Adult Beginners: Music Education's New Frontier

Teachers of Adult Music Learners: An Assessment of Characteristics and Instructional Practices, Preparation, and Needs

“…During approximately the past 50 years, attention to the growing adult population by the music education profession has increased both music learning opportunities for adults and teaching opportunities for career music professionals and amateurs and has inspired active and systematic research related to adult teaching and learning. As more individuals have entered into the practice of teaching adult learners, so has interest grown in researching this "new frontier" (Forrester, 1975) in music education. Numerous studies have been inspired as researcher-practitioners have sought further understanding of adult learning characteristics and consideration for and application of those characteristics to the music learning process (Bowles & Myers, 1996;Coffman, 2009;Dabback, 2005;Kruse, 2009;Myers, 1989Myers, , 2005.…”