will require a computer connected to the internet using
an isdn (or better) connection, up to date Quicktime software (available
as a free download) and speakers. The participants will be gathered
from assorted online communities such as mudcat.org, bellowspipes@yahoogroups.com
and smallpiper.proboards38.com.
Chat Facility
The most important feedback mechanism in this study is the online
chat facility. It is this tool that will enable the webcast team to
gain feedback. Without the chat the webcast would become a one sided
television style broadcast. The chat will give the participants the
opportunity to request certain pieces of music to be played, to feedback
on the stableness of the webcast. The chat facility needs to be chosen
carefully to ensure that not only it is stable, reliable and cross platform
but that a transcript can be saved as a record (either using a save
facility or copy and paste as a text file). The purpose of the chat
is to enable real time feedback and not necessarily for post event analysis.
Questionnaire & Message board Forum
Post webcast it is not only important to perform self-reflection
prior to the repeating the exercise but also to gain the reflection
of the participants. Questionnaires can not only gain specific answers,
but also help with vital background information. In the case of this
study a post webcast questionnaire will be requested via e-mail:
What did the you do? - Did you play, listen etc.
What did the you learn? - Did you learn any new tunes?
Did you enjoy this online session? - Would you do this again?
Do you have access to real sessions?
Do you think that having the session live makes a difference?
Does having the chat feedback make a difference?
Does having the visual make a difference?
Would just having audio be sufficient?
Does the session have value? Is it worth pursuing?
What could be improved?
The role of these questions will be to assess if any learning has taken
place, whether holding the webcast as a live event is necessary and
to ascertain if the participant can access face to face music sessions.
The message board forum will give the participants an area to give
feedback and discussion in a more public arena. Questions can be brought
up and discussed frankly openly and in more depth than a questionnaire
and thus encouraging collaboration.
Ethics. Reliability and Validity
Dick & Swepson (1994) define validity and validity within action
research:
“Validity has come to have meanings which are appropriate for experimental paradigms. For action research, with its need for responsiveness and change, different concepts of validity are required. All paradigms seek to understand the world. Action research wishes to use this understanding to inform simultaneous action. ... We have offered here two strategies for achieving valid understanding: the use of a cyclic procedure; and, within each cycle, the use of multiple sources of information or different perspectives on what is being studied.” (Dick & Swepson 1994)
By performing a webcast in a collaborative manner and giving an area
for subsequent discussion the reliability and validity of both the
feedback and the data is assured. There is always a risk that a participant
gives answers to a questionnaire that they believe a researcher wants
to hear. However the purpose of the study is to provide an educational
forum so there is an incentive to give the feedback as accurately
as possible. The collaboration within the forum will empower the participant
to improve the practice of the researcher.
The action research methods have been thoroughly researched since
Lewin first was credited with coining the term in the 1940s. (Ferrance,
2000:7) The key concepts of the action research ‘self reflective
spiral’, (Kemmis and McTaggart, 1992:22 cited in Cohen et
al 2000:229), resulting in the planning, acting, reflecting and
collaborating is a fairly comprehensive methodology and one which,
if applied fully should result in a reliable and unbiased study.
The participants will be gathered from online communities and will
from the start be aware that they are participating in a research
project. Any published results will be fully anonymized with the participants
consent. As this study involves the performance and broadcast of music
the largest area for ethical concern is copyright infringement. Ward
(2003) discusses copyright law:
“The rights established by copyright law enable copyright owners to license the copying, distribution and performance of their "intellectual property" (including written or recorded words, musical compositions, sound and video recordings etc.) in return for payment. This is one of the main sources of income supporting authors, composers, publishers and record companies.” (Ward 2003)
Ward (2003) goes on to state that the internet should be treated the same as any other broadcast medium. Thus to circumvent any resultant issues of copyright only traditional or self penned tunes will be broadcast during the webcasts.
Pilot Study - An enquiry
into the teaching and learning of folk music through online music sessions
Introduction - Establishing the Pilot
The term ‘pilot study’ refers to small scale or feasibility studies. The purpose of pilot studies can be myriad and include:
“• Developing and testing adequacy of research instruments
• Assessing the feasibility of a (full-scale) study/survey
• Designing a research protocol
• Assessing whether the research protocol is realistic and workable
• Establishing whether the sampling frame and technique are effective
• Assessing the likely success of proposed recruitment approaches
• Identifying logistical problems which might occur using proposed methods
• Estimating variability in outcomes to help determining sample size
• Collecting preliminary data
• Determining what resources (finance, staff) are needed for a planned study
• Assessing the proposed data analysis techniques to uncover potential problems
• Developing a research question and research plan
• Training a researcher in as many elements of the research process as possible
• Convincing funding bodies that the research team is competent and knowledgeable
• Convincing funding bodies that the main study is feasible and worth funding
• Convincing other stakeholders that the main study is worth supporting”
(Teijlingen & Hundley, 2001)
The focus for this study was to pilot the concept of transferring the traditional music session, as seen predominantly in public houses, as a tune learning environment into an online environment. The purpose of the full study will be:
- Improve personal practice under the action research spiral of practice and reflection
- Develop an online forum to enable remote musicians to learn new music
The purpose of the pilot was two fold:
- To test the webcasting equipment to see if it is was possible to teach folk music using this medium.
- To test the feedback functionality of the chat, messageboard and questionnaire to ensure that all lines of communication were fully open and relevant.
In setting up an online session it was first important to break the
concept into it’s constituent parts, both for the purpose of the
study and for the purpose of the music. The following is a break down
of the processes involved and some of the difficulties encountered.
1. The music performance - the musicians
The remote musicians were drawn from a sample of musicians around
the world. Adverts were placed in different places on the internet:
www.mudcat.org
http://smallpiper.proboards38.com
bellowspipes yahoo newsgoup
A group of colleagues were also enlisted to ensure a good rounded mix
of performers. The final count for the last webcast included 2 performers
in Canada, 3 in Holland and 1 in the north of England. In each case
the performers had broadband internet access from home. The repertoire
of tunes chosen for the webcast were in the main fairly well known to
both performers and both had good computer literacy skills.
2. The Broadcast equipment and software
A digital video camera was procured from Ultralab. (An educational
researcher facility with APU) Quicktime Broadcaster was available as
a free downloaded from the apple website. A streaming server was already
available for use at Ultralab. With only two people running the webcast
it was difficult to facilitate both the cast, equipment, chat facility
and maintain a constant stream of music. The webcasting took place from
the front room of a residential property with broadband internet available.
3. The Broadcast viewing software
The software required for viewing a webcast made by Quicktime Broadcaster
is available as a free download form the internet. A website was created
to show the participants how to log into the broadcast and also the
chat facility. The major difficulty that was encountered was the software
version. The version 6.3 was not sufficiently up to date for receiving
the webcast. Participants had to upgrade to version 6.5. As the numbering
between the two were so similar it some times took the participant some
time to realise an upgrade was required.
4. The social interaction - chat room
Several different options were explored for chat rooms. A chat room
was not easily set up, so pre-existing ones were used. The first chat
room (piperschat.com) worked well for the webcast team, but kept crashing
in Holland. The second attempt was using MSN, however the servers were
not functioning in Canada. A free chat room was set up hosted by a free
service. This unfortunately had pop-ups (adverts opening up in different
windows), but was reasonably stable and had the entire session team
in.
5. Feedback
The feedback was requested in the form of answers to a questionnaire,
e-mail discussion and also at an internet forum set up for the purpose.
The questions were fairly straightforward. A transcript of the first
chat session was kept, but unfortunately the chat crashed on the second
webcast and only a few screen grabs were salvaged.
The areas of the webcast can be visually represented by the following
diagram:
fig. 4.1 Visual representation of the webcast technology
Data Collection - The Webcasts
Two webcasts were held in November 2004 for the purposes of the pilot.
This gave the opportunity to try out the technology and feedback mechanisms
whilst using the action research spiral of planning, implementation, reflection,
planning etc.
Webcast One - 7th November 2004
Prior to the webcast the equipment was set up and connected to the
internet. There were two remote musicians (Scottish Smallpipers) taking
part in webcast one, both domiciled in Holland. As they were both pipers
it was decided on this occasion only to play pipe tunes. As this cast
was considered to be a technical test for the broadcast equipment the
chat facility had not been fully examined. The Dutch participants made
their presence known through the message board; http://smallpiper.proboards38.com
however it was quickly discovered that the message board was not synchronous
enough to hold any kind of conversation. http://www.bagpipechat.com/ was
chosen as the chat forum. This is a chat area for predominantly highland
pipers and was a quick and easy place to get to. Once the synchronous
chat facility was in place all the participants were able to converse
in real time. See appendix I for the movie file of the webcast. The full
webcast took in the region of one hour. Feedback was requested in the
form of both e-mails and on the message board, http://smallpiper.proboards38.com
Webcast Two - 14th November 2004
As a result of the feedback and reflection from the first webcast it was
decided that the chat room needed more in-depth study and setting up before
webcast number two. Several different free javascript chat sites were
investigated and set up, but none were considered ideal. The MSN instant
messenger was chosen to be the primary choice for the second webcast and
a free javascript room set up as a backup.
Also as a result of reflection and feedback post webcast one more tunes
were uploaded to the information website. These tunes were far great in
contrast and included both Scottish pipe tunes and non-Scottish Pipes
Tunes.
The musicians taking part in this webcast were:
| Webcast Team |
Holland | Canada | Yorkshire |
| Vicki - Smallpipes | Fxxx - Smallpipes | Jxxx - Guitar | Kxxx - Guitar |
| Jonny - Guitar / Accordion | Cxxx - Smallpipes | Vxxx - Fiddle | |
| Mxxx - Bodhran |
The webcast again was approximately one hour in duration and again feedback requested both in e-mails and in the forum. Although the webcast team and the participants from Holland were able to log into MSN the Canadian and English contingents failed to gain access to the chat area. As a result of this the fall back java chat room was used and all participants managed to communicate in this room.
Data analysis
The following is summary table gained from the questionnaire following
the webcasts:
|
Question |
Holland | Canada | Yorkshire |
| 1. What
did the you do? Did you play, listen etc. |
played along | played along | played along |
| 2. What
did the you learn? Did you learn any new tunes? |
yes | played as best as could | good to hear, no-one to hear mistakes |
| 3. Did
you enjoy this online session? Would you do this again? |
yes | yes | yes |
| 4. Do you have access to real sessions? | in a band, but no real sessions | no | no |
| 5. Do you think that having the session live makes a difference? | yes for immediate feedback | makes it more real, fun to know it’s global | yes |
| 6. Does having the chat feedback make a difference? | yes, more communication | yes, interactive, nice to know who else is there | yes, needs to feel part of a group |
| 7. Does having the visual make a difference? | yes, for playing interaction | think so, nice to see the people | yes - visual cues help with music |
| 8. Would just having audio be sufficient? | video is better | maybe | not sure |
| 9. Does the session have value? Is it worth pursuing? | yes | yes, nice to play with other people | as an experiment, won’t replace live session. |
| 10. What could be improved? | better chat room | use bigger speakers! | nice to hear other participants |
fig 4.3 Summary of Questionnaire Feedback
From the summary above the following trends can be seen:
i) All participants played along, this was the aim of the study, so the webcast can be considered successful.
ii) New tunes were in general learnt, both by the playing along to the stream and from downloading the manuscript from the website.
iii) The participants didn’t in general have access to any other music session, that is they usually play either in a small group or alone and do not have access to music sessions in the pub setting to learn new tunes.
iv) The session was required to be live so that the participants felt part of a larger group and not just stuck at home playing by themselves. The video stream gave the participants a sense of audience, again, not feeling isolated. It also gave some of the visual cues that is integral to performing music. The chat room was also necessary as this was the only medium for the participants to be able to give feedback. This moved the session from merely being a one way broadcast, much like the experience of watching television, to being an interactive session.
v) The software was required to be totally up to date. If Quicktime 6.5 was not installed the broadcast could not be accessed.
Feedback from e-mails from the Dutch contingent brought up the question of the chat room further It was suggested that a non java script chat room would be more efficient and also that the concept of having the video stream and the chat room integrated into the same browser window would be far easier for the participants to visually use. An example was mocked up. In the picture below the video steam can be seen on the left, the chat window on the top right and a list of tunes on the bottom right:
fig 4.4 Mock up of integrated video and chat window
Personal reflection on both the webcasts brought up the following observations:
i. The chat room must be well established prior to the webcast
ii. The chat room must be stable and easily accessible
The first webcast used a message board as the communication area.
The refresh time on this board was not sufficiently fast enough to enable
real time chat so a backup room had to be found. On the second webcast
the first choice of chat room was not reliable and so again a back up
was used. As this was a pilot study the participants exhibited no outward
frustration at this, but the webcast team found it a difficult to reconcile
the attempts to appear as a professional musician whilst not having an
immediately functioning chat facility.
iii. More than two people are required to take care of any technical
problems
Being the webcast technician and major tune player it was very hard
to cope with setting up the broadcast equipment, participate fully in
the chat and troubleshoot any difficulties that were encountered. Trying
to keep a continuous flow of audio / visual, keep the chat going and
appear as a professional musician was not a feasible challenge.
iv. A small set list of tunes needs to be provided prior to the webcast
Although a good size list of tunes available on the website ensures
a good mix it is very hard for participants to choose, therefore a list
of approximately 6 tunes needs to be listed at least a week in advance
so that participants may, if they so wish prepare.
Ethical issues
The major ethical issues for this pilot study consist of the use of
MSN for the second webcast and any performance of non-traditional or non-self
penned tunes.
MSN was chosen as the chat facility for webcast two as this was reasoned
to be a stable and available chat room. This, as it turned out was not
the case. For the full study it has been planned to install and use a
full community tool. This will enable secure, stable chat and also a host
of other communication tools. It was not feasible to install this platform
for the purposes of this study, but in carrying out this study it has
show that it would be the correct choice.
There was only one non-traditional or self penned tune played in this
webcast, which was specifically a request. However it should probably
be made clearer on the accompanying website that there are ethical issues
surrounding the broadcast of copyright tunes over the internet.
Conclusion
The aim of this pilot study was to test the functionality of the webcast
equipment and the feedback systems. By performing two webcast the equipment
was tested, the chat feedback and questionnaire were piloted and feedback
gained. The webcasts themselves were successful in that all the participants
had an enjoyable experience and learned tunes they may not otherwise have
done. As a result of the pilot the communication systems will be improved
and a programme list of the tunes to be learnt for all the webcasts prepared
in advance.
Action research is an ongoing process, the research does not finish when
the study has been completed. As the main focus for action research is
into personal practice and it’s continuing reflection and improvement,
there will never be a definite cessation;
“continuing professional development of teachers - improving teaching skills... (Cohen and Manion 2000:226)
This concept of learning via an online webcast is in itself cutting edge and the traditional folk scene will take some adjustment, but the benefits to the musicians that cannot access face to face tuition will soon dispel any scepticism.
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1
aural - in music aural is the art of listening to music and repeating
it until learnt from memory.
2
Patriarch - to continue the tradition set by the tutors of the leading
conservatoires