The evaluation of online piano teaching and learning: A case from Dokuz Eylül University

Information Technologies (IT) has become a neccesisty in all fields of education in the last decade. With the emergence of Covid-19, it has taken up even more space in our distance education applications, and will only expand This study was conducted to evulate distance piano teaching and learning in the Dokuz Eylul University Music Teaching Program. The problems experienced in the process by music instructors and students have been examined in terms of the effectiveness of piano intruction and learning, with participants describing the advantages and disadvantages of the experience. Semi-structured interview technique, a qualitative research method, was used to obtain data, and those data were analyzed by content analysis and descriptive analysis. The study sample consisted of twelve piano undergraduate student and four piano intructors from Dokuz Eylul University Music Teaching Program. The results of the evulationsiclude psitive aspects of distane piano education line with the students opinions; time-saving/ time-management, increased communication with the teacher outside of the classroom, theoretical knowledge exchange, and enrichment of the course content. Negatives include the inconvenience of practicing in the home enviroment, internet interruptions, synchronization problems during lessons, lack of equipment, and lack of interaction during lessons. According to the results of the research, piano instructors stated that the increase in techno-pedagogical pedagogical content knowledge, the decrease in students' anxiety levels and the efficient use of time represents the positive aspects of distance piano education. Instructors have difficulty, however, in distance piano education owing to inadequate technological equipment, lack of techno-pedagogical knowledge, inequality of opportunity among students, internet infrastructure issues, software problems and lack of motivation. Instructors expressed the need to use distace piano education in a structure that supports face-to-face piano education. For this reason, in line with the opinions of instructors and students, the distance piano education cannot completely replace face-to-face piano education at the university level.