Supporting Student Autonomy in Finnish Music Schools: Enhancing Teachers’ Reflective Practice

Finnish music schools emphasize teachers’ professional independence and their ability to reflect on their practice to support students’ autonomy. While this approach offers many benefits, such as fostering independent learning and critical thinking, these advantages do not always translate into everyday classroom practice. Teachers may struggle to implement autonomy-supportive strategies consistently if they lack guidance, opportunities to reflect, or clear ways to translate theory into concrete teaching actions. As a result, both students’ and teachers’ individual needs and aspirations may be overlooked, limiting the creation of meaningful learning experiences.

This study explores ways to bridge this gap by supporting teachers’ reflective practice. It focuses on instrumental teachers from Finnish music schools who participate in small-group sessions designed to examine their teaching from four perspectives: their own experiences, their colleagues’ insights, their students’ perspectives, and theoretical research. Activities include written reflexivity exercises, interactive presentations by the researcher, and analysis of recorded lessons—all with a central focus on fostering students’ autonomy. To provide a complementary view of classroom experiences, teachers’ and students’ perceptions are collected through surveys and through interviews based on comics specifically developed for this research.

Preliminary findings suggest that teachers greatly value opportunities to share experiences and challenges with colleagues in discussion settings facilitated by a researcher. The study also highlights a notable mismatch between teachers’ and students’ perceptions of classroom interactions and autonomy support. Importantly, teachers often do not receive sufficient support for their own professional autonomy from institutional leadership, which can make it more difficult for them to provide autonomy support to their students. These findings underscore the need for structured reflection, dialogue, and guidance in music education. By cultivating reflexive practice, Finnish music schools can better support teachers’ professional growth and foster more meaningful learning experiences for students.

Keywords: autonomy support, instrumental teaching, reflexive practice, music education, teacher professional development, Finnish music schools.

Antti Snellman is a doctoral researcher at the Research Study Programme at the MuTri Doctoral School. He currently is working as a saxophone teacher with children and teenagers in Pop & Jazz Conservatory in Helsinki, Finland.