The effectiveness of three memorizing strategies reflective of individual students' learning modalities in adult amateur piano class

Based on an extensive literature study in the domains of piano education, psychology and neuroscience, this qualitative research was designed to investigate experimentally the effectiveness of three memorizing strategies that are reflective of individual students' learning modalities (visual, kinesthetic and auditory) applied to the piano instruction of selected adult amateur piano learners. During the observational experiment six selected adults possessing one of the three dominant modalities were using three memorizing strategies that had been developed by the author of the research. In the experimental part of the study, the effect of the memorizing strategies based on learning styles was evaluated by counting errors in final reproductions of the presented music piece. With qualitative research method, the opinions of the instructor who applied the experimental study in the research and the structured self-esteem questionnaire, filled by the respondents after every session, were determined. As a result of the experiment, it has been proven by the ER analysis that there is a direct relation between the learning style and a memorization process. The use of the memorizing strategy reflective of the participant's dominant modality has a positive effect on the result of memorization. The Error Rate analysis showed that all participants achieved the best result while memorizing the piano composition with the strategy reflective of their dominant modalities. However, the participants' preference for the strategy will depend on individual psychological aspects. Concerning the lack of the convincing evidence it cannot be confirmed or disproved that the strategies may significantly speed up the pace of memorization. Considering that the memorization process is an individual characteristic that needs to be studied on an individual basis, generalization and general practice have not been proposed by the researcher. In order to investigate the specifics of the process of memorizing piano reflectıve of learning perceptual modality, further interdisciplinary qualitative and experimental investigations are suggested.