Headline
I’m investigating how self-discipline can be taught in 1-to-1 popular music lessons so 11–13-year-olds become more independent learners.
Dateline
London, UK • PhD in progress – August 2026
My research proposal and ethics application have been approved, and I have now completed a substantial restructuring of the literature review. The review connects research on educational discipline, self-regulation, motivation, autonomy, early adolescence, and one-to-one popular music teaching.
This reading has clarified the position of the study. I am not using self-discipline to mean obedience, punishment, or simply forcing oneself to practise. I understand it as the learner’s developing capacity to organise and sustain purposeful learning over time by managing attention, effort, motivation, strategies, and routines, particularly when the teacher is not present.
The question I am now carrying into the empirical stage is how this capacity develops through the teacher–learner relationship. I am especially interested in how learning moves from being teacher-organised, to jointly organised, and eventually towards becoming increasingly learner-organised.
The next stage is to examine how teachers and learners understand and negotiate this transfer of responsibility in one-to-one popular music instrument lessons.
Key question
How can self-discipline be taught in one-to-one popular music instrument lessons to students aged 11 to 13 in the UK?
What I’m looking for
- how teachers and learners understand self-discipline;
- how attention, effort, motivation, strategies and routines are organised within lessons;
- how responsibility moves between teacher-organised, jointly organised and increasingly learner-organised learning;
- how lesson-based support becomes usable when learners practise without the teacher.
Why 11 to 13 matters
Early adolescence is a period of change in motivation, identity and self-regulation. Young people are becoming more capable of planning and reflecting, but these capacities remain sensitive to confidence, relationships and context. This makes ages 11 to 13 particularly relevant for examining how educational support may develop into greater responsibility for learning.
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