Strategies students adopted when learning to play an improvised blues in an e-learning environment

This investigative study sought to reveal the learning strategies adopted by participants as they learned to play a twelve bar improvised blues with both hands together on a musical keyboard in an e-learning environment. There were three participants; two female and one male. Participants’ average age was 21 years. They worked individually in an e-learning environment with the assistance of the ‘Blues Activities’ text and supporting audio material. A ‘remote facilitator’ was available via email to provide advice, support and encouragement during and after each of the learning sessions. Video observation techniques were employed and results of a mixed qualitative and quantitative analysis revealed the percentages of time participants spent in five distinct learning activities which were interpreted as ‘instruction’, ‘copying’, ‘practising’, ‘playing’ and ‘evaluating’. It is argued that the findings provide an insight into the learning strategies adopted by these participants in this particular learning situation.