Video feedback and the self-evaluation of college-level guitarists during individual practice

Abstract

Developing musicians typically engage in self-regulated practicing during the time that passes between lessons with their teachers. An important aspect of self-regulated practice is the ability to identify and correct areas of development in performance in the absence of a teacher’s feedback, but the effort required to perform as well as monitor a performance represents a challenge for any learner. Videotaping the performance and watching it afterwards to fully concentrate on each task could constitute a solution to this problem. In our study, we verified how video feedback could affect the self-evaluation of intermediate-advanced musicians while practicing a new piece of music. To attain this objective, we analyzed and coded the self-evaluative comments of 16 classical guitarists while practicing. We then compared the number of coding entries in each category of a group of participants who used video feedback ( n = 8) on four occasions over a period of ten practice sessions with those of a group of musicians who did not use video feedback ( n = 8). Our results indicate that musicians who used video feedback modified the way they formulated their self-evaluative comments while practicing, and that these changes were more marked with higher-performing musicians.