ABSTRACT

Since 1998 when the piano pedagogy was first introduced as a master degree program in Korea, ten graduate schools have established piano pedagogy program with the purpose of nurturing well-educated piano teachers. The purpose of this study is to conduct a comparative study of the existing curricula in nine graduate schools in Korea and the graduate piano pedagogy core course offerings in the U.S. to lay the foundation of setting standardized curriculum that could be used throughout any other institutions.For this research a survey was made based on Milliman(l992)'s investigating tool. According to the result of the survey, there have been gathered several inforn1ation and suggestions from the eight graduate schools among nine responded to this survey(89%). In operating the piano pedagogy majors in graduate schools, many gaps and disagreements are found in the following areas: the institution information, the admission procedure, the curriculum, the contents of the course works, the teaching observation and the internship experiences in the piano pedagogy major in their graduate schools. Furthermore the following results were gathered.First, the piano pedagogy graduate programs in Korea prefer to be established in the special graduate schools. Second, the operation of the piano pedagogy major programs varied in the following areas; the course work period, the qualification for tl1e applicants, the admission procedure, and the name of degree, etc. Third, the curriculum as well as the content of the course works varied among nine graduate schools in Korea. Especially, most piano pedagogy major programs in Korea are much interested in teaching the beginner instruction. On the contrary they are less interested in teaching the group piano instruction, the adult instruction, and the non- piano major college music students. Expecially, the teaching observation and the internship experience was revealed as the weakest part in the curriculum comparing to the universities in the U.S. Fourth, most of piano pedagogy graduate programs in Korea were operated by the part- time professors rather than the full- time professors.