Abstract:
The study investigated the relationship between approaches to learning and strategies used in learning unfamiliar music. Verbal protocols from six 8th Grade music students indicated that deep and surface approaches have distinct influences on the selection of strategies for learning music. Independently of difficulty level, deep learners displayed greater depth of content concern and greater flexibility in strategy behaviours, while surface learners were consistently data-bound and strategically biased towards both rote learning techniques and recourse to external sources to resolve difficulties. The findings are consistent with previous research in student learning. The implications of the results for the teaching of music are discussed.