Adolescence is not a disease; coping with the challenges and taking pleasure in teaching "average" teenage piano students

American Music Teacher, June-July, 2002 by Yu-Jane Yang

5. Standard deviation (s.d.) is a measure of how spread out the scores are from the mean (the arithmetic average score) in a distribution. This number represents the average difference of all scores from the mean. In a normal distribution, 68.26 percent of all scores will lie within one standard deviation from the mean; 95.34 percent of all the scores will lie within two standard deviations from the mean; and 99.74 percent of the scores will lie within three standard deviations from the mean.

(6.) Kafer, Harold and Richard Kennell, "1998 National Survey of High School Pianists," American Music Teacher, August/September 1999, pp. 34-38.

(7.) Laurisa Cope, Carolee Eriksson, Debra Gamero and Cheryl Norman are the four Utah piano teachers who participated in my survey.

FIGURE 2

Out of School Activities: Hours per Week

                                0 hours   1-5 hrs   6-10 hrs   > 10 hrs

Practicing piano                   0%       65%       24%         12%
Social time with friends           3%       49%       23%         24%
Doing homework                     4%       36%       33%         27%
Time with family                   7%       60%       23%         10%
Time on phone                     21%       62%       11%          6%
Practicing other instruments      31%       53%       11%          3%
Sports                            40%       23%       23%         14%
Shopping at mall                  47%       49%        3%          2%
Time on e-mail                    48%       44%        5%          3%
Games on computer                 54%       43%        3%          0%
Surfing the Internet              58%       34%        8%          0%
Working job                       55%       23%        9%         13%

FIGURE 3

Piano Experinces: The Student

My personal goal in studying piano is personal satisfaction.       88 %
I enjoy practicing.                                                79 %
I am good at sight reading.                                        68 %
I have performed in major piano competitions in my area.           65 %
I practice more now than a year ago.                               60 %
I am always well-prepared for my piano lessons.                    54 %
I hope to get a scholarship for my piano playing ability to
  attend college.                                                  46 %
I am seriously considering majoring in music in college.           33 %
I can improvise in a jazz style.                                   32 %
My personal goal in studying piano is to please my parents.        29 %
My personal goal in studying piano is to win contests.              4 %

Yu-Jane Yang is associate professor of piano/piano pedagogy and director of the piano preparatory program at Weber State University. She received a Ph.D. degree from the University of Michigan. Active as performer, adjudicator, presenter and workshop clinician, Yang is president of the Utah Music Teachers Association.