An investigation of piano educators' piano teaching attitudes in terms of various variables (The case of Mersin province)

This study was conducted to examine the piano teaching attitudes of piano instructors. The population of the research is piano educators living in Mersin province and the sample is piano educators teaching in the city center (Akdeniz, Mezitli, Toroslar, Yenişehir districts). "Convenience Sampling" method was used as the sampling method. The research is a descriptive study in the survey model aimed at measuring the piano teaching attitudes of piano educators in terms of different variables - conducted to reveal the current situation. In the study, "Piano Teaching Attitude Scale (PBL)" was used along with "Personal Information Form" as data collection tools. The three dimensions of the scale are; "one. The importance given to piano education; 2. Passion for teaching piano; 3. Professional approach to piano teaching". Data were analyzed using the SPSS-27 program. A frequency table was created for sociodemographic questions. In order to see the differences in the group averages of the variables, independent sample t-test analyzes were applied to the variables with 2 groups. When there were not enough observations for parametric tests, non-parametric Mann Whitney-U analysis was applied for variables with 2 groups, ANOVA analysis was applied for variables with 3 or more groups, and non-parametric Kruskal Wallis-H analyzes were applied for variables with 4 or more groups where the number of groups was not sufficient for parametric tests. Parametric Pearson and non-parametric Spearman correlation analysis were applied to determine the direction and strength of the relationship between the scales. Analyzes were applied at alpha=0.05 level. The average score of the attitude scale towards piano teaching was determined as 4.42±0.47, and according to the lowest (1) and highest (5) scores that could be obtained from the scale, it was seen that the attitudes of the piano teachers participating in the research towards piano teaching were highly positive. Similarly, the attitude levels of the importance given to piano education (4.76±0.39) and passion for teaching piano (4.61±0.52) were high, whereas the professional approach towards piano teaching (3.90±0.84) was found to be high. It was determined that the attitude was relatively low compared to other items, but still at a high level.